Mark Lyttleton is the founder of Percent For Good, a UK registered charity that has innovated the giving sector through its development of the ‘Cause Portfolio’ concept. Percent For Good helps time-strapped professionals to support the organisations and causes they care about most via donations or Payroll Giving, ensuring maximum impact for every pound pledged.
Recognising that many benefactors feel connected to a particular cause and want to contribute to it with confidence, Mark Lyttleton developed a concept that enables donors to give regularly to causes they feel strongly about via a panel of charities that have been carefully selected for their impact on the ground. Percent For Good’s Cause Portfolio concept has been hailed as an innovation in the giving space that allows donations to be distributed across various impactful charities, widening the effect of each individual donation.
Charities included in Percent For Good’s Cause Portfolios share several key criteria in common, including healthy financial reserves, strong governance and a credible plan. Percent For Good backs causes with a compelling vision, demonstrating the potential to make a big impact in tackling some of today’s biggest challenges and leveraging local partnerships to deliver outstanding results, Percent For Good also focuses on charities with a limited income – i.e. those generating £500,000 to £10 million in donations annually – that may lack the fundraising capabilities and brand recognition of larger charities.
Percent For Good’s cause portfolios are Social Mobility, The Cost-of-Living Crisis, Education & Arts, Health & Wellbeing, and Nature & Environment.
The Percent For Good Education and Arts Cause Portfolio
Percent For Good’s Education and Arts Cause Portfolio comprises a carefully curated panel of charities selected for their impact on the ground. A worthy recipient of Percent For Good’s support is Bookmark, a reading charity that exists to change young people’s life stories by introducing them to the joy of reading. In England today, a staggering 1 in 4 children are completing primary school unable to read well. Recognising that this limits their potential in the classroom and beyond, Bookmark is committed to helping young people foster a lifelong love of reading, helping to change children’s trajectories by equipping them with the skills they need for a brighter future.
Art Against Knives is another charity incorporated in Percent For Good’s Social Mobility Cause Portfolio. Established with the goal of preventing youth violence through creativity, Art Against Knives has been working to address the root cause of youth violence for the past 15 years, partnering with children and communities and providing safe, creative spaces to help young people build their own hopeful future.
Percent For Good is proud to partner with Create, a leading UK children’s charity that aims to reduce isolation, enhance wellbeing and empower lives through creative arts. Recognising that unleashing creativity helps to develop confidence, build relationships and ignite imaginations, Create aims to ensure that all young people benefit from the power of creativity irrespective of their circumstances, age, behaviour, gender, disability or race.
Another charity Percent For Good is proud to support is RedSTART, an organisation that delivers innovative education programmes, transforming the opportunities and lives of some of the most disadvantaged young people in the UK. Currently supporting children across 45 UK schools, RedSTART has delivered somewhere in the region of 175,000 hours of financial education to more than 14,000 children to date.
Launched with the ethos that every child is entitled to a broad and balanced education to enable them to find their place and contribute to society, the Music in Secondary Schools Trust (MISST) is a Percent For Good-backed cause that aims to close the gap in outcomes, improving the lives of young people whatever their starting point and background. Working in schools serving disadvantaged communities, MISST provides young people with musical instruments and group tuition, engaging and helping them to achieve better-than-expected outcomes.
