For us, ‘commitment’ comes first. You’ve got to decide you want to get more involved - that you’re going to make a commitment of time as well as money; a commitment to going on a journey with a project or charity. Once you do that, the learning comes. My learning, and our team’s learning, is refined on a daily and weekly basis in terms of how we operate, who we work with and what we do - it’s a continual, evolving process.Sir Trevor Pears CMG
Our philosophy is...
We believe that thoughtful and effective philanthropy is about creating spaces
Space for services
The Pears Pavilion at Coram provides a state-of-the-art space for the charity’s adoption support and creative therapies services.
Space to breathe
We give core funding whenever appropriate.
Space to work
We provide hot desks and meeting space for our partners at the Pears Hub.
Space to reflect
We offer a professional development programme for our UK grantees.
Space to innovate
The Pears #iWill Fund has supported over 30 NHS trusts to pilot and embed volunteering opportunities for young people.
Space to explore
The UCL Centre for Holocaust Education has conducted groundbreaking research studies that underpin its teacher training programmes.
Space for difficult conversations
The Linking Network helps schools and teachers to engage with and explore issues of identity and diversity.
Space to learn
The Pears Scholarship Initiative provides skills and training to equip the next generation of public health leaders in Africa.
Relational Funding
Our grant managers work closely with our grantees to understand the contexts in which they work and their needs and challenges. We believe strongly in long-term, core funding which enables us to build relationships that develop over time and respond to changes in circumstances.
Many of the organisations with which we work have received support for five, or even ten years.
You can read more about our approach to relationships and learning here.
Beyond grants
We are committed to learning from our individual grants and grant programmes and to supporting our partners to reflect on their work, learn and develop. In addition to financial support and the grant manager relationship, we offer a professional development programme for all our Pears partners, working closely with our partners to identify the issues they would like to explore.
The programme is a mixture of reflective workshops that focus on skills for teamwork, problem-solving and leadership and ‘lunch and learns’ with guest speakers. We also offer tailored training or consultancy support to individual organisations.
