Annual report and accounts 2008

Supporting active citizenship

Pearson businesses are active citizens of any community we operate in, and keen partners of other organisations also wishing to engage in activity to promote education and literacy.

Across the company, we focus our charitable giving and activities on teacher development and improved education leadership, and in support of literacy and youth engagement projects around the world. We get involved not only through the products and services each of our businesses provide, but also through our charitable arm, the Pearson Foundation, which donated £7.7m cash to its various projects last year and significantly more in terms of the products and people that we can provide.

Many of our businesses work regularly with local partners, forging good links with the neighbourhood to achieve common goals. We also provide in-kind support such as books, advertising space and publishing expertise, as well as opportunities for staff to support their personal choice of charities through payroll giving schemes.

Pearson people have proved to be fiercely devoted to volunteering their time and skills for free, and we support their efforts wherever we can through matched fundraising and volunteer programmes that encourage our people to give their time to community initiatives during the working day.