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Giving children and young people equitable access to a sustainable future.

Our projects

Finding smart solutions to big problems, together.

About us

About us

We’re OVO Energy’s charity. Created in 2014, we reflect OVO’s belief that businesses should be better for everyone. 

Who we are

Our vision is for all children and young people to have equitable access to a sustainable future. And we do that by finding meaningful and impactful organisations and projects to fund. We want to make sure that:

  • All children and young people have the skills, knowledge, and confidence to take action on sustainability issues. And to help make their own communities more sustainable.
  • All children and young people live in a sustainable community.

It means we support lots of different organisations that cover issues like the climate crisis, youth poverty and homelessness, educational inequality and access to energy.

Being part of OVO, it’s only natural that we’ve got the same go-getting spirit! We invest in projects that are about real and genuine need, projects that show measurable and meaningful impact, and those that give a high return on investment. We’re ambitious, so we’re always looking for ways to work with out partners to make our projects bigger and better every year.

The OVO Charitable Foundation (“OVO Foundation”) is a registered charity – its charity registration number is 1155954.

Gaby Sethi

Head of OVO Foundation

Hannah Howard

Programme Innovation Manager
Who we are

The team

The OVO Foundation team is small in size but big in ambition! And we all do a little bit of everything! Whether that's researching social issues, or measuring the impact of our projects - our team is dedicated to making sure everything we do actually works.

Gaby Sethi

Head of OVO Foundation

Hannah Howard

Programme Innovation Manager

Samuel Kasumu

Trustee

Kate Weinberg

Trustee

Gina Cicerone

Trustee

Phil Kerry

Trustee

Raman Bhatia

Trustee
Who we are

Trustees

Our Board of Trustees meet four times a year. Their job is to help our team with strategy and important decision making. They're like a critical friend to OVO Foundation (encouraging but also honest). And they really help our work make an impact.

Samuel Kasumu

Trustee

Kate Weinberg

Trustee

Gina Cicerone

Trustee

Phil Kerry

Trustee

Raman Bhatia

Trustee

What we fund

We find and fund projects that help us achieve our vision that all children and young people have equitable access to a sustainable future

Climate Changers

Project Jua

Future Builders

When I Grow Up

We’re equipping children and young people with the skills, knowledge and confidence they need to be able to take action on the climate crisis. Despite the critical importance of climate change, we know that not all children and young people are taught this or understand how they can help. We want to change this.

Over a billion people have no access to electricity. This means that 15% of the world’s population have to get home before the sun goes down. Just imagine. No lights to learn by. No power to keep medicines cool in hospitals. The effect on education and health is huge. That’s why we’re bringing clean, renewable power to rural Kenya.

We want to tackle youth homelessness – and help young people get a roof over their heads, for good. How? Through innovative projects that combine education, apprenticeships, and affordable housing. All the key ingredients young people need to gain confidence, and ultimately, independence.

Education – like energy – is one of life’s essentials. Without it, individuals can’t access the best jobs, and communities can’t thrive. To level the playing field, we support young people from underprivileged backgrounds. Unlocking their potential and giving them access to the kind of opportunities many of us take for granted.   

Our funding strategy

We care deeply about finding simple solutions to big environmental and social problems, and will only invest in organisations and projects that align with our vision and funding principles.

To make sure we’re focusing in the right areas, we’ll always conduct research into our areas of interest to understand where the funding gaps might be, and to be clear on what problem we’re trying to solve.

Once we know what we’re looking for, we’ll ask organisations to submit proposals to submit proposals for ideas and projects, which will be assessed against specific criteria. When we’ve made a decision on who to fund, we then work collaboratively with our partners from start to finish.

Our approach to funding

Research

We’re innately curious, so our research is centred around understanding the problems we’re trying to solve, and identifying critical gaps in funding and service provision.

Find

We’ll find innovative organisations that have simple but effective ideas to help solve the problems we’ve identified, and the problems we’re looking to solve.

Pilot

Once we’re confident that the organisation and project has potential, we’ll provide funding to pilot it, or help build the evidence base – sharing the things we’ve learned with others in the same sector.

Scale

Scaling the projects we’ve developed or invested in is the really exciting bit. We only do this once our pilots have shown they’re effective and impactful. Then we’ll look for other funders to support the expansion.

Our funding principles

Measurable

It sounds so obvious, but we have to be able to measure our impact in a robust way. We’re interested in seeing tangible and meaningful outcomes from the projects we fund.

Scaleable

We’ll only get behind a project if it has the potential to be scaled effectively. This includes the viability and ease of scaling.

Minimum viable product

We always pilot before making further investment. Our partners are committed to improving projects over time to maximise impact and efficiency. We also make a conscious effort to share any learnings within the relevant sector.or.

Relevant

We only consider projects that fall within our key areas and help us achieve our overall vision of ensuring all children and young people have equitable access to a sustainable future.

Attributable

We fund projects that add real value. We can assess them by asking ourselves, ‘would this project exist or be scaled if it wasn’t for our investment?’

Radical

This means we do fewer things, better – and if it wasn’t for our intervention, it could have taken years for the same result to be achieved.

Simple

This one’s easy – simple ideas always win.

How we're funded

Every month, tens of thousands of OVO Energy members choose to support us by adding at least 25p to their monthly statement. OVO Energy then matches every single member donation – and covers our overheads – so 100% of donations go directly to the projects.

OVO Energy members

If you’re an OVO Energy member, we’d love you to donate to the Foundation. It’s super easy. Just head over to My OVO and tell us how much you’d like to give each month.
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Join us

At the moment, only OVO Energy members can support OVO Foundation. But why not head over to ovoenergy.com to see how we could save you money. And you’ll also find out why we’re passionate about being a business that’s better for everyone.
OVO Energy

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