Coming Together for City Giving Day
30th September 2026
City Giving Day brings organisations across the City together to support their chosen causes and make a meaningful difference. For the Insurance Industry Charitable Foundation UK (IICF), this year’s event was an opportunity to unite colleagues across the insurance industry and help more children discover the joy of reading.
As part of its 2026 Creating Better Futures Campaign, focused on closing the literacy gap, IICF invited its corporate partners to support the Children’s Book Project, a future grant recipient of The Lord Mayor’s Appeal.
Throughout September, employees took part in office book drives, collecting donations to help give children across the UK books of their own.
On 23 September, 20 volunteers from Angel Risk Management, Carbon, Lloyd’s and MedPro joined IICF at the Children’s Book Project’s warehouse in West London. Together, they sorted books by age group, created bunting for primary schools and packed donations into the charity’s bright yellow boxes. By the end of the day, the volunteers had prepared more than 2,500 books, ready to begin their next chapter in classrooms across the UK.
Wendy Wilder, Executive Director at IICF UK, explained the thinking behind the initiative: “We chose this to align to our 2026 Creating Better Futures Campaign, focused on closing the literacy gap. Studies show that reading for pleasure is the single biggest predictor of a child’s future life chances—more than family circumstances or parents’ education or income. Yet one in ten children aged 5–18 does not own a single book.”
The Children’s Book Project works to tackle this gap by ensuring children can choose and own books they love. Each donated book offers an opportunity to discover a new story, explore new ideas and develop a love of reading.
The initiative showed how City Giving Day can bring colleagues together around a shared purpose. From collecting books in the office to preparing donations at the warehouse, everyone involved played a part in helping those books reach children.
Thank you to every volunteer who contributed, and to Miraal Mayet for organising the day on behalf of IICF. Their collective effort is helping to create brighter starts for children, one book at a time.
Find out more about the Children’s Book Project and where you can donate books.
