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Our Commitments in Action

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Supporting Black Creators Through the Black Creatives Fund

U.S.
Commitments

Supporting Black Creators Through the Black Creatives Fund

U.S. (2021)

Together with We Need Diverse Books (WNDB), we launched the Black Creatives Fund in February 2021, an initiative with a mission of supporting emerging and established Black writers and illustrators. Penguin Random House is the inaugural sponsor of the fund for the 2021 year. 

The Black Creatives Fund will feature three initiatives in 2021, including a Revisions Workshop, a mentorship program, and a marketing symposia in partnership with the Brown Bookshelf. The Fund will launch with the six-month Revisions Workshop that will support unpublished Black writers with completed manuscripts and feature esteemed faculty including our authors Nic Stone and Jewell Parker Rhodes.

Twelve writers selected for the workshop will have the opportunity to receive guidance throughout the revision process and submit their manuscript to editors at Penguin Random House for possible publication. All 12 writers will be awarded stipends. Two finalists will receive larger grants, and publishing deals for top performers will be strongly considered. 

As longtime partners of WNDB, we are honored to collaborate with them to build this important new pipeline for discovering and elevating Black voices. The Black Creatives Fund is an integral piece of Amplify Black Stories, our year-long campaign to celebrate Black authors and introduce their stories to a diverse group of readers. For more information, please visit the Black Creatives Fund program page.

Worldwide

All In

REAFFIRMING OUR COMMITMENT


Voicing our continued support of the Paris Agreement, we signed the “All In” climate statement calling for America’s national mobilization on climate action and clean, equitable recovery.
U.K.

£60,000

DONATED


Penguin Random House U.K. donated £60,000 to the Book Trade Charity fundraiser to support booksellers in the U.K. and Ireland experiencing hardship due to COVID-19.
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The Queen Opens the 1,000th Library for Primaries

U.K.
Commitments
Commitments

Erroll Jones/National Literacy Trust

Commitments
Commitments

Erroll Jones/National Literacy Trust


The Queen Opens the 1,000th Library for Primaries

LONDON (2024)

Co-founded by the National Literacy Trust and Penguin Random House UK in 2021, the Libraries for Primaries campaign brings together charities, publishers, and businesses to address the lack of investment in primary school libraries—particularly in the UK’s most disadvantaged communities, where 1 in 4 primary schools don’t have a library.

In May, Her Majesty the Queen visited Moreland Primary School in London to open the 1000th library transformed through the campaign. The Queen told students, “You’re really lucky to have such a beautiful library, and I hope you’re going to enjoy reading all the books, because the more books you read, the more you’re going to learn.”

The campaign has now provided more than 382,000 primary-aged children across the UK with vital access to books. We aim to reach the remaining schools without a library in the UK by 2028.

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Colorful Stories for Nationwide Read Aloud Day

GERMANY
Commitments
Commitments

Colorful Stories for Nationwide Read Aloud Day

GERMANY (2024)

Together with readers throughout Germany, Penguin Random House Verlagsgruppe celebrated Read Aloud Day under the motto “Reading aloud creates a future.” Around 130 employees participated and held more than 230 reading sessions for over 5,000 children in kindergartens and elementary schools nationwide. Readers also brought nearly 2.000 books and audiobooks as gifts for the students. The campaign was supplemented by online video and livestream offerings. 

AUSTRALIA

$100,000

DONATED TO THE INDIGENOUS LITERACY FOUNDATION


For three years, Penguin Random House Australia partnered with the Indigenous Literacy Foundation to host 11 students in its offices in Sydney.
U.S.

24.4 Million

BOOKS DONATED


Penguin Random House U.S. has donated more than 23.2 million books since 2014, the company’s first full year as PRH.
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Partnership to Build Access to Education

INDIA
Commitments

Partnership to Build Access to Education

INDIA (2019)

In 2019, we partnered with Agrasar, a Gurugram-based NGO that works with disadvantaged communities in India, and the Community Library Project, a Delhi-based reading project for children that focuses on building community libraries in the country. Their Learning Program is a low-cost, volunteer-driven citizen initiative. They work with disadvantaged communities, especially children, providing them access to a range of books and encouraging reading. We sponsored a reading fluency program for approximately 150 children from local village areas, helping them enhance their speed and reading accuracy, thereby honing their creative imagination and reading skills. This enabled kids to be more confident readers, accelerate their reading rate, and enjoy longer and more complex books. The children’s progress exceeded expectations in both fluency and accuracy. Many readers became skilled and confident to read longer, more age-appropriate books.

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Increased Climate Neutral Book Production

GERMANY
Commitments

Increased Climate Neutral Book Production

GERMANY (2020)

In 2020, we are committed to stepping up our climate protection activities and annually increase our climate-neutral book production by 20 percent. Our Munich headquarters has been climate-neutral since 2019; we have reduced our emissions where possible and offset all unavoidable emissions. By the end of 2020, the entirety of book production at all our children’s publishers will be climate-neutral, and our other group publishers will be producing more and more titles in climate-neutral ways, helping us achieve our goal of a 20 percent annual increase in climate-neutral book production across our publishers.

Worldwide

Climate Neutral

BY 2030


Penguin Random House will be Climate Neutral by 2030.
U.S.

$3 Million

COLLEGE SCHOLARSHIPS AWARDED


Since 1993, Penguin Random House U.S. has been awarding high school students scholarships through its Creative Writing Awards.
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Celebrating World Book Day

SOUTH AFRICA
Commitments
Commitments

Commitments

Commitments
Commitments

Celebrating World Book Day

JOHANNESBURG (2019)

In honor of World Book Day, we celebrated with Orange Grove Primary School in Johannesburg as part of our ongoing campaign to assist young readers with access to books. Through discussions with the school’s volunteer librarian, we learned that each class typically lines up outside the library during breaks to borrow a book. We donated more than 600 books, as well as treats for everyone, and we committed to installing new bookshelves in their library. World Book Day, of course, wouldn’t be complete without authors, and we were joined by author/illustrator combo Elaine Macdonald and Vanessa Mearns (I See an Elephant) as well as author Refiloe Moahloli (How Many Ways Can You Say Hello?), who came to read to the students.


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Diversity, Equity & Inclusion


Environment & Sustainability


Free Expression & Joy of Reading


Our Awards


U.S. Creative Writing Awards


U.S. Library Grants


U.S. Teacher Awards for Literacy

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