For many years, we have been committed to promoting reading with Stiftung Lesen, a nonprofit organization dedicated to making reading a part of every child’s life. Since 1997, every year on World Book Day, together with Stiftung Lesen, we have published a new title in the book series “Ich schenk dir eine Geschichte” (I Give You a Story) as part of a nationwide book voucher campaign to promote reading. More than 3,500 bookstores regularly take part in the campaign and give this special book as a gift to over one million schoolchildren, making it the largest reading promotion campaign in Germany. To learn more, click here.
Commitments: Free Expression & Joy of Reading
Leading Support in Industry for PEN America
We are the publishing industry’s leading supporter of PEN America, the U.S. chapter of the world’s leading international literary–human rights organization. PEN’s mission is to defend free expression, elevate marginalized voices, and foster dialogue across boundaries, a mission that mirrors our own core values. As a global community of writers, editors, designers, and free thinkers, we are passionate about upholding and protecting our right to free expression, and, through our partnership with PEN, we celebrate the courage of individuals who constructively challenge censorship and taboo, no matter the odds.
Nurturing Skills to Achieve Aspirations
DK is passionate about helping young people to gain the skills they need to shape and achieve their aspirations. Working with a variety of organizations in the UK, including the National Literacy Trust, the Young Academies Group, and Speakers for Schools, DK has held interactive workshops to give school children aged between 5 and 18 years old who come from a variety of backgrounds an insight into a career in publishing and the joy of working with books. These workshops include tours around the DK office in London, talks by colleagues to students about how they got into publishing and what their jobs entail, and setting tasks whereby the children actively participate in the making of a book, giving them a fuller understanding of the publishing process.
Annual Employee Walk
Every year, hundreds of our colleagues volunteer their time and take to the streets of London or the countryside in Essex and Grantham for The Walk, a Penguin Random House tradition, to help raise money and awareness for different charities and nonprofit organizations. In 2019, 550 colleagues collectively walked 4,700 miles and raised more than £12,300 for the National Literacy Trust. To learn more about our 2019 event, click here.
Tourism Education and Understanding
The theme for World Tourism Day 2019 was “Tourism and Jobs: A Better Future for All,” and the United Nations held the event in New Delhi, India. The purpose of this day is to raise awareness on the role of tourism within the international community and to demonstrate how it affects social, cultural, political and economic values worldwide, and DK hosted an event focused on educating children on the importance of tourism.
In association with the National Rail Museum in New Delhi, DK India celebrated World Tourism Day at the museum’s indoor gallery. More than 60 schoolchildren were invited to test their geography skills through a fun quiz and pairing up activity, followed by a contest to draw a view through a train window. A range of DK books was also on display for the children to look at, covering topics such as exploration and local wildlife. As we believe in the power of discovery, it was an honor to help children explore ideas and discover new places.
A Special Reading Aloud Day
Every November in Germany, millions of people celebrate their love for reading and books by gathering in libraries, schools, and public institutions on Reading Aloud Day. For the 15th anniversary of Reading Aloud Day in 2019, DK welcomed 20 schoolchildren and their teachers into our Munich office, showing them the importance of nonfiction books and publishing. The students, aged 6 to 10 years old, took part in a book quiz, reading activities, and a special tour of the office with an exclusive visit to the Editorial department, where they learned all about how to create a book. The children were also able to vote on their favorite titles and book covers, and DK awarded each student a surprise certificate to mark their day of achievements. Participating in Reading Aloud Day is an important moment in DK Germany’s calendar, as it aligns with our ambition to develop a lifelong love of reading in children.
Empowering New Yorkers to Give Back
In celebration of our five-year anniversary as Penguin Random House and to ensure that our authors’ voices carry beyond the page and into our communities, we partnered with the MTA Metro-North Railroad and Grand Central Terminal to create a charitable-giving opportunity through an in-transit reading experience. We created an app that allowed commuters and visitors to download free Penguin Random House book excerpts from inside Grand Central Terminal, on station platforms, and in the Park Avenue Tunnel. A special 5-minute Reads section on the app triggered a donation; for every five minutes read in this section, we donated a book to our charitable partner, Save the Children, up to 25,000 books. The books were distributed through community events, family activities, and holiday celebrations at parks, schools, and libraries. This charitable component empowered New Yorkers to give back to those in need while engaging in a fun, worthwhile activity To learn more about the campaign, click here.
Raising Donations with the Penguin Hotline
An annual event since 2014, the Penguin Hotline runs during the holiday season and is staffed by employee volunteers. Hundreds of employees are on call to help recommend books to anyone trying to find the right title for someone on their holiday list, and the Hotline is “publisher-agnostic,” meaning recommendations can come from various publishing houses. In 2019, the Penguin Hotline also featured various best-selling Penguin Random House authors including Celeste Ng, Jasmine Guillory, and Emma Straub, who personally answered requests. The Hotline also partnered with LitWorld, a nonprofit that addresses global literacy and human rights; we donated $2 for every reader request, up to $10,000. We donated to the Maryland Zoo in Baltimore, in support of the zoo’s conservation efforts to protect African penguin habitats. To learn more about Penguin Hotline, click here.
Employee Book Donations for Our Anniversary
Our fifth anniversary as Penguin Random House in July 2018 provided an unprecedented opportunity to unite around the globe to get more books into the hands of more readers. Through a special anniversary global book donation, we offered every Penguin Random House employee worldwide a selection of free books to donate to any philanthropic or nonprofit organization of their choice. Thousands of our employees joined the campaign, and we were able to provide more than 72,000 books to children and adults in need. Recipient organizations included schools, libraries, hospitals, rural development NGOs, and organizations that serve homeless and incarcerated individuals.
Nonpartisan Campaign to Encourage Voting
Ahead of the November 2020 elections, together with PEN America, Out of Print, and When We All Vote, we launched Book the Vote, a nonpartisan initiative to protect free speech and ensure every voter’s right to participate in elections. Building upon an already successful program from the 2018 midterm elections, Book the Vote unites the organizations’ distinct initiatives under one centralized website, bookthevote.com. By creating and disseminating book and author content, voter registration information, and resources to increase understanding of civic topics, Book the Vote empowers people to participate in our democracy and express their voices through voting.
As part of the initiative, we enlisted more than 20 of our bestselling authors, including Deepak Chopra, Jeffrey Toobin, and Kyle Creek, to make sense of America’s history and politics through engaging and informative videos based on their books. “How America Works” will cover four topics: The Right to Vote, Voting for the President, the Supreme Court, and the Electoral College.
To learn more about the campaign, click here.