2 October 2025
Emerald Publishing has donated more than £30,000 to BookTrust as their chosen company charity. Here’s how employees have got creative to raise money to get children reading.
Based in Leeds, Emerald Publishing produces mission-led social research to drive positive change. For the past two years, Emerald Publishing has named BookTrust as their “Charity of the Year”.
In that time, its employees have raised more than £30,000 for BookTrust by donating via their payroll, through company donations, and by organising creative fundraising events – from pumpkin carving, raffles, curry cook-offs and hosting its own festival dedicated to lambs.
Sharing the same values as BookTrust is a source of great pride to Emerald Publishing. The synergy between our two organisations has motivated Emerald to commit to fundraising for BookTrust for two consecutive years.
Emerald Publishing
“Like BookTrust, our mission and activities are driven by applied, impactful research, with significant activity in Yorkshire, as well as a passion for supporting children’s reading. We are delighted our imaginative fundraising activities have been helping BookTrust’s outreach as a charity.”
Emerald Publishing
BookTrust can’t thank everyone at Emerald Publishing enough for their generosity and continued support. Here are just some of the amazing things the team has been up to over the past two years:
In September 2024, Emerald employee Dan Molesworth, raised an incredible £3,500 for BookTrust by running the Coast 2 Coast Ultramarathon, a 300km route between St Bees (Cumbria) and Robin Hood’s Bay (North Yorkshire).
Dan says: “When I’d decided I wanted to run the ultramarathon, I was still struggling to push myself and really commit to the challenge. Then, one night, I was reading The Runaway Pea [by Kjartan Poskitt, illustrated by Alex Willmore] to my daughter. I realised it was a book from BookTrust, and everything just clicked.”
“Running for BookTrust meant I would be raising money for charity would be the final push over the line I needed. It meant supporting my work’s charity – giving back to an incredible employer – and a charity that really resonates with me.”
Dan adds: “Children’s books are absolutely magical. My children have been read, on average, three books a day for their entire lives. I love the closeness I have with them while reading to them, and watching their eyes drink in the whole page.
No parent or child should be denied the pleasure of reading together. That’s why I choose to raise money for BookTrust.
Dan Molesworth, Emerald employee
In March 2025, Emerald hosted its lively and totally original annual charity day, Lamb Fest.
Lamb Fest took place at an employee’s rare breed sheep farm: it involved meeting and learning about their award-winning Derbyshire Gritstones, spending time with lambs in the shed and out in the fields and taking a moment for some sociable tea and cake – all while raising thousands of pounds for BookTrust.
In June 2024 and 2025, Emerald Publishing took to the water to raise money for BookTrust by entering teams in Bradford’s Dragon Boat Festival.
In 2025, team “Row Hard or Row Home” was captained by Matt Atkinson, while “Paddling Publishers“ was led by Tom Bennett. They were joined by a number of Emerald employees, with BookTrust staff also there on the day to cheer them on from dry land. A great fun day was had by all the racers and their families and friends who came to support them and enjoy the festival activities.
From August 9th to September 30th 2025, Emerald employees took on the Tour de Emerald. The challenge was to cover a combined 28,000 km as a team, How they chose to do this was up to them, from a big bike challenge to the slightly more unusual walking with goats and getting their pet cats involved!
Employees were grouped into teams of eight to clock up their kilometres, and each paid a £10 donation to BookTrust to join in the fun.
To round off the Tour, in September 2025, Emerald’s team took on a “Big Walk” near their Leeds base in the Yorkshire Dales, as a sociable day out for teams to enjoy the beautiful countryside and boost wellbeing while raising money for BookTrust.
There are so many ways to support BookTrust at work, from taking on a challenge event to running an online cause marketing campaign.
Find out more about supporting BookTrust through your workplace