New funding from Julia Rausing Trust announced

Name: William Joseph
Price range: $

11 July 2025

BookTrust is delighted to announce that the Julia Rausing Trust has pledged their backing to support delivery of programmes for disadvantaged families with children under five.

Over the next three years, the Julia Rausing Trust will support the BookStart Toddler and Pre-schooler programme, delivered by nurseries and children’s centres. Through this programme, early years practitioners engage families, talk to them about reading, and provide them with books and reading resources, breaking down barriers and creating shared reading habits.

Funding from Julia Rausing Trust will also support the delivery of BookTrust Storytime, a programme to help librarians to deliver fun, interactive group storytelling sessions that engage new, low-income families, as well as supporting the development of a new group storytelling programme for community settings used by low-income families.

Nearly 140,000 families in total will be reached by the funding.

We’re so grateful to the Julia Rausing Trust for their generous support of BookTrust. This funding will achieve a huge amount for families across England, Wales and Northern Ireland – supporting libraries and early years settings to help low-income families experience the life changing benefits of shared reading. Over the next three years we expect the Julia Rausing Trust funding to personally touch the lives of close to 140,000 early years families who are experiencing disadvantage.

Diana Gerald, BookTrust Co-CEO