Shaping Our Future

Shaping Our Future Campaign Update

Ellie Sleeman, Director of Development and Communications reports on progress.

The Shaping Our Future campaign was launched in May 2019 with an ambitious £20m fundraising target. As we enter the last 18 months of the appeal (it is due to finish in summer 2023), we are pleased to update the Old Pauline community on its progress. At this stage of the campaign, we have raised £15.7m, with the vast majority towards our bursaries and partnerships work.

Our bursary provision is expanding alongside our funding capability; we now have 147 boys on bursaries, and we are making great strides towards fulfilling the target of funding 153 bursary pupils by 2023. In total, we have raised £12.5m towards our bursary appeal. The bursary programme aims to offer an outstanding education to those pupils who have the potential to thrive at St Paul’s but not the financial means to attend.

We are also proud of the pioneering work the partnerships programme has continued to develop over the last few years at the school and pleased to say its projects are flourishing. For example, the Colet Mentoring app, the first of its kind and developed in collaboration with Old Paulines Phil and Dom Kwok, allows peer on peer mentoring. This would not have been possible without funding from the Shaping Our Future campaign. We are close to finalising plans for a multi-purpose sports pavilion on the east side of the School site, which will greatly benefit the pupils and our partner schools.

One of the most important aims of the appeal is the scale of participation. We hoped that almost everyone in the Pauline community would feel able to give at a level right for them; we are pleased that we have 47% of current parents and approaching 7% of OPs giving, which we hope will continue to grow as we enter the final stages of the campaign. The collaboration with the OPC around their 150th Anniversary Campaign will make a big difference in this ambition. The total cash received from our two most prominent constituent groups is 46% from current parents and 42% from Old Paulines; we are also delighted to report that we have 2,100 donors supporting the appeal.

We are so grateful for all that has been achieved in these challenging times, made possible by the support of our community, to whom we owe a huge debt of gratitude. If you would like any further information about the Shaping Our Future campaign, please contact Director of Development and Engagement Ellie Sleeman (ems@stpaulsschool.org.uk).

The chart below shows the split of the 2,100 donors of the £15.7m raised so far for Shaping Our Future.

8% 4%

42% 46%

Current parents Paulines & Old Paulines Former parents Trusts & other “St Paul’s School is where students from all backgrounds, regardless of financial circumstances, are always welcome (assuming they fit the academic prerequisites). Paulines go into an extremely wide variety of fields, and I think I’m an example of that. From the view of a donor, the most rewarding thing they can receive is to follow the progress of pupils that have grown through the system and benefitted from the bursary programme. I can’t think of a place better than St Paul’s to produce individuals of which a group of donors can collectively be proud.”

Noah Zhou (2014-19) Royal Academy of Music, (Sir Elton John Scholar)