Introduction

Do you remember the last time you were asked to donate to a school fundraising campaign, maybe as a parent, family member or member of the local community? Maybe it was through baking a cake for the school fair, a Parent Teacher Association (PTA) charity quiz fundraiser, a nonschool uniform day, a sponsored activity or simply in response to a direct request for help? Indeed, barely a week seems to go by without a sponsor form for families to complete, requests for old toys or books, or some larger-scale fundraising campaign. These activities highlight how voluntary, community and philanthropic action is an important and multilayered part of everyday school life, with a combination of parents, grandparents, community members, teachers (and their friends and families!) and children coming together to raise funds and partake in charitable action to support a range of good causes.

Such activity enables schools to draw on a wide range of additional skills and resources, can strengthen a school community and can engage children in philanthropic activity from an early age. Unsurprisingly, voluntary action in education tends to be viewed as a positive and good thing, and is increasingly encouraged within policy and practice. Indeed, fundraising, volunteering and social action in primary schools are becoming progressively central to school activities, with many primary schools keenly seeking to strategically engage and grow this area of activity. Schools increasingly purposefully foster children's philanthropic citizenship in a bid to help cultivate prosocial habits now and in the future, as well as increasingly fundraising for their own needs (Body and Hogg, 2021).

Under this topic, I remember the first time I met the wonderful Amy Neugebauer, Executive Director and Founder of The Giving Square. We both featured on a podcast for the Urban Institute, funded by the Gates Foundation, entitled ‘Teaching Kids How to Give’ (Urban Institute, 2021). We followed up with a chat afterwards and I felt so inspired by the work they were doing – approaching philanthropic conversations with children from a social justice mentality – that we have stayed in touch ever since.