Gower Street is a small, UK based, family-run charitable trust, originally established in 2007.  Founders Sophie and Nick Marple, started their philanthropy journey as individuals; Nick had spend time in Ghana and had been sponsoring a child there, whereas Sophie acted on her doorstep to help with issues in London. Later they combined their efforts to create the Marple Charitable Trust which later became Gower Street. 

Initially, funding was focused on education across Sub-saharan Africa as well as in their local borough of Islington in the UK.  After a few years of funding across numerous countries, the organisation re-focused its work in Africa purely on Ghana, prioritising education for girls.  In 2017, the trust worked with Jake Hayman at Ten Years Time to revise its approach, which led to us focusing on system change work and funding smaller organisations doing transformatory work, and the following year, Gower Street began to develop a clearer focus on climate mitigation and adaptation.  

Where the money comes from and how it is invested

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Gower St funds come predominantly from Nick's 30-year career in the sports gambling industry. Until deployed as grants, monies are invested for positive social and environmental impact (well beyond ESG) as well as financial return. Our investments are split between EQ Investors eqinvestors.co.uk,  impact fund Snowball www.snowball.im and a bespoke impact portfolio with Investec www.investec.com