James Percy Foundation

Who we are

Where you are born and grow up has a huge influence throughout your life. A child born in Switzerland will have a different set of opportunities than a child born in Malawi. Two babies with exactly the same traits will have very different lives depending on the environment in which they grow up.

We believe that the world would be fairer if everyone had the same chance of living the life that they would like to lead. Our ultimate goal is to reduce the “opportunity gap” by providing more opportunities to those born in disadvantaged  environments.

The first years of human life are dedicated to learning and to acquiring the necessary skills in order to be productive and contribute to society. As people grow older they become financially independent and more able to make their own decisions as to how they should continue their journey through life with the opportunities available to them. 

As an independent grant-maker, we focus our grant-making on the first years of our beneficiaries’ lives, a period during which an individual has less influence on their future and during which it is possible to have a long-term positive impact on a person’s life.