Absolute Return for Kids (ARK) is an international children's charity based in the United Kingdom.
ARK is a registered charity under English law and is based in London. In 2009–10 it had a gross income of £14.5m.[1]
ARK was co-founded by a group of hedge fund financiers including Paul Marshall and Ian Wace of Marshall Wace and Arpad Busson of EIM Group, who is founding chairman of its board of trustees.[2]
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Founded in 2002 by a group of leaders in the alternative investment industry to improve the life chances of children, ARK aims to deliver high social returns on philanthropic investment.
ARK’s programmes are focused on clear strategic goals in the areas of Health (sub-Saharan Africa), Education (UK, US, India) and Child Protection (Eastern Europe). In 2012, ARK will begin pioneering public-private partnerships in education in Africa. In addition, it is developing an innovations incubator to support and mentor break-through ideas that help overcome the challenges children face in accessing education, health and protection.
ARK’s programmes are designed to be catalytic, sustainable and measurable. The charity applies robust development principles and sound business disciplines to all its programmes, including setting targets and emphasising close monitoring and evaluation to ensure high impact. ARK’s trustees and patrons cover central and administrative costs, ensuring that 100% of donations go directly to deliver ARK’s programmes for children.
Since 2002, more than 200,000 children have benefited from ARK programmes. The charity has raised £150m and has leveraged over £250m in additional government funding, and significantly more indirect, in-kind funding.
ARK believes that, while governments have the ultimate responsibility for public services such as health and education, it is vital to find effective delivery systems that work for poor children.
ARK aims to challenge conventional thinking and support alternative models that can improve quality outcomes for children. The results of this work will influence government approaches, enabling the scale and reach necessary to bring about lasting change.
ARK works in the areas of Education, Health and Child Protection.
ARK Schools runs ARK's UK education programme.[3]
It runs a network of eleven academies - nine in London, one in Portsmouth and one in Birmingham. ARK Schools was created in 2004 to work with the Department for Education and local authorities to create new schools offering exceptional opportunities to children in inner cities through the academies programme.
ARK Schools’ aim is to help close the achievement gap between children from disadvantaged and more affluent backgrounds. Its academies focus on raising attainment so that every pupil has a real choice of going on to higher education when they complete school.
With an average increase in the GCSE pass rate of 11 percentage points from 2010 - 2011 and an average annual improvement in GCSE attainment of 11 percentage points since opening, ARK is among the top performing academy groups for GCSE improvement.
ARK Schools will open Isaac Newton Academy in Ilford and Bolingbroke Academy in Wandsworth in 2012. It opened its first three standalone primary academies in London in 2011. It anticipates opening further primary and secondary academies in 2012 and will open a new secondary academy in Camberwell, London, in 2013.
ARK has also developed two teacher leadership programmes in the UK and one in the United States.
Future Leaders
Future Leaders delivers a three year leadership development programme for participants that have the talent to accelerate to headship in four years and the commitment to improve the life chances of pupils in disadvantaged areas, where it is often more difficult to attract staff.
The focus on accelerated development drives increasing numbers of high quality headteachers and senior leaders into challenging schools at a significantly faster rate than normal: participants reach headship in 2–6 years of starting the programme, compared to 10–15 years through the normal route. Future Leaders was developed in partnership with the National College for School Leadership (now National College) and the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust who continue to support the programme.
Teaching Leaders
Teaching Leaders is a high impact programme, designed to raise levels of pupil achievement in challenging schools through outstanding middle leadership. The programme develops highly motivated middle leaders: heads of departments, heads of years and other whole-school roles. The programme is also supported by The National College and Teach First.
In India, ARK is developing scalable models to encourage the take-up of free school places and improve the teaching of English. In Africa, ARK is exploring a number of new investments in public-private partnerships and other education initiatives in the hope of generating improvement in the education of poor children across southern Africa.
Leading Educators (USA)
Building on the success of ARK’s Teaching Leaders programme in the UK, Leading Educators is launching a national middle leadership programme for America’s disadvantaged schools. The Leading Educators Fellowship will offer a rigorous two-year participant experience to build the skills of mid-level teacher-leaders in three key areas: school culture; leadership and management and learning and teaching. In December 2010, the programme was awarded a $1.37m grant from NewSchools Venture Fund, with funds from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The programme will serve disadvantaged public schools across five US regions.
ARK focuses on initiatives that are catalytic, sustainable and measurable, and that demonstrate tangible outcomes for children. ARK’s contribution to the development of high quality and sustainable AIDS treatment programmes in South Africa and Mozambique has transformed the life chances of more than 130,000 children by keeping their mothers and caregivers alive. Aligned to ARK’s desire for sustainability, it has handed over its South Africa programme to a local NGO, Kheth'Impilo, accessing over $17m in funding from the US President's Emergency Fund for AIDS (PEPFAR). ARK is now working in partnership with the Clinton Foundation in Mozambique to test innovative new point of care technologies that will speed up diagnosis and treatment for HIV cases.
ARK’s programmes in Romania – in partnership with Hope and Homes for Children – and Bulgaria, have helped to move abandoned children to move out of state-run institutions into family environments and eventually to lead independent lives. ARK has effected changes in child welfare legislation at a national level and works with governments to deinstitutionalise and develop high quality, sustainable, family based services such as adoption and foster care. ARK closes institutions, prevents abandonment and provides alternative care, including adoption, fostering or small group homes for those children who cannot be reunited with their families.
In order to deliver its programmes, ARK works closely with governments, funding agencies, foundations, as well as local and international NGOs.
ARK has worked with organisations such as The Clinton Foundation; PEPFAR; UNICEF; The Foundation of Rania al Abdullah, Queen of Jordan; Hope and Homes for Children; The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; the Global Fund, the Centre for Infectious Disease Research in Zambia (CIDRZ) and Kheth’Impilo in South Africa.
In addition to its Chairman, Ian Wace, and Founding Chairman, Arpad Busson, ARK’s Global Board of Trustees comprises: Paul Dunning, Lord Fink, Kevin Gundle, Paul Marshall, Jennifer Moses, Michael Platt, Blaine Tomlinson and Anthony Williams.
Ian Wace was appointed Chairman of ARK in October 2010, succeeding Lord Fink who remains a Trustee and a member of the Global Board.
ARK’s Founding Chairman, Arpad Busson, is a member of the Global Board and is Chairman of Absolute Return for Kids, US, Inc.