Christopher Nieper Foundation
Trustees report - Year ending March 2023
Our mission is to lead by example with practical and proven ideas to boost education, economic renewal and civic engagement in Britain’s left behind towns.
We are based in the Derbyshire town of Alfreton, a former coal mining area where my family’s textile company has been a major employer for over 60 years. The Christopher Nieper Education Trust runs alongside Christopher Nieper Foundation which is funded principally by donations from our family company David Nieper fashion where I am CEO and which was founded by my parents in 1961.
With the above mission I believe our company is an exemplar of corporate social responsibility which could be replicated to great effect elsewhere in Britain. Research has identified 205 forgotten English towns with similar socioeconomic profile to Alfreton with around 5 million inhabitants, many in the midlands & north.
Our philosophy is that home grown prosperity from within a community is a powerful private sector response to the challenges of left behind communities and more sustainable than taxpayer handouts. As such we are concentrating on employability skills and behaviours for schools and civic engagement by our not-for-profit local media, the Spirit of Alfreton.
Employability skills are often missing from schools, but they help young people go further and faster, earning more in their career with self-esteem and social mobility. Our 6 employability benchmarks, developed with the Christopher Nieper Education trust are already operational amongst the 800 secondary school pupils at David Nieper Academy ensuring they secure good jobs, apprenticeships or places at higher/further education and giving them a good chance of becoming Britain’s leaders and achievers of the future.
Our civic engagement is achieved by a ground-breaking non-for-profit hyper local media, the ‘Spirit of Alfreton’ a community website and exemplar for responsible use of the opportunity provided by social media. The Spirit of Alfreton has doubled its viewers since last year and currently reaches up to 50,000 views per month.
Christopher Nieper OBE Chair of Trustees
Christopher Nieper Foundation
Accounts for the Period 1st April 2022 - 31 March 2023
| Income Donations received from David Nieper Ltd Other Income Sources Total Income Expenditure Donations Research Purposes Charitable Consultancy costs Bank Interest Total Expenditure Net Income / Expenditure Opening Bank Balance Closing Bank Balance Increase / (Decrease) of funds in the year |
56,500 56,500 25,000 43,699 912 0 69,611 (13,111) 13,243 131 (13,111) Year to 31.03.23 |
25,000 25,000 25,000 2,085 2,438 0 29,522 (4,522) 17,765 13,243 (4,522) 7 months to 31.03.22 |
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Independent Examiners Report I report to the trustees on my examination of the accounts of the Christopher Nieper Foundation for the year ended 3110312023. As the charity trustees of the Trust, you are responsible for the preparation of the accounts in accordance with the requirements of the Charities Act 2011 1 the Act") I report in respect of my examination of the Trust's accounts carried out under section 145 of the 2011 Act and in carrying out my examination, I have followed the applicable Directions given by the Charity Commission under section 145{5)Ibl of thc Act. I have completed my examination. I confimi that no material matters have come to my attention in connection with the examination which gives me cause lo believe that in, any Imaterial respect". accounting records were not kept in accordance with section 130 of the Act or the accounts do not accord with the accoLJnting records I have no concerns and have come across no other matters in connection with the examination to which attention should be drawn in order lo enable a proper understanding ol the accounts to Lse reache(J. John Hollis FCCA 2110612023