Five recovered Kids Company pages chart 2014 from sporting challenges and art auctions to a national child-protection campaign and a 4,000-person Christmas operation. The most useful history lies in what happened after the announcements.
The year in one answer: Damien Hirst’s Mickey painting, previewed in January, sold for £902,500 for Kids Company. The June See the Child. Change the System campaign drew nearly 17,500 signatures by July and more than 28,000 by the following year, but the promised £1.5m Independent Children’s Task Force never secured funding, hired staff or became operational. At Christmas, contemporary reporting corroborated the newsletter’s 4,000 meals, 12,000 emergency parcels and 300-plus volunteers. This record follows each claim to the strongest surviving result instead of stopping at the launch.
The source set comprises newsletters posted on 21 January, 18 July, 22 August and 21 November 2014, plus the separate campaign launch published on 23 June. Together they show three different kinds of work: raising money, mobilising practical help and trying to influence national policy. Those activities produced very different outcomes, so they should not be measured with one vague idea of “impact”.
The five surviving 2014 pages at a glance
| Date | Page | Lead story | What later evidence adds |
|---|---|---|---|
| 21 January | January e-newsletter | Christmas thanks, challenge calendar, art and music events, Damien Hirst’s Mickey | Christie’s records a £902,500 sale for Kids Company |
| 23 June | See the Child. Change the System | Petition and proposed expert task force chaired by Sir Keir Starmer | 28,000+ signatures, but no £1.5m funding, staff or operational task force |
| 18 July | July e-newsletter | Nearly 17,500 petition signatures; volunteer push; festivals and challenge events | Confirms early reach, not delivery of the proposed service model |
| 22 August | August e-newsletter | Safe Summer appeal, stated emergency shelter for 100+, Warhol/Bugaboo auctions | Campaign and auction can be corroborated; no shelter outcome total located |
| 21 November | November e-newsletter | Christmas for 4,000 plus 12,000 community parcels; multiple retail partners | Christmas-day reporting corroborates meals, parcels and volunteer scale |
The original January, campaign launch, July, August and November pages remain available as archived evidence. Their email addresses, entry fees, petition texts, booking links and shopping instructions are expired.
January: challenges, art and a painting that beat its estimate
The January issue began by thanking the volunteers and supporters behind the previous Christmas. It did not publish a reconciled attendance or cost. Instead, it immediately converted New Year energy into a calendar of fundraising activity.
Pico Aneto and Coast to Coast: ambitious events with moving dates
Pico Aneto—the highest peak in the Pyrenees at 3,404 metres—was advertised for 23–25 May. The copy described a two-day ascent using ice axes, crampons and ropes, with a torchlit final approach. A Coast to Coast cycle was set for 18–20 July: more than 140 miles from Whitehaven to Sunderland, with a £150 registration fee and £800 minimum sponsorship.
The dates matter because later newsletters moved Pico Aneto to 26–28 September. The November 2013 issue had already advertised the May window; January repeated it; July and August used September. That sequence most likely records a rescheduled event, not two completed climbs. No result or participant total survives, so this page preserves the changing plan rather than pretending the May event happened.
ArtGemini, Heart of Gold and Silverstone
The newsletter advertised 56 shortlisted ArtGemini works at Rebecca Hossack Gallery from 23 January to 7 February, with 20% of sales pledged to Kids Company. It also promoted a Jamie Cullum “Heart of Gold” evening at Porchester Hall on 6 March and a Silverstone Half Marathon on 2 March. Contemporary event photography independently places Jamie Cullum and Sophie Dahl at the 6 March Kids Company fundraiser, but no final amount for the evening was located.
These entries show the charity’s familiar ladder of involvement: view or buy art, purchase a premium event ticket, or enter a mass run and seek sponsors. A current result page should not be inferred from a surviving photograph or event listing; those sources verify that something took place, not its net return.
Damien Hirst’s Mickey: £902,500 for Kids Company
The final January item announced that Damien Hirst’s version of Mickey Mouse would be auctioned for Kids Company. Here a complete result survives.
Christie’s lot record identifies the 2012 household-gloss painting, donated by Hirst, and states that all proceeds would benefit Kids Company. The work reduced Mickey to twelve coloured circles in the visual language of Hirst’s spot paintings. A Christie’s sale release records the 13 February 2014 result: £902,500, against an estimate of £300,000–£500,000.
That result belongs beside the newsletter announcement because it answers the question the original page leaves open. It also sits in a longer art-fundraising lineage: the 2012 newsletter record follows Coldplay’s Mylo Xyloto exhibition to its reported £630,000-plus result, while the Print Happiness record documents a different model centred on young people’s own work.
See the Child. Change the System: launch, signatures and the missing task force
On 23 June, Kids Company published a stand-alone launch for See the Child. Change the System. It argued that vulnerable children were being failed by child-protection and mental-health services, invited the public to sign by text or website, and proposed an Independent Children’s Task Force chaired by Sir Keir Starmer, then the former Director of Public Prosecutions.
The public call was simple, but the mechanism behind it was ambitious: assemble experts, redesign a comprehensive protection and wellbeing model, test it in a virtual local authority and then seek pilots in two real authorities. To understand the campaign properly, four separate questions must be answered.
1. What evidence sat behind the launch?
The campaign followed the Centre for Social Justice report Enough is Enough. A surviving copy of the report examined access to child-protection and mental-health services and recommended a Royal Commission. Kids Company’s later written evidence to Parliament said the work involved more than 70 interviews and detailed analysis of 20 children and young people supported by the charity.
Those 20 cases can illuminate barriers and lived experience; they are not a nationally representative prevalence study. The campaign’s much larger headline—that an estimated 1.5 million children experienced neglect and abuse—appeared in launch coverage and should remain identified as the campaign’s estimate, not a figure derived from the 20 case studies.
2. How was the public campaign built?
The Drum reported that AMV BBDO created a 74-second film supported by cinema, online, radio, social, outdoor and press activity, with Fishburn handling PR. A Guardian article on 24 June placed the launch in the debate about waits and gaps in children’s mental-health care.
The recovered July newsletter says the petition had reached nearly 17,500 signatures within the first month. It asked for at least 100 volunteers across the UK to distribute flyers and sustain momentum. That is credible evidence of rapid attention. It is not evidence that government adopted the proposed model.
3. Who was supposed to do the work?
Kids Company’s parliamentary evidence later listed Sir Keir Starmer as chair and named a proposed group including Lisa Harker, Maggie Atkinson, Javed Khan, Rowan Williams, Peter Fonagy and Lord Adebowale. The roster brought child protection, charities, mental health, academia and public leadership into one frame.
An announced advisory group is not the same thing as a staffed delivery body. That distinction becomes decisive when the record is followed into 2015.
4. What actually happened?
On 28 July 2015, Civil Society reported that the task force had not secured the estimated £1.5 million needed for its first 18 months. No staff had been recruited, the proposed work had not begun and former partners said they were no longer involved. An NSPCC spokesperson said the task force “never materialised”. The petition had exceeded 28,000 signatures, but no clear recipient or action arising from it was identified.
The fair conclusion is neither “the campaign achieved nothing” nor “the task force was established”. It created substantial public attention and assembled a policy proposition; it did not build the funded institution promised at launch. Signature growth measures participation. It does not substitute for implementation.
July: early campaign momentum and a wider partnership bulletin
The July issue was the campaign’s first progress report. Alongside the nearly 17,500 signatures and volunteer request, it advertised childcare at two summer festivals, a London-to-Brighton cycle and the rescheduled Pico Aneto challenge.
Festival childcare as fundraising
Mortimer Nannies planned an on-site crèche and babysitting service at Wilderness Festival in Oxfordshire and Somersault in Devon from 7 to 10 August, with proceeds pledged to Kids Company. This reused professional capability rather than inventing a charity-branded product: the company supplied the work it already knew how to do, in a place where families needed it.
The recovered newsletter establishes the arrangement and dates. It does not give child numbers, takings or the final amount transferred. That makes this an independently plausible but archive-supported campaign, not a quantified result.
London to Brighton and the corrected Pico Aneto window
A London-to-Brighton cycle was promoted for 7 September with a £35 registration fee and £100 suggested sponsorship. Pico Aneto now appeared on 26–28 September, with a £250 registration fee and £975 suggested sponsorship excluding Gift Aid. August repeated the same September dates.
The repetition provides stronger evidence of the revised schedule than the January/November 2013 May date. It still does not prove completion. The right historical record shows the revision and leaves the outcome open.
Press and arts activity
The issue collected coverage of See the Child, a Chris Bracey/Vauxhall auction, a Liverpool performance partnership, a Bristol exhibition and a Christopher Bonas photography sale. This is a useful reminder that newsletters did double duty: fundraising circular and media digest. Some links are now dead, and the current article does not send readers through unsafe or irrelevant redirects merely to reproduce the old list.
August: Safe Summer, emergency shelter and three Warhol pushchairs
The August issue shifted from a policy campaign to the school-holiday gap. In Kids Company’s account, the loss of school meals, structure and daytime safety increased exposure to hunger, unstable homes and gang recruitment. A young person’s first-person description framed summer not as freedom but as the approach of chaos.
What does “support over 100 with emergency shelter” establish?
The newsletter said Kids Company would support more than 100 young people with emergency shelter over the summer and increase high-risk outreach. That is a planning statement from the organisation, not a housing-statistics return. The page does not say how “support” was defined, how many nights were funded, what accommodation types were used or how many unique young people ultimately received shelter.
The need described should not be diluted, but neither should a planned capacity become a completed outcome. The strongest safe conclusion is that emergency accommodation was a stated component of the 2014 Safe Summer appeal, with a target population above 100.
Andy Warhol + Bugaboo: three Blondie-edition Cameleon³ pushchairs
The issue announced three exclusive Andy Warhol + Bugaboo Cameleon³ “Blondie” pushchairs, each auctioned during a different week in August, with 100% of the realised price pledged to Kids Company. Contemporary design coverage also records the three weekly auctions for Kids Company.
The object was specific and visually striking: Warhol’s 1980 Debbie Harry portrait on the canopy, set against the pushchair’s dark chassis. That made the campaign easy to communicate. Neither the recovered issue nor a stable result source located for this reconstruction publishes the three hammer prices, so “100% pledged” must not become “£X raised”.
Pico Aneto and Arctic Biathlon
August repeated Pico Aneto for September and added a second Arctic Biathlon weekend, planned for 12–15 December. Teams were to use sleds and Nordic skis in temperatures described as low as −30°C. Registration was £300 with £1,200 suggested sponsorship, excluding flights, insurance and equipment.
The cost disclosure is useful: registration and sponsorship were not the participant’s full financial commitment. It is also historical. No one should use the former email or assume a modern operator, insurance standard or itinerary from 2014 details.
November: a 4,000-person Christmas and a web of small contributions
The November issue set out the year’s largest direct-support operation: a party for more than 4,000 children, young people and family members, a further 12,000 people in the community receiving food and gift parcels, and more than 300 volunteers involved in the main event. Unlike many newsletter forecasts, these numbers have strong contemporary follow-up.
On Christmas Day, the Guardian reported from the Oval. It described 4,000 lunches, 2,100 family bags, emergency food parcels for a further 12,000 people, more than 2,000 pre-Christmas gift-wrapping volunteers and more than 320 volunteers across Christmas Day and Boxing Day. It also recorded concrete quantities—from 202kg of roast potatoes and 322kg of basmati rice to 1,500 mince pies.
This does not turn every newsletter phrase into an audited metric, but it corroborates the event’s scale and logistics far better than the announcement alone.
Ella’s Kitchen and Banana Republic: fixed amounts per purchase
Ella’s Kitchen offered a limited-edition “Jingle Belly Christmas Dinner” pouch for babies aged 7 months and over, with at least 30p from each sale pledged to Kids Company. Contemporary coverage matches the product, 30p mechanic and charity connection, while a December campaign-industry report confirms the related “Give a Sprout” activity for Kids Company.
Banana Republic used a different fixed amount: £1 for every item purchased in UK stores from Black Friday, 28 November, through Sunday 30 November. The newsletter is the surviving evidence for that exact pledge; no final item count or transfer total was located.
Radley, Liberty, Hotel Café Royal and the Ivy Market Grill
Four more mechanics appeared together:
- Radley: customers at 21 stores and 14 outlets were asked to add £1 at the till;
- Liberty: 50% of proceeds from child-designed Christmas cards, plus optional £1 additions online or in store;
- Hotel Café Royal: £1 added to restaurant/bar bills and £40 from each festive family overnight package;
- Ivy Market Grill: diners bringing a new gift for Kids Company received an ice cream.
Each asked for a different behaviour: opt in at checkout, buy a designated product, accept a bill contribution, book a package or donate an object. None should be described as “the retailer donated all Christmas sales”. The wording is far more specific.
Glamour/Gap, Santa Run, London Mothers and Whole Foods
A £10 “Wonder Women” event at Gap’s Oxford Street store was scheduled for 2 December, with ticket proceeds for Kids Company. The 7 December Victoria Park Santa Run expected more than 2,000 entrants across 5 km and 10 km routes. A London Mothers event in Fulham planned a raffle, while all seven London Whole Foods stores ran a till drive through Christmas Eve.
These were live 2014 offers. Their booking pages, emails and deadlines are not current. The useful legacy is the range of contribution models and the way they converged on one time-limited logistical operation.
Six Christmas offers, six different ways money or goods could move
A list of partner names conceals the most useful comparison in the November issue: supporters were not being asked to make the same kind of contribution. Each offer used a different trigger, and each would need different records before its final value could be calculated.
| Partner or offer | Contribution trigger | What could be calculated | What remains unknown |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ella’s Kitchen | At least 30p from each limited-edition pouch sold | Eligible units sold × at least £0.30 | Eligible unit count and whether any amount above 30p applied |
| Banana Republic | £1 for every UK-store item bought over three days | Eligible items sold × £1 | Item count, returns treatment and final transfer |
| Radley | Customer opted to add £1 at participating tills | Number of accepted till prompts × £1 | How many customers opted in and whether every store reported |
| Liberty | 50% of proceeds from cards, plus optional £1 additions | Card proceeds under the campaign definition × 50%, plus accepted £1 gifts | Meaning of “proceeds”, card volume and opt-in count |
| Hotel Café Royal | £1 on food-and-drink bills and £40 per festive family package | Eligible bills × £1, plus eligible packages × £40 | Whether bill additions were automatic or removable, and both transaction counts |
| Ivy Market Grill | A customer brought a new gift and received an ice cream | Number and potentially the assessed value of usable donated gifts | Gift count, retail value, suitability and distribution |
The difference between a product levy and a checkout opt-in matters. A fixed amount per eligible sale can be reconciled against transaction data. A till prompt records only customers who accept. A percentage of “proceeds” cannot be calculated until the campaign defines whether that means revenue, profit or another base. An in-kind gift has no cash transfer at all, but may still meet a practical need.
Nor can the six lines be added from the newsletter alone. The formulas are known, but their denominators are not. Reporting a combined total would require the partners’ eligible sales, opt-ins, package bookings and donated-gift records, followed by evidence of what was actually transferred or delivered. No such combined settlement was located.
The Oval follow-up answers a different question. It shows the operation the partnerships were promoted alongside: 4,000 lunches, 2,100 family bags, 12,000 emergency parcels, more than 320 event volunteers and more than 2,000 people helping wrap presents beforehand. Those figures corroborate the scale of Christmas delivery. They do not reveal which pouch, card, till gift or hotel booking paid for which meal or parcel.
There is also no sound conversion from volunteer numbers to a cash value. The 2,000-plus wrappers and 320-plus Christmas Day and Boxing Day volunteers describe participation at different stages, and some people may appear in both groups. Multiplying every person by a generic hourly rate would ignore their actual shifts, roles and overlap. The figures are most useful as evidence of the preparation required: gifts had to be received, checked, sorted and wrapped before meals, family bags and emergency parcels could be distributed. That logistical chain is a stronger historical finding than an invented “volunteer value”.
Announcements and outcomes: the 2014 comparison
| Initiative | Announced proposition | Strongest surviving follow-up | Conclusion |
|---|---|---|---|
| Damien Hirst Mickey | Painting auctioned for Kids Company | Christie’s: £902,500, above £300k–£500k estimate | Quantified successful result |
| See the Child | Petition plus £1.5m, 18-month task-force model | 28,000+ signatures; no funding, staff or operational task force | Attention without implementation |
| Safe Summer | Emergency shelter support for more than 100 young people | No final shelter count or night total located | First-party plan only |
| Warhol/Bugaboo | Three weekly auctions; 100% of realised price pledged | Campaign independently corroborated; hammer prices not located | Auction confirmed, amount unknown |
| Christmas at the Oval | 4,000 party guests, 12,000 parcel recipients, 300+ volunteers | On-site reporting: 4,000 lunches, 12,000 emergency parcels, 320+ event volunteers | Scale independently corroborated |
| Retail initiatives | Fixed sums, percentages, till asks and donated gifts | Some products/campaigns corroborated; no combined settlement located | Mechanics known, aggregate result unknown |
This is why a high-quality archive cannot use a single label such as “verified”. An event can be confirmed without its proceeds; a petition can grow without changing policy; a forecast can later be corroborated by reporting from the venue. The evidence has to answer the exact claim.
What 2014 reveals about the organisation
The year shows Kids Company operating simultaneously as service provider, fundraiser, media subject, arts platform and policy campaigner. That breadth made the brand unusually visible. It also made outcome reporting difficult: the unit of success could be a sale price, signature, meal, parcel, volunteer shift, shelter placement, media impression or proposed policy model.
The two clearest closed loops point in opposite directions. Hirst’s painting began as a one-line announcement and ended in a documented £902,500 result. See the Child began as the most ambitious national proposition in the source set, gathered tens of thousands of signatures, but failed to fund or staff the institution that was meant to turn concern into a service model. Both facts belong in the record.
The Christmas operation provides a third lesson. Small, distributed partnerships can look trivial when listed separately—30p a pouch, £1 at a till, cards, gifts, one event ticket—but the end operation was not trivial. Contemporary reporting describes thousands of meals and parcels and hundreds of volunteers. The strongest article therefore connects the mechanics to the real event while resisting the temptation to assign an unsupported share of the outcome to any one partner.
For the people and governance behind the organisation, see Kids Company’s team and trustees. For its therapeutic property and services, see the Morgan Stanley Heart Yard record. The complete collection is indexed in the Kids Company archive.
Frequently asked questions
Which Kids Company newsletters survive from 2014?
Full archived pages survive for January, July, August and November, plus the separate See the Child. Change the System launch posted on 23 June 2014.
How much did Damien Hirst’s Mickey raise for Kids Company?
Christie’s sold the donated painting for £902,500 on 13 February 2014. Its pre-sale estimate was £300,000–£500,000, and the auction house said all proceeds would benefit Kids Company.
What was See the Child. Change the System?
It was a national 2014 campaign asking the public to support reform of child-protection and mental-health services. It proposed an Independent Children’s Task Force chaired by Sir Keir Starmer and promoted a petition through film, cinema, digital, radio, outdoor, press and social activity.
How many people signed the See the Child petition?
The July 2014 newsletter reported nearly 17,500 signatures. Civil Society reported more than 28,000 by July 2015.
Did the Independent Children’s Task Force launch?
No operational task force was established. In July 2015 Kids Company said the estimated £1.5m had not been secured and no staff had been hired; NSPCC said the task force never materialised.
Did Kids Company provide Christmas lunch for 4,000 people in 2014?
Contemporary Guardian reporting from the Oval described 4,000 lunches, 2,100 family bags, emergency parcels for a further 12,000 people and more than 320 volunteers across Christmas Day and Boxing Day.
What was the Safe Summer appeal?
The August newsletter described increased outreach during the school holidays and planned emergency-shelter support for more than 100 young people. No final number of unique people or accommodation nights was located.
What did the Bugaboo auction involve?
Three Andy Warhol + Bugaboo Cameleon³ “Blondie” pushchairs were offered in weekly August auctions, with 100% of realised prices pledged to Kids Company. A stable source for the final hammer prices was not located.
Can the old event, product and petition links still be used?
No. The events and campaigns ended in 2014 or 2015 and Kids Company ceased operating in August 2015. Old emails, fees, forms, shops and petition routes are preserved only as historical evidence.
Were all newsletter claims audited?
No. Some have strong later corroboration, including the Hirst sale and Christmas operation. Others survive only as Kids Company announcements or partner pledges. This record labels those evidence levels separately.
Sources and records checked
- Internet Archive: January 2014 e-newsletter.
- Internet Archive: See the Child launch, 23 June 2014.
- Internet Archive: July 2014 e-newsletter.
- Internet Archive: August 2014 e-newsletter.
- Internet Archive: November 2014 e-newsletter.
- Christie’s: Damien Hirst, Mickey, lot record.
- Christie’s: February 2014 sale results.
- Centre for Social Justice: Enough is Enough.
- UK Parliament: Kids Company written evidence on research and task-force plans.
- The Drum: See the Child campaign launch.
- The Guardian: campaign and children’s mental-health context, 24 June 2014.
- Civil Society: task force did not materialise, 28 July 2015.
- MUMMY MAG: Warhol/Bugaboo auctions for Kids Company.
- The Guardian: reporting from Kids Company’s 2014 Oval Christmas party.
- Farmer’s Wife and Mummy: Ella’s Kitchen 30p-per-pouch campaign.
- Little Black Book: Ella’s Kitchen Give a Sprout campaign.