£2 million. It is a number worth pausing on – not because of what it says about us, but because of what it represents for the hundreds of small charities and community groups who have received that support since 2011. Here, we reflect on the journey, the people who made it possible, and what comes next.
When Tim and Matthew Good first discussed setting up a charitable foundation in 2011, the idea was simple: their family business should be a force for good. Every year, the John Good Group would donate a proportion of its profits, and employees could direct that support to the causes they cared about most.
Tragically, Matthew never saw the Foundation launch. He passed away suddenly at the age of 32 while running the Humber Half Marathon – raising money for charity, in the spirit that defined him. The Foundation was launched in his memory, and that spirit has guided everything we have done since.
Fifteen years later, we have reached a milestone that would have been hard to imagine in those early days: £2 million given to non-profits since we began.
From modest beginnings to meaningful scale
Our first financial year ended in 2012 with just over £2,000 granted. Growth came gradually at first, and it wasn’t always straightforward. The pandemic, in particular, brought significant disruption, pausing much of the employee-led activity that drives our programmes. But we kept going, and in recent years the pace of growth has accelerated significantly.
In 2025, for the first time, we delivered over £400,000 of giving in a single year.
Much of that growth has been built on a step change in commitment from the John Good Group in 2022, which gave us the foundations to think bigger. About the same time, we launched Grants for Good – a programme that has since directed more than £250,000 to over 100 small non-profits, funded entirely through our partnership with the John Good Group.
Where we once ran a single employee giving programme alongside a small number of longer term grants, we now offer four growing programmes: Employee Giving, Amplify Charity Grants, Amplify Charity Films, and Grants for Good.
Growing to meet the challenge
Our team and governance have grown to match our ambitions. In the early years, the Foundation was run entirely by volunteers from within the John Good Group – trustees from the Good family and colleagues who gave their time alongside their day jobs. In 2019, we welcomed our first dedicated member of staff. A second followed in 2022. And in 2025 and 2026, we have brought on three more employees, building the capacity to both sustain our existing programmes and take Grants for Good to a wider audience.
Our board has grown in depth too. Alongside founding Chairman Tim Good and long-standing trustee Kevin Harrison, we have welcomed four new trustees who bring wide-ranging expertise from across the charity, conservation, and funding sectors. That blend of family connection and external experience reflects where we are as an organisation – rooted in our origins, but deliberately building for the future.
The Foundation Team. Left to right: Vicky Mulligan – Charity Assistant, Kirsty Clark – Executive Director, Tracy Keenan-Smith – Admin Assistant, Kathryn Biggin – Strategic Partnerships Manager, Jennifer Duck – Head of Operations
The Foundation Trustees with Michelle Taft. Left to right: Jonathan Greenwood, Jamie Lewis, Michelle Taft (Non-Exec. Director at John Good Group), Tim Good, Niall McCann, Kevin Harrison, Emma Bryden
National recognition
Earlier this year, we won the Corporate Foundation Award at the Third Sector Business Charity Awards, beating some of the UK’s largest corporate names to take a prize whose previous winners include Sony Music, Greggs, and Aviva. It was a proud moment. But more than the recognition, what struck us was the reason we won: not the size of our grants, but the depth of our relationships and the difference those relationships make.
Taking our philosophy further
Our recent growth external to the John Good Group is something we are particularly proud of. Grants for Good has become our flagship programme and is now open to other businesses who want to connect their employees with grassroots causes in a meaningful, structured way. The model is simple, effective, and – crucially – it works. The John Good Group’s investment in helping us scale it is a vote of confidence we don’t take lightly.
If your business is looking for a way to make community giving more impactful and more personal, we’d love to talk.
“Reaching the £2 million milestone matters because it proves a family business can be a genuine force for good at scale. Grants for Good has been at the heart of that journey. By putting real funding decisions in the hands of John Good Group colleagues and focusing on smaller, high impact charities, we’ve built a programme that our teams feel they own. That ownership has translated into support for hundreds of grassroots organisations, with each receiving unrestricted funding – the lifeblood of small charities. It’s no coincidence that as employee engagement in Grants for Good has grown, so has the scale and reach of our giving. I’m excited to see the Matthew Good Foundation take this model into other businesses that want their social impact to feel just as personal and meaningful for their employees.”
Adam Walsh – CEO, John Good Group
Adam Walsh and the John Good Group team present cheques to just a few of the 100+ Grants for Good winners since 2021
Remembering Matthew
Throughout all of this, we have never stopped honouring the reason we exist. One of our longest-running commitments has been to race medicine – funding research, collaborating to help establish the International Institute of Race Medicine, which has since become part of World Athletics, and most recently investing in the creation of a dedicated app to help runners protect themselves. Matthew’s death was avoidable, and our hope is that what happened to him does not happen to others.
Looking ahead
Reaching £2 million is a moment worth marking. But for us, it is also a prompt to look forward – and to think carefully about what we are really building.
Kirsty Clark, Executive Director of the Matthew Good Foundation, reflects on what lasting impact looks like:
“By spreading our philanthropic model across more businesses, we want to create a self-sustaining culture of giving. Because if we do this well, the mindset and structures we help to put in place will continue to empower non-profits and communities long into the future. Our true legacy isn’t just the grants we give. It’s the shift in how businesses and people think about their shared responsibility for social impact.”
Kirsty Clark – Executive Director, Matthew Good Foundation
There is still so much more to do. And we are just getting started.
Matthew Good running in the Jane Tomlinson Run for All Hull 10k