Gower Street is a small, UK based, family-run charitable trust, originally established in 2007. Founders Sophie and Nick Marple, started their philanthropy journey as individuals; Nick had spend time in Ghana and had been sponsoring a child there, whereas Sophie acted on her doorstep to help with issues in London. Later they combined their efforts to create the Marple Charitable Trust which later became Gower Street. 

Initially, funding was focused on education across Sub-saharan Africa as well as in their local borough of Islington in the UK.  After a few years of funding across numerous countries, the organisation re-focused its work in Africa purely on Ghana, prioritising education for girls.  In 2017, the trust worked with Jake Hayman at Ten Years Time to revise its approach, which led to it focusing on system change work and funding smaller organisations doing transformatory work, and the following year, Gower Street began to develop a clearer focus on climate mitigation and adaptation.  

In 2020, Nick and Sophie decided to spend down the fund by 2030, aware that the money is needed in the sector now in the critical decade for climate action. 2020-2025 saw a period of accelerated funding, mainly to British and Ghanaian organisations seeking to tackle the climate crisis and ensure a socially just energy transition is achieved. From 2025 new grant making in the Ghanaian education space had evolved into work at the intersection of education and climate. From late 2025 the trustees turned their mind to work with a longer time frame but still focused on the socially just energy transition and made a series of grants framed as ‘sowing the seeds of the future’. 

Where the money comes from and how it is invested

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Gower St funds come predominantly from Nick's 30-year career in the sports gambling industry. Until deployed as grants, monies are invested for positive social and environmental impact (well beyond ESG) as well as financial return. Our investments are split between Tribe and a bespoke impact portfolio with Rathbones.