British corporate giving now accounts for more than £1 billion and continues to grow. Any major business worth its salt now has a serious corporate social responsibility programme in place — a way to show both client and employees that it is not all about making money. Smaller companies also do their bit, often forming personal relationships with smaller, local charities.

This year The Times has tapped into this growing corporate generosity, finding three fundraising partners to match donations to our Christmas charity appeal. The Times has chosen three small but ambitious charities to support — Help the Hospices, TreeHouse, the school for autistic children, and Riders for Health, an international charity which addresses the shortage of good transport links in Africa by maintaining fleets of motorbikes for health workers.

The decision of KPMG, the professional services firm, to match donations from Times readers for Help the Hospices is the culmination of a two-year partnership with the charity.

As its nominated charity this year, Help the Hospices is the recipient of payroll giving and the beneficiary of numerous fundraising events. The hospice movement has also found itself on the receiving end of KPMG's drive to reduce carbon emissions.

“In conjunction with the Carbon Trust we designed an energy audit tool kit, which identifies where savings can be made,” said Mike Kelly, head of CSR at KPMG. First to try it out was Hospice House, the headquarters of Help the Hospices, and £2,000 of savings were immediately identified, plus even greater savings on energy bills.

KPMG has raised more than £500,000 for hospices. Kelly said: “Our ambition is that all hospices go through this audit. I think this is a fantastic legacy we can leave them — that all hospices cut their running costs permanently so they can spend more of their resources on palliative care.”

Our second fundraising partner, CVC Capital Partners, a private equity firm, first came across Riders for Health in 1998 when it bought Dorna, the Spanish sports marketing company which owns the rights to MotoGP, the motorbike equivalent of Formula One. MotoGP is a major backer of Riders for Health, which was itself founded by former bikers.

Hardy McLain, managing partner and co-founder of CVC, was so impressed that he became a donor himself. CVC continues to back Riders for Health, even though it was forced to sell Dorna last year. “It is a fantastic charity that really appealed to my sense of practicality,” McLain said. “What it does is not hi-tech or ‘sexy', but is really important. It gets drugs to people who need them.”

Our third backer, the Pears Foundation, which is matching donations to TreeHouse, was set up in 1992 by the residential property company, the William Pears Group. Trevor Pears, executive chair of the foundation, was particularly impressed with the focus TreeHouse brought to educating its pupils using the intensive Applied Behavioural Analysis method. This is a home education system developed in the US for autistic children, but TreeHouse adapted it for the classroom so children can have the full school experience.

“TreeHouse has brought a new approach to working with autistic children to the UK. They are passionate about what they do and completely focused on their mission, a winning combination for me,” he said.

The Pears Foundation funds the position of policy officer, so that TreeHouse's voice is heard in government. It has supported TreeHouse's fundraising campaign to build a new resource centre to house the school, which will be its first permanent home after ten years of growth.

To read more about out appeal or donate to our charities, see www.timesonline.co.uk/timesappeal