J.K. Rowling established the charity Lumos to help children and families.
Lumos began in 2005 as the Children’s High Level Group, an organization focused on ending the institutionalization of children. It was renamed Lumos in 2010, taking its name from a light-producing spell in the Harry Potter stories. The charity works internationally to promote family-based care and reform systems that separate children from families.
Its work addresses institutional care, poverty, disability, and child protection. Lumos argues that children generally benefit from safe family or community settings rather than growing up in large residential institutions, while recognizing that every child’s circumstances require individual protection and support.
The organization is not a literary prize or a publishing imprint. Its name is sometimes confused with other charities that Rowling has supported, including Comic Relief, but Lumos is the charity she founded around the issue of children in institutional care.