Martha Lane Fox: Why I helped save the Orange Prize for Fiction The prize has never complained about the gender balance within the literary prize world, instead it has sought to address it. Fourteen out of 45 Booker Prize winners have been women and yet women are 65 per cent of fiction writers. I am a feminist and I love reading so this strikes me as a strange fact when there are so many talented women out there. So, it was imperative that as Orange decided to move away from this particular kind of corporate sponsorship, we found another way of supporting this important cultural institution. On Monday, we announced that we are privately funding the prize for 2013 under its original name of the Women's Prize for Fiction. I am proud to be amongst a wonderful array of angel donors and companies that want to make sure female writing talent is nurtured and supported. The board are also excited about working with a new set of corporate partners in future years. What could be more engaging? We know that companies who take their wider societal responsibility seriously have more engaged staff and more engaged customers. We know that fiction provides a fabulous backdrop from which to pull any number of different stories about what your corporate values are. We know that the encouragement of reading and writing are among the most basic of human education needs and we know that this joyous, glamorous, high profile institution is one of the best in the UK. Every chief executive is worrying about how to make sure their company survives and thrives in this fierce economic environment and every chief executive is thinking about how to drive growth while the world seems to be chaotic and unpredictable. I think that building and supporting such a major cultural landmark is one surefire way to do something great for women, for UK PLC and your own organisation, and I am confident others will too. Martha Lane Fox is the UK's digital champion and a successful entrepreneur, co-founding Lastminute.com and more recently, Lucky Voice, a karaoke business. She will be sharing her experience and insights at the Telegraph's Festival of Business on October 19.