Acumen Community Enterprise Development Trust works to achieve social and economic regeneration through learning, enterprise and employment. The trust focuses on people who have been long out of the employment market and are unable to re-join it through mainstream employment services. It actively engages those people, upgrades their skills and supports them in their job-seeking activities.

The Trust was created in 2003 by Kate Welch, the Trust’s current Chief Executive, as a response to the perceived inadequacy of the existing employment services in getting the long-term unemployed back to work. Kate has long-standing experience in the sector; prior to starting Acumen, she was an Operations Manager for JobCentre Plus.

In the short time since their creation, Acumen has built up a unique position in its sector; it has achieved significant growth and built up a very strong reputation, specifically in the North East. The impetus of our involvement was a desire to support Acumen to achieve its ambitious growth plans going forward – with further consolidation in the North East and then potential expansion to other regions.

Key Objectives agreed with Impetus (2008-2009)

Impetus is partnering with Acumen initially for 16 months with a view to making a longer term investment at the end of the planning process.*

The key objectives are to support Acumen in its scale-up to become a leading national player in the area of employability:

• Further refine the core delivery model
• Define the scale-up model and develop a detailed scale-up plan
• Address any existing gaps and weaknesses in the top team

*The use of a staged approach is a new departure for Impetus and it will help to ensure that the investment process is more stringent and greater focus is given to develop a strategy for the charity.