beat is the only national charity dealing with
eating disorders, which affect an estimated one million people in
the UK. Approximately 20% of those seriously affected die as a
result of these disorders. beat helps people beat
eating disorders by campaigning for greater awareness and better
services, and by giving people with eating disorders the help and
support they need.
Impetus support:
Impetus investment period: 2004 - 2009
Total funding: £325,000
Value of expertise: £345,000
beat 'graduated' from the Impetus portfolio in
2009.
Read a review of the
investment.
Background to the investment:
The impetus for our involvement was to enable beat to re-position itself in terms of its brand as this would help it to achieve earlier prevention and intervention by connecting more successfully with young people. We also aimed to help beat improve its overall effectiveness by raising its profile with its target audience.
Focus of Impetus expertise to date:
Read Daire Taylor's experience of working on a specialist project for beat.
Key achievements:
- The new beat brand was launched, increasing the organisation's profile
- beat's training services were restructured, leading to growth in income and better margins
- beat won the GlaxoSmithKline IMPACT award, receiving both an unrestricted donation and free training for two staff members.
Find out more about beat
Performance:
Average annual growth in income: 8%
Average annual growth in no. of people helped: 33%
| Year prior to Impetus investment 2003/04 |
Latest year end draft 2008/09 |
|
| Income (in millions) | £0.62 | £0.92 |
| Individual support users |
16,400 | 69,000 |
| Professional users |
700 | 2,894 |
| Unique web users |
178,000 | 299,724 |
All figures as of beat's 2008/09 year end.
If you want to really achieve an increase in impact then the Impetus process is of tremendous value.
Patrick Dunne
Chair, Leap Confronting Conflict