Impetus support:

Impetus investment period: 2004 - 2008
Total funding: £410,000
Value of expertise: £229,000

Speaking Up 'graduated' from the Impetus portfolio in 2008. Read a review of the investment.

Background to the investment:

Speaking Up is a Cambridge-based charity, which was mostly grant-funded and ran on tight budgets. The organisation was focused on implementation and could not manage future growth effectively. The impetus for our involvement with Speaking Up was to help the organisation expand from its Cambridge base to become a positive and obvious choice for people with learning difficulties wanting to speak up and represent themselves

Focus of Impetus expertise to date:

Business planning; re-branding; developing and implementing a new sales strategy around advocacy services; IT systems redesign

Organisational design to support geographical growth; introduction of balanced scorecard; project integration and quality assurance

Re-structuring of consulting and training services; developing an outcomes-based model to measure social impact

Coaching senior management; contacts with potential new funders; development of a new business plan and pitch to funders; review and advice on the Department for Children, Schools & Families (DCSF) Pathfinder Fund.

Key achievements:

• Speaking Up has become a leading player in empowering people with learning disabilities, mental health problems or other disabilities to take control of their own lives
• It has extended its reach beyond Cambridgeshire, and now offers its services from Kent to Yorkshire
• The number of people it helps has increased nine-fold since the beginning of our partnership, to over 4,800. Over the same period its income has increased six-fold.

Find out more about Speaking Up