Football Beyond Borders

Football Beyond Borders & Impetus

We’re thrilled to join Impetus at this exciting stage of our journey. They are the perfect partner who through long-term targeted support and expertise can improve our impact and bolster our capacity.

– Jack Reynolds, Co-founder and CEO, Football Beyond Borders


The need: 7,000 young people are permanently excluded from mainstream schools every year. Only around 5% of excluded young people pass their GCSEs in English and maths. There is strong evidence to suggest that Social and Emotional Learning interventions can promote the development of social and emotional skills, which lead to gains in academic performance.

Our charity partner: Football Beyond Borders uses football to support young people from disadvantaged backgrounds who are disengaged or at risk of exclusion from school to build the skills they need to succeed. Their two-year programme consists of weekly two-hour sessions that build literacy and soft skills.

Our impact: We’ve worked with Football Beyond Borders to develop their impact management, ensuring they focus their work on the young people who need it the most and refined their programme so it works for more young people. We’re supporting them in their strategy and three-year business plan to help them develop their growth ambition, income generation and impact strategy. 78% of young people enrolled on the programme achieve English and maths GCSE.

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Educational attainment

Young people from disadvantaged backgrounds are 40% less likely pass English and maths GCSEs than their better off peers. We’re focussed on supporting young people to develop social and emotional skills; championing tutoring; and shining a light on chronically underserved young people excluded from school pass English and maths GCSEs, compared with 69% of all other pupils. With the right support, we can make life after school fairer.
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Youth Jobs Gap webinar: Establishing the Employment Gap

In this blog and webinar, Sam Windett, Impetus' Director of Policy, talks through the 1st report in the Youth Jobs Gap series.
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Backing Organisations

We find, build and fund high potential organisations. Find out more about our unique approach to working with our portfolio partners.
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Transparency is an open goal for charities

Sepp Blatter, Qatar, Big Sam. I don’t need to say any more to show that football and transparency aren’t exactly easy bedfellows these days. So it’s great to see a football charity, Street League, leading the way on transparency.
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