Maimoona’s favourite part of her job is “fixing” fresh tissue – removing the excess blood and fat when it arrives in the laboratory, so it doesn’t decay.

It sounds gross, she knows. But it’s important.

Maimoona was always interested in anatomy, and working in a medical lab has enabled her to put her skills to good use, contributing to advancements in diagnostics and cancer research.

When you work in healthcare, when you work with the NHS, you really do feel fulfilled when you go home. You feel like you’ve made an impact on society.

Maimoona

But a year ago, when Maimoona left education, she felt stuck. Even entry level jobs required work experience or expensive qualifications that could take years to attain – so Maimoona found herself in a cycle of rejection. And she’s not alone.

Nearly a million young people in the UK are not in education, employment, or training (NEET), with those from disadvantaged backgrounds twice as likely to be out of work than their better-off peers.

Many of these young people face high barriers to entering the labour market. That’s why Impetus backs organisations like Generation UK, which provide talented young people like Maimoona with the support they need to get on the job ladder and thrive in work.

Generation UK: Connecting Young People to Employment

I remember being struck by their unique combination of wraparound deep support for an individual, plus the formal skills element and connections with employers…

Ben Brodie, Investment Director, Impetus

Generation UK’s programme combines the technical skills demanded by employers with extensive wraparound support to ease the transition into employment and build soft skills like interview techniques, problem solving, and time management.

Generation UK runs 4-12-week bootcamps in high-demand sectors ensuring young people are connected to the right employers and are ready to work when they land the job.

“When we first came across Generation UK, I remember being struck by their unique combination of wraparound deep support for an individual, plus the formal skills element and connections with employers,” said Ben Brodie, Impetus Investment Director for Generation UK. “I think that really is quite unique in the sector.”

Driving Impact

When Generation UK joined the Impetus portfolio in 2022, the first step was Driving Impact, a four-day workshop for all new Impetus partners. The workshop provides an opportunity to bring people together from across the organisation to refine and make key decisions on mission, target population, programme and outcomes – the who, how, and why that will enable an organisation to maximise impact for the young people they serve.

For Generation UK, the workshops centred around who they’re best placed to support, which long-term outcomes they’re striving for, and how their programme can help young people to get to where they want to be.

“Driving Impact has been so important for us,” Mangala Nanda, Chief Learning Officer at Generation UK, said. 

There are so many people who need help and support to be able to get a great job, but we needed to really understand who we are best positioned to support and who we can make the most impact for, so that we can use that in our outreach efforts to achieve that impact.

Mangala Nanda, Chief Learning Officer, Generation UK

Building a Partnership

But Driving Impact workshops are just the start – Impetus works with partners for the long-haul, providing them with years of unrestricted funding and strategic advice, ensuring they have what they need to implement decisions effectively and prove the impact they are making.

Most recently, Impetus supported Generation UK to develop a new three-year strategy, which aims to establish Generation as an Impact Leader. It includes redesigning their approach to outreach, developing their programme to maximise job outcomes, and investing in fully understanding long-term outcomes, alongside building a thriving team and investing for growth. This will ensure that they deliver transformative outcomes for young people facing the highest barriers to work, who are up to three times more likely to be NEET than average according to Impetus’ Youth Jobs Gap research.

Everything, every interaction with Impetus – their track record all points to the fact that they’re here to help charities do better

Michael Houlihan, CEO, Generation UK

Michael added: “So, if you embrace that and trust it, that’s the recipe for doing as much as possible together. And I think there’s a lot of evidence to say that’s the right approach.”

Generation UK’s outcomes speak for themselves: employment rates for Generation learners go from 26% at the start of a programme to 71% a year later, and they've been awarded an “outstanding” rating from Ofsted, citing their “transformational effect” on their learners.

Now, Impetus is working shoulder-to-shoulder with Generation to lay the groundwork for further impact and growth, to reach more young people like Maimoona, who credits Generation UK with giving her the opportunity to land her current job.

There would be such a rise in employment if there were more young people in Generation bootcamps

Maimoona

Maimoona continued: “If we got more young people in the workforce, working in healthcare, working in science, working in business with these bootcamps, that would be the best thing.”