Every young person deserves the chance to fulfil their potential. Yet across the UK, too many are held back not by lack of ambition, but by lack of opportunity.
At Impetus, we see this reality every day, and we see the difference that the right investment can make. For over twenty years, we’ve been backing the best youth organisations in Britain: helping them grow, strengthen, and deliver measurable outcomes for young people from disadvantaged backgrounds.
By doing this, we’re not just supporting individual organisations, we’re supporting economic growth.
For me, this isn’t abstract policy work. It’s personal.
I grew up on free school meals. I saw, from the inside, how the postcode you’re born into can quietly determine the opportunities you’ll get. I remember friends who were bright, motivated, full of ideas, yet shut out of possibility because there wasn’t anyone who could help them navigate a path to higher education or meaningful work.
I was one of the lucky ones. Teachers and mentors along the way believed in me. They showed me that potential could thrive if given a chance. But that chance shouldn’t depend on luck. It should depend on systemic opportunity, opportunity that philanthropy, business, and government can work together to build.
That belief drives the work we do at Impetus.
Philanthropy in the UK is at a crossroads. We stand between two realities:
On one side, there’s immense potential, billions in private wealth, world-class expertise in business and finance, and a growing recognition that social mobility underpins national prosperity.
On the other side, there’s persistent inequality. Over 1.9 million children in England now qualify for free school meals. Opportunity is unevenly distributed, and postcode continues to shape destiny.
But something is shifting.
The creation of the Office for the Impact Economy is a hopeful signal of alignment between government, business and philanthropy to direct investment into the heart of local communities. It recognises that we can no longer tackle inequality in silos.
We need joined-up, long-term investment, the kind that doesn’t just fund projects, but builds the infrastructure of opportunity, and prioritises impact.
Traditional philanthropy, while generous, is often fragmented, short-term, project-restricted, and focused on activity rather than outcomes.
At Impetus, we take a different approach.
We believe philanthropy should be as strategic, evidence-driven, and outcome-focused as any other form of investment. That’s why we apply the logic of the private markets, long-term capital, active partnership, and measurable returns — to the social sector.
Our venture philanthropy model combines funding with strategic capacity-building:
When we talk about long-term, unrestricted funding, it’s not a slogan, it’s a proven strategy.
Take IntoUniversity. When Impetus first partnered with them in 2007, they were a single after-school centre in West London supporting 850 young people. Our long-term investment, combined with strategic and operational support, helped them scale sustainably and build a data-driven model of impact.
Today, IntoUniversity is a national network reaching over 60,000 young people annually, with 58% progressing to higher education, compared to 29% nationally among peers from similar backgrounds.
The same is true across our wider portfolio. On average, the organisations we support achieve sevenfold income growth and sixfold reach growth over the course of their partnership with us. These aren’t just numbers, they represent tens of thousands of young lives changed, and hundreds of communities strengthened.
In London, we partner with Sister System, which supports young women with experience of the care system who are at risk of exploitation. With our long-term, unrestricted funding, Sister System has built capacity, strengthened data systems, and refined its trauma-informed model. Today, nearly 70% of participants progress into education, training or employment, more than double the rate of similar peers.
In Blackburn, IMO Charity, rooted in the local South Asian community, is equipping young people at risk of being NEET (not in education, employment or training) with skills, confidence and direction. We’re helping IMO build sustainable systems, attract new investment, and support more young people into stable work.
The Impetus model doesn’t stop at community impact.
We use the data, evaluation and learning from our partners to influence policy and public funding decisions, ensuring that what works locally informs what happens nationally.
Our partnerships have helped shape thinking on youth employment, skills and education reform, showing that when government, business and philanthropy share evidence and ambition, policy moves faster and funding flows further.
Philanthropy, when evidence-led and outcome-focused, doesn’t just fill the gaps left by the system, it helps redesign the system itself.
The UK’s private markets, private equity, venture capital, family offices and institutional investors, have the discipline, capital and innovation mindset needed to supercharge philanthropy.
The principles that underpin great investing, long-termism, performance measurement, value creation, are exactly the ones that can transform the social sector.
Private markets can lead by:
The UK’s world-leading financial industry is already a global success story. Imagine if it became a global leader in impact capital, using its expertise to expand opportunity.
By aligning philanthropy with the private sector’s appetite for innovation and the public sector’s reach, Britain can build a sustainable “impact economy” that delivers both growth and fairness.
The Office for the Impact Economy offers a blueprint for exactly this kind of collaboration. Impetus stands ready to help bridge these worlds, translating evidence into investment and ambition into action.
This National Philanthropy Day (15 November), we’re calling on business leaders, investors and policymakers to think bigger.
If we can achieve that alignment, between evidence, capital and ambition — then Britain’s next chapter can be defined not by division, but by shared investment in human potential.
