Even good organisations can get better – and getting better means more young people succeeding. We provide the expertise, the funding, and the support to help organisations on a journey to real impact.
Nat Sloane, Co-founder of Impetus
The combined value of our grants to organisations, the expertise provided by our pro bono network and the hands-on management support from our Investment team.
We find, fund and build high potential organisations. We give them long-term, unrestricted funding, and also manage co-investment partnerships for them with individual donors.
We work shoulder to shoulder with our portfolio partners to help them become stronger, better and bigger - to reduce the gap between young people from disadvantaged backgrounds and their better-off peers in school attainment, access to university and finding and keeping a job.
We support our portfolio partners to become stronger and more resilient organisations
2024: Number of partner organisations growing their income by:
Data for organisations that partnered with us from late 2022 not included. Two of the three with significant negative growth is explained by cuts to government contracts.
*The organisation with significant negative growth intentionally deferred some income into their next financial year
We set up and manage additional funding streams for our partner organisations
Funding delivered to our partner organisations through co-investment over time (£000’s)
The 2020 investment spike was a result of additional investment raised to combat impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. Data for organisations who partnered with us from late 2023 onwards not included.
*We changed our financial year end from December to March in 2023.
We support our partner organisations to become bigger - to help more young people
2023: Number of partner organisations growing their reach by:
Data for organisations who partnered with us from late 2023 onwards not included. Two of the four with significant negative growth experienced cuts to government contracts/subsidies; another saw a fall in reach for young people aged 16-24 yrs that was offset by an increase in reach for older people.
We support our partner organisations to become better - to improve the impact they are having on the lives of young people
More information on these benchmarks
The Tutor Trust & SATS Maths: The Tutor Trust, Impact Report, 2023/2024
Action Tutoring & GCSE Maths: Action Tutoring, Impact Report, 2023-24
IntoUniversity & access to universities: IntoUniversity, Impact Report, 2023
Resurgo & Education, employment, training: Employment Data Lab analysis: The Resurgo Spear programme, November 2022 (last updated March 2023)
"Impetus has been with us since we first became a registered charity – and the partnership has been transformational. They’ve provided us with a winning combination of three types of support: substantial financial generosity, pro-bono expertise, plus ongoing, crucial advice and experience from the inhouse Investment team at Impetus."
Rachel Carr, CEO, IntoUniversity
How likely are our portfolio partner CEOs to recommend Impetus to another organisation's CEO?
Our portfolio partner CEOs value our partnership and would recommend us to others.
A Net Promoter Score is an index ranging from -100 to 100 that measures the willingness of customers to recommend a company's products or services to others. It is calculated by asking ‘How likely are you to recommend us to a friend or colleague?' and scoring the answers on a zero-to-ten scale. The final Net Promoter Score is the percentage of customers who are promoters (those who scored 9 or 10) minus the percentage who are detractors (those who scored 0 to 6).
We combine what we learn from work with our portfolio partners and our own research to influence government and the wider sector. Together, we can unlock opportunities for all young people to achieve meaningful, lasting change.
Improved school attendance and reduced exclusions to ensure all young people are engaging and learning in school
Impetus partners with The Henry Smith Charity to launch the ‘Engage Fund.’ The funding aims to tackle the rising number of school exclusions in the wake of the pandemic and improve outcomes for young people in alternative provision.
The Who Is Losing Learning? (WILL) Coalition is founded by Impetus, Mission 44, IPPR, and Impetus’ portfolio partner The Difference to develop evidence-informed policy responses to increasing school absence and exclusion, particularly amongst children from disadvantaged backgrounds.
Alongside our portfolio partner Khulisa, Impetus partners with Public First to produce a first-of-its-kind research project exploring the breakdown in parental attitudes toward full-time school attendance.
In their first piece of work as a coalition, WILL reveals the extent of post-pandemic lost learning – a 30% increase in suspensions, disproportionately of children living in poverty, and 1 million days of lost learning.
Impetus publishes two reports we commissioned from the Education Policy Institute on the education and early adult outcomes of young people who are suspended and excluded from school, the latter of which won a research excellence award from the Office for National Statistics.
The WILL Coalition launches their flagship report, presenting an overview of the alarming number of children missing from classrooms in English schools and setting out a social and economic case to invest in reducing lost learning.
WILL sets up the Solutions Council to hear evidence from senior education leaders, parents, academics, and representatives of civil society to develop concrete policy solutions.
Impetus welcomes the Two Counties Trust and Co-op Academies Trust to the Engage Fund to develop their internal alternative provision offerings.
The WILL Coalition launches their second report, drawing experience and insight from education experts in shaping evidence-backed solutions to combat lost learning.
Targeted tutoring for post-pandemic catch-up
Impetus funds Action Tutoring because studies show tutoring is one of the most effective ways of raising attainment for pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds.
An extensive evaluation commissioned by Education Endowment Foundation on the Tutor Trust shows the impact of their tutoring and Impetus begins funding them too.
Education Endowment Foundation research suggests the pandemic will hit pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds hardest, potentially widening the attainment gap by 75%.
We work alongside the Education Endowment Foundation, Nesta and the Sutton Trust to develop the original proposals for using tutoring as pandemic catch-up programme.
Working in partnership with the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF), the Sutton Trust, and Nesta, we launch a new online tuition pilot to show that tutoring can reach young people from disadvantaged backgrounds even during school closures. The pilot was delivered by four established tutoring organisations (Action Tutoring, MyTutor, The Access Project, and Tutor Trust) and reached 1,425 learners in 65 schools. It was co-funded by Impetus, EEF, Wellcome Trust, Paul Hamlyn Foundation, the Hg Foundation, Porticus UK, the Dulverton Trust, the Inflexion Foundation, and other funders.
The National Tutoring Programme is set up by the Government to support schools in using tutoring to help pupils who have fallen behind to catch up, ultimately channelling billions of pounds toward tutoring.
Public First finds that pupils who received post-pandemic tutoring will add over £4 billion to the economy through their higher lifetime earning potential.
The National Tutoring Programme ends, providing over 6 million courses of tutoring during its four-year history. Impetus continues to lobby the Government to use targeted, well-evaluated tutoring interventions to narrow the attainment gap.
We publish a new report drawing on lessons from the 16-19 Tuition Fund and National Tutoring Programme, to outline recommendations for any future state-funded tutoring schemes. This is in collaboration with Action Tutoring, Get Further, TeamUp Hub, The Children's Literacy Charity, The Tutor Trust and Tutors United.
Driving attainment for young people from disadvantaged backgrounds through oracy education – learning to, through, and about talk
The Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) publishes two pilot studies on Voice 21’s approach to oracy - “articulating ideas, developing understanding, and engaging with others through speaking, listening, and communication.” The EEF finds that Voice 21’s interventions show promise in developing pupils’ oracy skills.
Impetus invests in Voice 21, the leading oracy charity, to explore oracy’s potential to help boost the attainment of young people from disadvantaged backgrounds.
The EEF finds that oracy interventions result in an average of six months’ additional pupil progress over the course of a year. They suggest targeted oracy interventions could be used to help close the disadvantage gap, since pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds begin school with lower average speech and language skills than their peers.
The Labour Party announces their commitment to embed oracy in the national curriculum as part of their missions for government.
Impetus works with Voice 21 to set up and sponsor the Commission on the Future of Oracy Education in England, bringing together leading educationalists, creative leaders, academics, and business representatives to outline an evidence-based framework for oracy education.
The Commission launches their report, ‘We Need to Talk’, setting out specific policy recommendations for the implementation of a national entitlement to oracy education for all children.
The Commission submits its evidence and recommendations to the Curriculum and Assessment Review, which will conclude in 2025. We hope to see oracy featured prominently in their report.
More young people from disadvantaged backgrounds into education, employment, or training
Impetus begins funding Resurgo, an employment charity aiming to connect NEET (not in education, employment, or training) young people to the labour market.
We publish the Youth Jobs Gap – a groundbreaking collection of reports investigating the link between education and employment outcomes.
In response to the pandemic and its immediate and acute impact on young people, we work with Youth Futures Foundation, Youth Employment UK, the Institute for Employment Studies, and The Prince’s Trust (now The King’s Trust) to form the Youth Employment Group (YEG) to advocate for full and inclusive employment for young people. It is the UK’s largest coalition of youth employment experts with 300 member organisations.
The YEG launches their recommendations paper ‘Securing a place for young people in the nation’s economic recovery’, calling for the government to support the creation of 1,000 extra opportunities per day for young people.
The government created a 250,000 place funded youth employment scheme – Kickstart.
The YEG’s recommendations are largely adopted in the House of Lords Youth Unemployment Committee’s Skills for Every Young Person report.
Minister Mims Davies announces her new role as Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Social Mobility, Youth, and Progression following YEG calls for greater cross-government accountability and collaboration to tackle youth unemployment.
As the immediate effects of the pandemic subside, the YEG shifts its strategy to address more chronic challenges in youth employment, with a particular focus on the barriers facing young people furthest from the labour market.
Resurgo becomes the first organisation to go through the Department for Work and Pensions’ new evaluation service, the employment data lab. Resurgo’s Spear programme is shown to reduce NEET rates by over 15% and increase employment by around 25%. This makes them one of the best-evidenced organisations in the country.
YEG proposes a transformational offer for our young people: ‘The Young Person’s Guarantee.’ This collection of policy recommendations emerged from a broad series of conversations, discussions, and consultative sessions and was shaped by a range of experts, organisations, and perspectives.
The Labour party commits to a Youth Guarantee in their general election manifesto, partly modelled on the YEG’s Young Person’s Guarantee.
The Government commits to delivering a Youth Guarantee to connect young people with work and training opportunities, adopting many of the policies recommended in The Young Person’s Guarantee. The Get Britain Working White Paper commits to working with the YEG “to help deliver [the] Youth Guarantee.”
The Youth Employment Group begins work with the Department for Work and Pensions on the design and implementation of eight youth employment “trailblazers,” intended to deliver on the promise of the Youth Guarantee.
More university places for young people from disadvantaged backgrounds
Impetus forms a coalition of nine widening participation charities to advocate for issues that affect fair access – the Fair Access Coalition. Together, we call for the Government to protect money that universities are required to spend on widening participation activity as part of their access and participation agreements.
We meet two universities Ministers to discuss widening participation.
We campaign against changing the university admissions system to post qualification admissions, a move we don’t believe would help young people from disadvantaged backgrounds.
Government drops plans to move to post-qualification admissions.
Government protects university widening participation funding in their response to the Augar review.
Impetus hosts John Blake in his first external speaking event as Director for Fair Access and Participation at the Office for Students. His speech is followed by a panel discussion on how to enhance collaboration to support more young people into higher education.
Impetus establishes The Third Sector Forum to connect widening participation organisations with the Office for Students, which meets quarterly to discuss fair access in the university sector.
The Office for Students establishes the Equality in Higher Education Innovation Fund, providing £2 million in funding for collaborative projects that support widening participation. These projects are expected to include formal partnerships with the third sector.
We can’t make change happen alone. We work in partnership with other like-minded organisations to tackle the most difficult and under-supported challenges together and increase our impact.
All this is made possible by our generous donors who give their time and expertise as well as financial support. Together we can achieve greater outcomes for young people from disadvantaged backgrounds in the UK.
As part of our focus on evidence and impact-based policy development, in 2011 we helped to establish the EEF along with the Sutton Trust, with a £125 million grant from the Department for Education. The EEF is the government-designated What Works Centre for Education. We work closely with the EEF to support young people to succeed at school.
We established the Youth Endowment Fund (YEF) - an independent charitable trust, established in March 2019 with a £200 million endowment and ten-year mandate from the Home Office. The charity’s mission is to prevent children and young people becoming involved in violence. It does this by finding out what works and building a movement to put this knowledge into practice.
In 2020, in response to the pandemic and its impact on young people, Impetus, Youth Futures Foundation, Youth Employment UK, the Institute for Employment Studies, the Learning & Work Institute and The Prince’s Trust formed the Youth Employment Group (YEG) to bring together the youth employment sector to help drive the UK’s response. Now with over 300 member organisations, our coalition advocates for full and inclusive employment for young people.
In 2018 we formed a coalition with eight other organisations (the Access Project, Brightside, The Brilliant Club, Causeway Education, IntoUniversity, Push, upReach and Villiers Park) to advocate on issues that affect fair access to University that is not determined by background.
In response to the Covid-19 pandemic, we worked with the Education Endowment Foundation, Nesta and the Sutton Trust to develop proposals for using tutoring as pandemic catch-up programme. The Government subsequently set up the National Tutoring Programme in late 2020 to support schools in using tutoring to help pupils who have fallen behind, more than 3 million courses have been started so far.
We continue to work with our partner organisations Action Tutoring and The Tutor Trust and also with Get Further to advocate for tutoring as the best evidenced intervention to support accelerated progress at school for young people from disadvantaged backgrounds.
Analysis shows that leadership teams within the UK charity sector are predominantly white, and funders are disproportionately funding white-led charities. Yet we know that racial diversity is not only good for society, but it is also good for performance. So, in 2020, we partnered with Bank of America to set up unique programme of management training, personal development, and corporate mentorship for emerging leaders from the UK youth sector, from ethnic minority backgrounds, to support them into senior leadership positions.
