Impetus' ambitious and transformative strategy
Impetus’ vision is for a society where all young people - regardless of their background - can achieve positive education and employment outcomes to increase their chance of leading fulfilling and successful lives.
Young people in Britain face significant barriers to success, including: lost learning, stagnation in education attainment outcomes, and lack of access to education, training and employment – challenges that disproportionately affect those from disadvantaged backgrounds.
Impetus is a great example of philanthropy done well. Explore how we’ll continue to deliver our mission with greater impact, sustainability and inclusion in our four-year strategy.
Susannah Hardyman MBE
Chief Executive Officer
Since 2002, Impetus has transformed the education and employment outcomes of young people from disadvantaged backgrounds by
Investing in the best education and employment non-profit organisations to create the best opportunities.
Giving our partner organisations long-term funding, pro-bono support and our strategic expertise, so that more young people get the education, qualifications, and opportunities they need for a fulfilling life.
Influencing policy to drive meaningful change and create a lasting, systemic impact for a better future for young people.
Our strategy to 2028
Explore our ambitious 2024-2028 strategy, built on 21 years of growth and impact. Over five years, we aim to reach more young people, scale our influence and solidify our role as a leading funder, trusted partner for non-profits, and key voice for policymakers driving meaningful change in young people's lives.
Expanding our reach to 475k young people
Growing our portfolio with a new focus on attainment and skills
Playing a central role in delivering 1-2 major policy reforms
Supporting our portfolio partners to deliver exceptional outcomes and accelerate growth
Deliver on our commitment to EDI across every part of our work
Supporting at least one of these evidenced programmes to national scale
Expanding our reach to 475k young people
By 2028 we aim to be working with a portfolio of non-profit organisations reaching 475,000 young people each year. From 2020 to 2023 we increased our reach from 116k to 392k young people a year.
Growing our portfolio with a new focus on school attainment and skills
We want to expand our portfolio, extending our support from 23 non-profit organisations to between 30 and 35 organisations. To support this growth, we will launch two new funds, focused on school attainment and skills, building on the success of our Engage (school engagement) and Connect (race and youth unemployment) Funds.
Playing a central role in delivering 1-2 major policy reforms
Our policy work is a central part of our model, and we have a track record of influencing government and the wider sector to back effective support for our young people – including helping to establish the National Tutoring Programme, which supported 27% of pupils on free school meals in 2023, and securing a Minister for Youth Employment and cross-Government coordination on young people as a founding member of the Youth Employment Group.
We’ll continue this work, playing a key role in delivering 1-2 major policy reforms that are grounded in our research and portfolio insights.
Supporting our existing portfolio partners to deliver benchmark-beating outcomes and accelerate their growth
From 2020 to 2023, we supported four out of the nine organisations who’d been with us for over five years to outperform robust impact benchmarks. We want to go further – by 2028 at least six of our portfolio partners will be delivering positive external evaluations against robust impact benchmarks.
Deliver on our commitment to EDI across every part of our work
We believe that diversity enables us to thrive. As part of our last strategy, we set up the Impetus Leadership Academy, which has supported 36 leaders from ethnic minority backgrounds working in the UK youth sector. 66% have progressed into senior leadership roles in youth education or youth employment organisations so far.
We’ll continue to embed EDI into our work, including increased diversity in our staff, our Board and continued investment in being an inclusive funder.
Supporting at least one of these evidences programmes to national scale
Once we’ve helped several organisations to refine their delivery model, evaluate their impact and grow, we will put our resources into scaling-up 1-2 of these organisations, so more young people can benefit from their transformative programmes.
We have a track record of supporting impactful organisations to national scale. Read how we supported IntoUniversity and Resurgo.
Interested in supporting our mission?
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