Impetus-PEF announces £8m venture philanthropy package

Impetus-PEF has announced what it calls England’s largest ever venture philanthropy package, with £8m of leveraged funding to three UK youth-focused charities.

The Access Project, Action Tutoring, and Resurgo are to benefit from the finance. Impetus-PEF said it will work with the charities, focusing on operational performance and helping to ensure they deliver real and lasting change.

Resurgo will receive almost £3.5m of leveraged funding over three years. The charity’s Spear programme focuses on youth unemployment delivering structured programmes of group and personalised coaching to build work readiness skills for disadvantaged young people.

Action Tutoring will receive more than £2m of leveraged funding over three years. The educational charity aims to make the benefits of tutoring more widely available to pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds in schools across England.

The charity recruits, trains and supervises high quality volunteers to tutor pupils in partner schools. Its focus is on pupils aged 15-16 preparing for their GCSEs in English and Maths.

The Access Project will receive almost £2.5m of leveraged funding over three years. It aims to increase the number of students from disadvantaged backgrounds that enrol at selective universities.

Focusing on high potential pupils in schools with high levels of disadvantaged young people, The Access Project delivers a four-year programme of one-to-one tuition, via volunteer tutors to increase academic performance, and personalised university application support in years 10-13 through trained staff based in school.

Impetus-PEF partners with other charities and social enterprises that serve disadvantaged young people, providing them with a combination of long-term core funding and sustained management support.

It currently works with more than 20 charity partners, who in turn reach over 50,000 young people from disadvantaged backgrounds by ensuring they get the support to succeed in education and employment.

“At a time when charities are under increasing operational scrutiny, the principles of venture philanthropy have never been so pertinent,” Impetus-PEF chief executive Julia Grant said. “Charities working with young people must focus their activities to deliver real and lasting impact to those communities they serve.”