Aims/priorities:
The Engage Fund is provided by Impetus and the Henry Smith Charity.
The mission of Impetus is to support young people from disadvantaged backgrounds to succeed in school, work and life. Impetus works with charities to deliver meaningful outcomes in the areas of school engagement, attainment, university access and employment.
Research shows that fewer than 5% of excluded young people get the key GCSEs they need in English and maths. Given this, Impetus is conducting an open grant round in partnership with The Henry Smith Charity, looking for two impact-led organisations who support young people in mainstream and/or alternative provision with engagement outcomes and reducing lost learning. Applicants will need to have an ambition to grow their impact using meaningful benchmarked data.
Objectives of Fund
This opportunity is for organisations that are:
- Working to improve school engagement and reduce exclusions and lost learning for students in mainstream schools and/or
- Working to improve engagement and/or attainment outcomes for children who have been excluded from school.
Who can apply:
Impetus is looking for two charity partners.
There is particular interest in applications from the following:
- Charities or third sector organisations working with schools to improve engagement and/or reduce exclusions. This could be through:
-A combination of direct delivery to students and indirect delivery - working with other stakeholders, such as school staff or parents, to deliver or embed positive outcomes for young people.
-Indirect delivery - working with schools and staff to improve outcomes for young people, rather than working directly with the young people themselves. This might be through any combination of training, coaching, resources and/or hands-on support.
-Direct interventions working with students - this might be through any combination of one-to-one, group, classroom-based, or out-of-classroom delivery. - Organisations taking a place-based approach, working across different settings. This might include:
-Working in collaboration with a range of services or providers in a local area, rather than just schools (though delivery should be led by a single organisation, rather than a consortium of providers)
-Working on local commissioning practices, via collaboration with mainstream and alternative provision schools
-Attempting to shift outcomes at a local level, through work with/across a local authority or other geographical area - Mainstream multi-academy trusts or other groups of schools working to improve school engagement and reduce exclusions, through one or more centralised multi-school initiative(s).
To be eligible, each organisation must:
- Be delivering its exclusions related work predominately in England
- Have a minimum turnover of £250,000 based on last audited/examined accounts
- Be working with a minimum of 100 young people directly or 1,000 young people indirectly.
Grant amount:
This round will provide the following to two Impetus charity partners:
- £100,000 in core, unrestricted funding per year for two years (with potential for Impetus to become a longer-term funder).
- Hands-on support from the Impetus Investment Team to help the charity partner shape plans for impact and growth.
- Support from the Impetus network of pro bono experts, on anything from strategy planning and financial modelling to legal support
- Access to peer learning forums; providing training, networking and co-learning opportunities with the other 25 charity partners
- Access to sector-based coalitions to influence policy and the national conversation on the issues faced by the young people served by Impetus.
- Access to co-investment through the Impetus network of donors.
Application process:
The application process for this open grant round is as follows:
- Step one – complete the online eligibility form by 16 February 2024 (midnight).
- Step two – successful applicants will be invited to complete the full application form.
- Step three – the CEO of shortlisted applicants (around 15 to 20 organisations) will be contacted to have a 90-minute phone call with Impetus.
- Step four – Member of the Impetus team will visit the office or delivery site of the shortlisted organisations.
- Step five – There follows a more intensive process of assessment.
Full details can be found on the Impetus website.
Deadline: Complete the online eligibility form by 16 February 2024 (midnight).
Contact information:
Tel: 07774 437 701
Email: investment@impetus.org.uk