Youth Futures Foundation launch an ambitious, national funding programme
Today, Youth Futures Foundation, launched an ambitious, national funding programme that hopes to generate vital learning and evidence to improve services for young people who need it most.
Anna Smee, Cheief Executive of Youth Futures Foundation said;
It has been our longstanding intention to launch our grants programmes in Spring 2020, with the objective to find, fund, support and evaluate promising practice and to understand what works when tackling youth unemployment. We have carefully considered the impact of Coronavirus on this programme, and absolutely recognise that the outbreak is an exceptional event that will have a significant impact on both civil society groups supporting young people to acquire skills and access opportunities, and the employers seeking to hire and train them. We wish to be as helpful as possible during the coming weeks and months so that civil society groups can focus on the vital work of supporting some of the most vulnerable young people in our communities. After listening to organisations who are currently delivering services for young people, we have decided to proceed with our funding launch as the feedback indicated that many organisations are finding innovative ways to continue delivering and making plans for the coming years, and need to know how these activities will be funded.’
This new Impact Fund will be distributed to organisations across England that have a promising track record of supporting young people who face barriers to accessing employment. We will fund delivery work and related overhead costs for specific programmes, entire organisations, partnerships or consortiums. Our aim is to fund in the most helpful and flexible way possible for grant recipients. In addition, the Youth Futures Foundation will provide capacity building support to help organisations strengthen and grow their work. The Impact Fund will be a rolling programme (with formal review points rather than separate rounds) meaning organisations can apply throughout the year.
The launch of this fund is an important first step in our ability to build a lasting, robust evidence base of what works to help those young people who face the most challenges moving into work. Our aim is that this learning can help to better support policy makers, employers, funders and commissioners to ensure that all young people can pursue meaningful and sustained economic pathways for the future.
CURRENT FUNDING AVAILABLE
Our rolling grants programme is designed to find, fund, support and evaluate promising practice. Funding will go to organisations working with young people aged 14-24 to help overcome barriers to finding meaningful work. We are looking for approaches that can be tested, evaluated and, where proven to be effective, expanded to more young people.
We want to partner with organisations that share our values and are committed to learning, investing in good practice and sharing what works to transform the youth employment landscape.
TWO TYPES OF GRANTS ARE AVAILABLE
- Development Grants
- Impact Grants
Development Grants
Impact Grants
Level of financial support available
£30,000 – £100,000 pa for delivery and development
Circa £100,000 – £800,000 pa for delivery +
An independent evaluation paid for separately by Youth Futures
Duration
1-2 years
1-5 years
Supporting towards employment
Over 50 young people per year
Over 150 young people per year
Full details and how to apply can be found at https://youthfuturesfoundation.org/grants/
