Grant round: Skills

We are looking for two new partner organisations

Almost one million young people are not in employment or full-time education, and those from disadvantaged backgrounds are twice as likely as their better-off peers to not be in education, employment or training (NEET).

As part of our response to this, we’re looking to fund two new partner organisations supporting young people who are NEET into employment, by developing work-related skills. This is part of our long-term commitment on skills and employment. See detailed eligibility and selection criteria below.

Successful organisations will receive:

    • £100k in core, unrestricted funding for an initial period of one year (with potential for us to become a longer-term funder)
    • Hands-on support from our Investment Team to help shape your plans and build organisational capabilities for impact and growth
    • Support from our network of pro bono experts on anything from strategy planning and financial modelling to legal support
    • Access to our peer learning forums, providing training, networking and co-learning opportunities with 23 partners across our portfolio
    • Access to sector-based coalitions to influence policy and the national conversation on issues faced by the young people we serve
    • Access to additional grants through our network of donors

    About Impetus

    Impetus and Generation are clearly very mission aligned, and so for us this was always a partnership that we hoped to launch and grow. Both organisations also share a commitment to understand impact at a deep level, using data and learner feedback to improve, innovate, and scale. We are working closely together on all of those fronts and hope to change many more lives in doing so.

    - Michael Houlihan, CEO, Generation UK

    We have 23 years’ experience finding, funding, and building the best organisations working in the youth sector. Since 2013, we have given £100m worth of support to our partner organisations, including £32.6m of core unrestricted funding.

    But we are more than a funder. Our backing comes with focused, structured, hands-on support from our experienced Investment team and network of pro bono experts across all aspects of our charity partners’ work - deepening their impact, upskilling their leadership and helping them achieve sustainable growth. Our approach is working - our portfolio partners become stronger, bigger and better organisations that transform the lives of the young people they serve.

    Our non-financial support is valued highly by our portfolio partners. In a recent survey of our partner CEOs, all rated our support as either delivering significant or transformational impact.


    What we are looking for

    Impetus is seeking applications from non-profit organisations that:

      • Support young people (age 16-24) who are NEET and from disadvantaged backgrounds
      • Deliver work-related skills (either vocational or essential)
      • Aim for employment outcomes for those young people

      Our selection process is intended to assess whether organisations have:

      • Programmes with a track record of, or high potential to deliver measurable, positive employment outcomes for young people
      • A committed leadership team, eager to engage with the Impetus partnership, and sufficient organisational capacity to absorb our support
      • Financial sustainability and the long-term potential to grow

      We are particularly interested in hearing from organisations who:

      • Deliver vocational skills training (i.e. focusing on specific sectors or roles)
      • Have leadership teams who are representative of the young people they serve

      All interested organisations should first check they meet the eligibility criteria from the following sections.

      1. Programme requirements

      Your programme must:

      • Be focused on supporting NEET young people (age 16-24) into employment through the development of skills (either vocational, essential or both). This work should represent at least 50% of the young people that you work with.
      • Be delivering their youth employment work in England, Wales or Scotland.
      • Focus on young people who are or have experienced socio-economic disadvantage, typically demonstrated through eligibility for free school meals and/or pupil premium.

      2. Organisational requirements

      Your organisation must:

      • Be committed to improving employment outcomes and managing and refining your programme to achieve them.
      • Be a UK-registered charity, social enterprise or non-profit organisation. (We will be prioritising these organisations, but we are open to applications from Further Education Colleges if you are delivering a NEET to EET programme.)
      • Be working with a minimum of 100 young people directly.
      • Have at least 10 members of staff (headcount).
      • Have a minimum turnover of £250k, based on last audited / examined accounts.
      • Have achieved at least break-even in two of the past three years, OR you must hold at least two months of operating costs in your reserves.

      Our research shows that certain young people are more likely to be NEET. For this reason, we are particularly interested in organisations working with young people who:

      • Are lower qualified (without GCSEs or A-levels).
      • Are from Pakistani, Black, Mixed, or Gypsy or Irish Traveller backgrounds.

      3. Other considerations

      We will also be considering the extent of applicant organisations’ own commitment to equity, diversity and inclusion - through organisational practices and policies, incorporation of lived experience into programme design and delivery, and representation across the staff team and Board.


      How to apply and timelines

      We have designed an initial application process that focuses only on information that is relevant to our investment decisions and minimises the demands on applicants' time - the majority of information should be easily accessible to organisational leads.

      If you think you are what we are looking for (as outlined above), and you would like to be considered as a potential Impetus charity partner, please complete the following steps.

      Please note, the below timeframe is indicative.

      Step one


      Eligibility form



      Review the eligibility and selection criteria above, then complete the eligibility checker form (5-10 mins to complete).


      Open from Wednesday 12 March 2025. Closes at 11.59pm, Thursday 17 April 2025.

       

      Step two


      Application form



      Eligible organisations will be sent an application form. We estimate this will take 2 hours to complete if you have your organisational finance information to hand. We will also give you access to a document containing all the application questions should you prefer to compile your answers before accessing the online form.


      Closes at 11:59pm, Thursday 17 April 2025.
       

      Step three


      Call with your CEO



      • We expect to shortlist 15-20 organisations
      • All applicants will be notified of the outcome by 16 May at the latest
      • Calls will last around 90 minutes


      Calls will take place on 13, 14, 16, 20, 21 and 22 May (your CEO must be available on one of these dates). Unfortunately, the dates for these calls can’t be changed.
       

      Step four


      Site visit to your organisation



      Two members of our team will visit your office or a delivery site (whichever preferable) for a further conversation on a different range of topics with your CEO. You’ll also be able to ask us questions about our approach. If possible, we would also like to meet with delivery team members and observe programme delivery. Other conversations with relevant team members will also be scheduled to better understand different aspects of your work.


      • We expect to conduct site visits to 5-6 organisations
      • Visits may last 3-4 hours
      • Organisations that are not successful at this stage will be compensated for their time.


      Visits will take place between 9 and 27 June (specific dates to be shared nearer the time).
       

      Step five


      Partnership building and due diligence



      We will then ask organisations we feel are a good fit to enter a more intensive process of assessment. During this process, we will spend 12 weeks getting to know you, your organisation, your programme and your ambition for impact and growth. We will spend two full days with your team to understand your work in even greater detail and get to know colleagues across the organisation.


      You will also get to know us and our work in more detail and understand what a partnership with Impetus might look like.


      Due diligence phase for selected organisations will take place from mid-July to mid-November. Final grant decisions will be made by our Investment Committee on 26 November 2025.
       


      Additional information

      Compensation

      We appreciate our selection process is time-consuming for applicants. Therefore, any organisation that makes it to our site visit stage and is unsuccessful will be compensated for their time. Similarly, organisations that go through our partnership building and due diligence process and are unsuccessful will also be compensated for their time.

      Inclusivity

      At Impetus we are actively trying to improve the accessibility and inclusivity of our funding rounds. If you require any adjustments to enable you to engage with our process, or if you would like to provide any feedback on the accessibility or inclusivity of our process, please do email us at skills@impetus.org.uk.

      Find out more about our commitment to embedding diversity in our work.

      Your data

      All information collected is used and stored in order to make informed decisions throughout the application process. We will only ever share this information externally if it is with pre-vetted individuals providing external scrutiny or support during our selection process, who will have signed a confidentiality agreement.

      Our privacy policy has more information about how we use your personal data.

      Find out more