Impetus Trust announces a £1 million reinvestment to help IntoUniversity double its impact

Date: 19 Oct 2012

Citywealth

Impetus Trust has announced its first £1 million investment – the largest since its founding ten years ago – to IntoUniversity. In doing so, Impetus backs an ambitious scale-up strategy over the next five years that will see IntoUniversity more than double in size, with capacity for an additional nine centres.

IntoUniversity’s core focus is on social mobility through education by raising the aspirations and improving the life chances of young people most vulnerable to educational failure. IntoUniversity operates nine centres, where it offers after-school study, intensive aspiration raising programmes and workshops, and one-to-one mentoring. Over 70 per cent of young people who take part in IntoUniversity’s sixth form activities progress to higher education, against a national average of 43 per cent for all students.

Impetus works to break the cycle of poverty by investing in ambitious charities and social enterprises that fight economic disadvantage through helping people to gain education, skills and jobs. It uses a highly effective venture philanthropy model, consisting of management support from the Impetus investment team, pro bono specialist expertise and strategic funding to accelerate the growth of those organisations.

Impetus first invested in IntoUniversity in 2007, together with co-investors the Trust for Education, Private Equity Foundation and Goldman Sachs. Since then IntoUniversity has exceeded the targets of its first business plan by serving 7,500 young people last year, opening seven centres in London, and expanding to Nottingham working in partnership with the University of Nottingham and as part of their strategy to deliver their Widening Participation objectives.

Today’s ¬£1 million investment will help IntoUniversity to establish itself as the pre-eminent provider of quality Widening Participation services for disadvantaged young people. It will achieve this by increasing the number of centres it operates from nine to at least 20 centres reaching more than 17,350 students each year. The strategy also includes ambitions to scale up fundraising capacity in order to develop a sustainable funding model, in partnership with universities.

Commenting on the reinvestment, Impetus Trust Chief Executive, Daniela Barone Soares, said: “IntoUniversity is an innovative organisation that takes a very practical approach to increasing social mobility. In just ten years it has had a remarkable impact on the lives of thousands of the most disadvantaged young people. Its ambitious plan for the next five years is achievable with the strong foundations we have built together, which is why Impetus has chosen IntoUniversity as the beneficiary of its first ¬£1 million reinvestment. Taking IntoUniversity to the next level will mean many more young people have the chance to enter higher education.‚Äù