Today, The Young Foundation and global investment bank, UBS, publish The Young Academy Investment Fund Impact Report 2021. Launched in 2014, this Fund was set up to tackle disadvantage in education via investment in education-focused social enterprises.
Sharing insights from investees, interviews, and fund data, this report paints a positive picture, showing that organisations supported by the Fund benefitted disadvantaged young people through the academic year 2020/21. In fact, the report reveals the investment fund has positively impacted 1.8m young people.
Greg Sanderson, Founder of Smart School Councils, says: “Without this investment we could have never have reached the position we are in now. It gave us organisational confidence and allowed us to create a software product to help schools deliver a school council programme.”
In the wake of the Adebowale Report, which calls for more equity-like finance to better serve social enterprises, The Young Academy Investment Fund is eager to share experiences with others looking to take a flexible and patient approach to financing early-stage social enterprises.
Sarah Faber, Head of Ventures at The Young Foundation, reflects: “It is eight years since The Young Academy Investment Fund was launched to tackle disadvantage in education, so this is a good point to take stock of everything that the fund’s social enterprises have achieved, and what learnings from this particular kind of financial instrument we can share with the sector. We’re proud of the impact that our fund has made and continues to make in the lives of disadvantaged young people.”
Read The Young Academy Investment Fund Impact Report 2021.
Education & Employment Families & Youth Innovation and Investment Social finance & ventures Social innovation Posted on: 20 April 2022