Grant fund hailed for supporting youth work under pressure from soaring costs

More than 100,000 young people have been supported thanks to a special UK Youth grant fund.

The UK Youth Fund – Cost of Living, in partnership with the Pears Foundation, is a pot of £5 million being shared among more than 180 small youth organisations across the UK over three years.

Thora Eberts, director of network delivery at national youth work charity UK Youth, said: “We are so grateful to the Pears Foundation for their support. The fund has provided much-needed financial stability to local youth organisations in a challenging economic environment, ensuring they can continue to offer high-quality youth work to the young people they serve.

“Through the fund, youth organisations have reached more than 100,000 young people from communities across the UK, providing them with vital youth work which develops educational, social and emotional skills.”

The funding is unrestricted, allowing the youth organisations – each with an annual income less than £500,000 – to use their grant how they see fit to best support their work.

Thora said: “The unrestricted nature of the funding has been particularly welcomed. Many grantees have cited that unrestricted and multi-year grant funding has supported their organisations to both respond to emerging needs of young people and plan strategically, including allocating resources to the wider development of staff and services, enabling them to become more sustainable.”

A newly published report reviewing the first year of the fund, which was launched in February 2023, has found there has been a rise in grantees using funding to “provide basic necessities for young people, such as food, clothing and health products”, coupled with a rise in core, staffing and service delivery costs.

As well as the high number of young people reached through the grant, the report found 80 per cent of recipients felt optimistic about their organisation’s financial future thanks to the funding, while the fund also helped keep services accessible for young people and provided stability in a challenging financial climate.

Among those to receive money was Belfast-based R-City Youth CIC, which works with young people from the most deprived areas of Northern Ireland.

A spokesperson said: “The grant has enabled us to cover organisation overheads – rent and room hire, electricity, as well as a contribution towards the cost of additional staff.

“This grant has ensured the organisation could continue to offer programmes and support for young people free of charge. This has been particularly useful given the pressure facing young people and their families due to cost-of-living increases.”

UK Youth is now aiming to actively advocate and campaign for further funding to increase the number of youth organisations receiving unrestricted, multi-year grant funding.

The charity developed its first UK Youth Fund in 2020, with the aim of ensuring “all young people have access to quality, local provision, delivered by youth organisations equipped with sustainable and meaningful funding”.

The fund has since distributed more than £20m to the youth sector and assisted in the distribution of a further £25.5m.

To read the report in full, click here.

The Pears Foundation is a family foundation driven by a desire to demonstrate the good that philanthropy can achieve in the world. It is the philanthropic foundation of the Pears family, who have given more than £450m to charity since the foundation was established.

The foundation is focused on building long-term relationships with partners, providing core funding and offering more than money through organisational and leadership development programmes, with the aim of demonstrating the foundation’s vision of good philanthropy and the value of leading by example. To find out more, see pearsfoundation.org.uk

UK Youth is a leading charity with a vision that all young people are equipped to thrive and empowered to contribute at every stage of their lives. With an open network of more than 8,000 youth organisations and nation partners; UK Youth reaches more than four million young people across the UK and is focused on unlocking youth work as the catalyst of change that is needed now more than ever. To find out more, visit ukyouth.org 

UK Youth is involved in a range of programmes designed to help young people thrive, such as outdoor learning, physical literacy, social action and employability, including Hatch, a youth employability programme run in partnership with KFC. For more on UK Youth’s programmes, see ukyouth.org/what-we-do/programmes