Portfolio

We have a diverse portfolio including a new type of school, an inner-city talent development programme and a social learning network that's been labelled 'the ebay of learning'.

Since 2007, we have worked with 9 new initiatives that support young people in their transition to adult life:

• Faking It and Enternships aim to raise the aspirations of young people by giving them a taste of what working life can be like
• Studio Schools and the School of Everything have created alternative structures and networks for learning in the 21st century
• Arrival Education, Fastlaners and Future First take leadership development and careers advice seriously, developing the soft skills of young people
• Working Rite and VI-ability provide young people with their first supported steps into work.

Find out more below and check the portfolio news posts on our blog for all the latest

Arrival Education

Daniel Snell founded Arrival Education after his friend's 17-year-old brother was stabbed and killed five years ago. Daniel quit his job at US conglomerate Southwestern and set up a social enterprise that he hopes will "stop young people killing each other".

Along with partner Emily Shenton, the pair run a four year talent development programme for young people from inner-city communities that builds on the best of corporate leadership development and brokers mentors for young leaders from corporate backgrounds.

Emily and Daniel came to the Learning Launchpad with the concept and their research in July 2007. They secured £25,000 of financial sup port and regular meetings to help develop the programme.

Emily says "Learning Launchpad took us from concept to a successful pilot. Their insight into how we could address the social need made all the difference – and has meant that we have made a life-changing difference to our students".

Arrival Education has completed five of its courses in 2008 for 100 students from across London and the south-east. 50 students are now developing their 'Success Skills' in partnership with some of the UK's leading organisations. In 2009 they are working with 300 students, and aim to work with 2000 students in 2013.

Website: http://www.arrivaleducation.com

Enternships

Rajeeb Dey set up Enternships when still an undergraduate, and President of Oxford Entrepreneurs, looking for a more enterprising career route than many of his peers.

His idea, Enternships is an online service that connects students with internships in entrepreneurial and innovative environments. Raising the profile of entrepreneurial careers, this pathway will broaden young people's approach to careers outside of established organisations.

Learning Launchpad supported Rajeeb with both funding and support to help him develop a sustainable business model.

Since receiving Learning Launchpad support, Enternships has received media attention, founder Rajeeb Dey has one the O2 X Young Entrepreneur of the Year award and the scheme is rolling out nationally.

Website: http://www.enternships.com/

Faking it

The idea to develop the Faking It television series into a two‐week transformative programme for young unemployed people first came to Learning Launchpad. The investment paid for Jack Graham, a Young Foundation project developer, to run a pilot training programme.

Faking it aimed to challenge people to fake it, hoping to increase their confidence and the employability skills that would lead the 'fakers' to have improved job prospects. Delivered in partnership with Community Links, The Institute and Training for Life. 12 unemployed young people from Newham in East London were challenged to fake it as chefs at the Hoxton Apprentice restaurant.

The pilot has seen 11 of the 12 fakers finding further training, apprenticeships or employment within 3 months of faking it as chefs. Jack is now working in the Learning Launchpad with dedicated social entrepreneurs who will develop the concept and identify clients and investors in order to scale the project up and reach more young unemployed people.

Fastlaners

Fastlaners was an idea designed by Learning Launchpad to give graduates the soft skills required to help secure graduate employment.

Fastlaners is a two week intensive course for graduates who are at the risk of not finding suitable employment. It is about connecting the huge pool of graduate talent in Britain with these employers and supporting, training and preparing these graduates for employment.

The team completed a pilot and is now being developed into a scalable initative by the Young Foundation. The goals for Young Foundation are to enable graduates to enjoy healthy and happy graduate careers and demonstrate to their employers the multiple benefits of recruiting from a diverse graduate talent pool.

Website: http://www.fastlaners.org.uk

Future First

Jake Hayman founded Future First as a consequence of his own state school education. After graduation from University, he saw how many of his contemporaries were not progressing into the same jobs as he and his University peers were and set about addressing the social inequality through providing more effective careers advice.

Together with Future First's Managing Director, Jess Cordingly, the pair have set up Future First, a web-based alumni network for state schools, providing schools with a low-cost, high quality career service for both current students and recent school leavers. Using both online and off-line networking they aim to strengthen the careers advice networks around the real world communities surrounding each state school they work with.

Learning Launchpad have supported Jake and Jess to develop their strategy for how to manage growth and to use their web presence to have a strong social impact without draining their resources.

Jake and Jess have now formed a strategic partnership with the Sutton Trust and are planning to scale up Future First's operations in London, the Midlands and East Anglia over the next three years.

Website: www.futurefirst.org.uk

School of Everything

Paul Miller and a group of 5 friends came to the Young Foundation with an idea that everybody has something to teach and everybody has something to learn in 2007.

Aiming to do for education what YouTube has done for television, or what eBay did for retail, School of Everything is a website that links people who can teach what they know to people who can learn what they don't.

The Young Foundation gave School of Everything their seed funding, the office space to begin work and worked with them on everything from their business model, their strategy and how to raise capital.

Paul says: "Without the Young Foundation we would never have got started. For me the stand out thing was having people we could bounce ideas off and get advice from who had seen it all before."

Since its launch in September 2008, School of Everything continues to go from strength to strength with over 10,000 members (as of January 2009) and counting. Last year, School of Everything won a New Statesman New Media Award, and a prestigious UK Catalyst Award, that recognises the use of technology to make a positive social impact.

Website: http://schoolofeverything.com

Studio Schools

Studio Schools have been designed to help 14-19 year olds better prepare for the world of work. They draw on extensive experience from the UK and around the world and bring together a number of proven elements in a new kind of school that will provide young people with qualifications and a full range of skills - while also engaging them in working in, and running, businesses and social enterprises directly serving customers.

Studio Schools will be small schools of around 300 students. They will teach the national curriculum through interdisciplinary, enterprise-themed projects, but will have a very different style and ethos to most existing schools, with a much stronger emphasis on practical work and enterprise. Every student will have a personal coach; there will be mixed age teams; and the schools will have many of the features of a workplace (like booking holidays). Studio Schools do not aim to replace other secondary schools - but to complement them by providing an alternative approach suitable for young people looking for a more entrepreneurial option or alienated by traditional pedagogy.

Elements of the Studio School model are the subject of a field trial with Barnfield College and Barnfield Academy West in Luton in collaboration with The Innovation Unit. The field trial began in September 2007 with 23 14-year olds and will eventually be scaled up to a full Studio School. The Young Foundation has plans to develop up to six new schools with partners from Tyneside in the North to the East End of London. We are working with Newham Council and College, and the Councils in Barnsley, Blackpool, Kirklees, Oldham, Sheffield, and South Tyneside.

Website: http://studioschoolstrust.org/

VI-ability

Kelly was the first woman to get an MBA in the football industries, but also an ex-Arsenal Ladies footballer with 36 international caps for Wales. During her studies, the idea came to her for a business model that could tackle the issues of commercially unsustainable football clubs and youth disengagement in deprived areas of Wales.

VI-ability is an idea to introduce young people to the commercial management of football clubs. Kelly plans to train up young people in a variety of key commercial roles in the club and coach them to design, plan and run activities that will raise money for the clubs and involve their local community.

When Kelly came to the Learning Launchpad she had an idea. With Learning Launchpad's intensive business development support, advice and investment, Kelly to go full time on the scheme. She says "without the Learning Launchpad fund, I would not have been able to develop a sustainable business model for VI-ability which can now have a real social impact"

Kelly's vision is for every community to have a thriving and financially sustainable football club at its heart, providing opportunities for young people to develop their skills & broaden their horizons. She is planning to pilot the scheme at Colwyn Bay FC in January 2010 and then roll out across England and Wales over the coming years, eventually forming links with European clubs and facilitating cultural exchanges.

Working Rite

In 2001, Sandy Campbell, a self-employed former trade unionist, set up a mentoring project in Leith. His passion was to provide opportunities for teenage boys to be mentored by adults, and learn crucial skills and experiences in their transition to adulthood.

In 2008 the initiative became Working Rite - a registered Community Interest Company, with an innovative approach to mentoring. Hosted by a housing association, Working Rite matches youngsters with an older self-employed tradesman for a 6-month placement in a real-world environment, learning the job through a one-to-one relationship. 75% of the young people who go on the scheme end up in employment or further training.

When Sandy approached the Learning Launchpad, he was striving to find a sustainable model for his organisation. The Learning Launchpad's intensive work with Sandy is helping to create a revenue model which reflects the value of the scheme, and the investment to strengthen the management team. "The help from Learning Launchpad has given us the confidence, support and practical knowledge to scale up on the basis of good solid financial considerations - as well as some well targeted finance. They haven't been shy about challenging our assumptions when necessary but were always focused on finding pragmatic solutions based around an understanding of our business capacity."

Working Rite is now in talks with national partners and civil servants in order to reach a far higher number of young people.

Website: www.workingrite.co.uk