🔓 The One Big Number

Interviewed, edited, and titled by Tom Hashemi.

The power of the One Big Number

In 2019, the Youth Jobs Gap allowed us for the first time to quantify the employment gap between young people from disadvantaged backgrounds, and their wealthier peers. 

Our experience with delivery partners meant we already knew that the difference was significant—we had all the anecdotal data—but this was a quantitative data set we could point to and say: ‘this is what’s actually happening on the ground’.

It established our credibility in the space in a way that hadn’t been the case before. We’d been known in the charity space predominantly as a grant funder. Having the Youth Jobs Gap put us more on the map with think tanks, with other civil society organisations doing similar things and also with government. We hadn’t had that brand identity before.

The shaping of the Overton window

I’ll caveat all of this by saying that Boris Johnson never actually ended up delivering on our policy asks, which happens. But it meant we were then thought of as a trusted partner: we were part of the conversations and processes around delivering the Kickstart scheme, for example, and the Youth Offer. 

That was a really key moment, when we started moving from being an organisation doing external pressuring, to being thought of as thought partners and delivery partners.

Frame your arguments within their context, not in spite of it

Once the immediate aftermath of the pandemic started falling away and we went back to normal life, the NEET issue [Not in Education, Employment or Training] fell down the public agenda, and the political agenda too. It felt a bit like one step forward, two steps back: we found ourselves again having to build up the case publicly for why people should care.

This was around 2022–23, and it coincided nicely with the looming general election, the rising cost of living and the implications of Brexit becoming clearer. We made a conscious decision to pivot away from the crisis response we’d made during the pandemic, towards a longer-term economic case. We were really conscious that we had to show a guarantee for young people could realistically be implemented, and that it would benefit the wider economy.

→ Impetus will be posting a long read on the journey they went on to achieve the youth guarantee. Keep an eye on their website.

What’s the right message for the audience? (And the right messenger)

Our economic modelling found that if we reduced the number of NEET young people in this country to the numbers seen in the Netherlands, we could generate almost £70 billion for the economy.

People ask whether the £70 billion number or the Netherlands comparison worked better, and I don’t think you can choose. It depends on the audience. 

£70 billion, for the average person, might be a bit of an ‘I don’t actually know what that means.’ So for government and the Treasury, that was more the number that worked. Whereas people understand the Netherlands, they'll think, relatively small country in Europe, probably relatively similar to us.

The trick to coalitions: be massive

We’re one of the co-chairs of the Youth Employment Group, a coalition campaigning for inclusive employment for young people. It’s now 300-strong.

With smaller coalitions you often have to take everyone’s views into account, and that can be tricky. I’ve facilitated a coalition of nine organisations across higher education, and when it’s that size you have to engage everyone. 

But with a 300-organisation coalition you start seeing themes emerge, and that almost makes it easier. It’s about the bigger picture, rather than the needs of specific organisations.

Don’t let the report become the goal

On the public affairs side we hold ourselves to mission-level outcomes. We’re constantly reminding ourselves that our Youth Jobs Gap work doesn’t exist for the sake of the Youth Jobs Gap; it exists so we can unlock funding at the government level to support more young people into education, employment or training. 

It’s easy to get lost in the output and think, okay, another report, another report, another report. So even before I start a project, I have to remind myself to draw the thread to the end goal: if I’m commissioning this research, how is it going to get more young people from disadvantaged backgrounds into jobs?

We fund curiosity, not just success

When we select the nonprofits we work with, there’s a threshold. And it’s not: ‘is their thing working already?’ But: ‘Do they care whether it’s working? Are they curious about whether it is working or just assuming that it does? Are they asking whether what they’re doing actually improves outcomes? Are they gathering data in the interim to inform that?’

When I joined Impetus, people were throwing around the word ‘humility’ constantly, and I thought, ‘what does that even mean for a charity?’ Now I get it. It’s being brave enough to take a good long look at what you’re doing, bring it into the cold hard light of day, and say maybe this element isn’t working. That’s tough. There’s a lot of blood, sweat and tears that goes into running these organisations, and people are attached to the things they’ve been working on. But just because you’re doing a thing, it doesn’t mean the thing should be done.

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