In this joint case study, Bea Theakston, Investment Director at Impetus, and Dr Rachel Carr, CEO of IntoUniversity, reflect on how 17 years of sustained funding and hands-on support helped IntoUniversity grow without compromising impact.
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Bea: In the charity sector, where funding is so often short-term and restricted, a partnership spanning nearly two decades is a remarkably rare thing. It requires not only short-term alignment on immediate goals, but also a long-term vision for transformative change.

The 17-year partnership between Impetus and IntoUniversity, which is now graduating from Impetus’ active portfolio to join the Impetus Alumni Network, is a powerful example of what is possible through these partnerships. It is a story of how sustained, holistic support can help an organisation scale its impact while remaining relentlessly focused on improving outcomes for the young people it serves.

As a leading impact funder, Impetus takes a long-term view to partnerships. We find the highest-potential organisations, building the most promising interventions that support young people from disadvantaged backgrounds to succeed in school and work. Our long-term funding, alongside direct capacity-building support, enables our partners to focus their mission and build organisations that can deliver transformative outcomes for young people.

With Impetus’ support, IntoUniversity has become a textbook example of scaling with impact. They have grown from one centre serving 850 young people to a nationwide organisation serving more than 60,000 annually. Through this growth, they have retained their impact: 58% of their students progress into higher education, compared with 29% from similar backgrounds nationally.

A shared mission

When Impetus’ first came across IntoUniversity in 2007, the mission alignment was clear. The statistics were, and remain, stark: only 29% of young people from disadvantaged backgrounds go to university, compared to 50% of their better-off peers. And even with the same qualifications, they're still 50% more likely to not be in education, employment, or training (NEET) in adulthood.

IntoUniversity’s model – offering long-term academic, career, and pastoral support to young people from age 7 onwards – provided an opportunity to make a dent in those numbers.

Embedded within communities with high rates of poverty, IntoUniversity’s holistic approach ensures young people have the guidance, resources, and ambition to make an informed decision about their future and achieve their goals. IntoUniversity joined

Impetus’ portfolio immediately after becoming a registered charity, and we’ve worked in partnership ever since.

The ‘3 P’s’ of support

Rachel: The cornerstone of our partnership with Impetus has been what I call “the Three ‘P’s”: pounds, pro-bono, and professional support.

Long-term, unrestricted funding is core to Impetus’ offer, giving us the crucial capital needed for senior hires and to build robust core foundations. This financial stability is a rarity for growing charities, particularly in their early years.

Funding is then supplemented by expertise from Impetus’ world-class pro-bono network, providing services most charities cannot afford. Over 17 years, IntoUniversity has received invaluable pro-bono legal, business development, and governance support from organisations including CVC Capital Partners and OC&C.

Finally, the professional support. Each Impetus partner is assigned an Investment Director, who works directly with the charity’s leadership team. This hands-on support centres on helping partners' focus their mission, facilitate strategic decisions, and accelerate both growth and impact.

A relentless focus on impact

Bea: A partnership of this length requires a deep, shared commitment to impact that goes beyond simple reporting. Both Impetus and IntoUniversity possess a continual drive to do better: asking tough questions about whether the work is translating into real outcomes and using those answers to make programmes more effective.

Throughout the past 17 years, Impetus and IntoUniversity have worked shoulder-to-shoulder to refine and prove their impact. We’ve supported IntoUniversity to scale, delivering benchmark-beating outcomes nationwide. But the reverse is also true: IntoUniversity has played a central role in Impetus’ own understanding of what impact means in practice – demonstrating what is required for intentional, sustainable growth.

A foundation of honesty and trust

Rachel: At IntoUniversity, our team takes great pride in the data-driven approach to impact that Impetus helped instil from the very beginning. Impact data isn’t just about reporting to donors; it’s a critical tool for assessing the impact and effectiveness of our programmes, and we use it to drive improvements both locally and nationally, ensuring the best possible support for young people.

But this level of self-reflection and transparency on impact also requires openness from us as a charity and trust from Impetus as a funder – a dynamic that has been integral to the partnership’s long-term success. Throughout the relationship, successive Impetus

Investment Directors have made it a priority to know the charity inside and out: our operations, our strengths, our weaknesses, and how best to support our evolution. This foundation of mutual trust and honesty has been a consistent theme for 17 years.

An impact exemplar for the future

Now, as IntoUniversity enters the Impetus Alumni Network, we begin a new stage in our relationship, recognising IntoUniversity as an “impact exemplar.” After 17 years, we're still very much partners. We hope to continue learning from each other and to collaborate on broader questions around systems change and policy, where our missions align.

This graduation is not an end, but an evolution – and a testament to long-term, intentional partnerships in the charity sector. It is a relationship that has been truly transformational, not just for IntoUniversity, but for Impetus, and, most importantly, for the tens of thousands of young people whose lives have been changed for the better.

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