Making the Leap

Founded in 1993, Making The Leap is a London-based charity that improves social mobility by raising the aspirations of, and increasing opportunities for, young people between the ages of 11 and 25. It believe every young person should have the chance to fulfil their potential. Its mission is to transform the futures of young people from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds by providing training to raise their aspirations and develop their skills, behaviours and confidence to succeed in a career. Last year it directly supported 11,915 young people from across 27 London Boroughs.

Secondary school students – It delivers a range of classroom based programmes and one day activities which run throughout the academic year designed to raise students aspirations and develop their character.

Young People – It delivers intensive programmes and activities for young people keen to fulfil their potential. It collaborates with its corporate partners to support our delivery in building young people’s employability skills, personal development and marketability whilst providing them with access to life changing employment opportunities. 70% of young people who attend its career programmes progress into employment, further education or training, with a focus on entry level roles that enable them to kick start their career.

Its programmes provide a variety of meaningful and popular employee engagement opportunities. These support companies to meet their CSR aims and provide employees with opportunities to utilise their skills to have a real impact on the lives of young people.

It also delivers bespoke recruitment drives to give companies access to audiences that are under-represented amongst their workforce. These projects not only provide young people with entry level career opportunities, but also support companies to widen the talent pool they have access to.

As an innovative charity, in 2017 Making the Leap launched the UK Social Mobility Awards, the only national awards event of its kind. These awards are about making the advancement of social mobility a key part of how organisations are run in this country. This extremely successful initiative is now in its fourth year and is supported by some of Britain’s largest corporations.