It’s critical that young people have every opportunity to do well at school, allowing them the best chance of succeeding in life. We were delighted to help Action Tutoring develop a strategy to grow sustainably. It was an incredibly worthwhile project, I’d encourage others to join Impetus’ pro bono network.
– Simon Turner, Bain & Company
Pro bono supporter: Bain & Company
Charity partner: Action Tutoring
Project type: Growth strategy
Action Tutoring provides trained high-quality volunteer tutors to support young people from disadvantaged backgrounds to pass their maths and English GCSEs. Young people like Malyoon. Our Life After School research shows that without Level 2 qualifications (GCSE or equivalent) in maths and English, it’s harder for these young people to access A Levels and university, apprenticeships and employment. That’s why Action Tutoring’s work is so important.
Over the past three years, Impetus has helped Action Tutoring implement changes from their Driving Impact workshop. This has resulted in a stronger programme – with a structured curriculum, more intensive tutoring, and new performance management processes – so that they can have an even bigger impact on the young people they support.
Next, the team at Action Tutoring wanted to think about growth. They wanted to grow both financially and sustainably over the next three years. But they needed support with how to do this.
In partnership with the Centerbridge Foundation and Bain & Company, we are backing Action Tutoring to deliver free, effective and high-quality GCSE tutoring to more young people. We plan to expand this collaboration over time in support of a targeted portfolio of charities that are ready to scale their impact.
As part of this, Bain provided Action Tutoring with pro bono support (Bain has also been a long-term pro bono supporter and donor of Impetus). The project started with a one hour scoping session between Action Tutoring, Bain and Impetus. Bain put together a team of three for this project – led by manager Simon Turner.
Over nine weeks, the Bain team worked with Action Tutoring through a series of workshops and interviews, involving their senior management team, board of trustees and Impetus. First, they reviewed the group’s alignment on the ambitions of the charity. They looked at: the programme area (English and maths); the age range of the beneficiaries; and the geography of the programme.
Next, Bain helped Action Tutoring review the markets that they work in, so that they could assess how fast to grow and how to manage cost whilst expanding. With this in mind, they also reviewed how to improve volunteer recruitment and retention. Throughout this project, Bain worked with Action Tutoring’s senior management team to clarify any assumptions that they had – which was great as it meant that the project always stayed on target to deliver the support Action Tutoring needed.
Thanks to Simon and the Bain team, Action Tutoring now has a three year growth strategy. It details the charity’s plans for growth according to geographical region, and has incorporated changes they’ve made around how their programme is coordinated and deployed. This pro bono work is already proving valuable to Action Tutoring – as the team start work on the expansion of their charity and their valuable work with young people.
