Impact Makers

A youth enterprise programme for young people who want to make a difference.

Impact Makers helps young people turn ideas for positive change into ventures that create both income and impact.

We show them how it actually works — from funding and customers to partnerships and paid contracts.

Book a free session

Free introductory sessions for organisations working with 16–24s.

Young people taking part in an Impact Makers session

We tell young people to do good. Why don’t we teach them how to get paid for it?

We tell them to care about their communities.

Volunteer
Help out
Speak up
Make a difference

And then we rarely show them how any of that could become a living.

Impact Makers changes that. We show young people how to take an idea that helps people and build something that can make money too — and build an income around making that difference.

There’s a name for that Social enterprise.

A way to make money and make a difference. Most young people know the usual route — learn something, get qualified, find a job. That’s a good route. It’s just not the only one. Impact Makers exists to show young people how the other one actually works.

How it actually works

So, where does the money come from?

This is the bit that often gets missed. It’s one thing to tell a young person they can start something. It’s another to show them how that something actually gets paid for.

01Spot a real need: Something people or communities actually need help with.
02Evidence the need: Ask the people affected and gather the proof. Funders and customers back evidence, not hunches.
03Turn an idea into an offer: What are you actually going to do, and for whom?
04Work out who pays: Customers, organisations, funders or commissioners.
05Find funding: Where grants come from and what funders look for.
06Build partnerships: Who could open doors, refer people or work with you?
07Win paid work: How contracts, commissions and customers actually happen.
08Take the first step: Turn “I’ve got an idea” into something real.

Because “go and make a difference” is easy advice to give.

Knowing how to make it work is something we can teach.

A film set with a director monitoring a scene — Film & content

A producer working at a mixing desk — Music & audio

Impact Makers programmes

Different ideas. Same goal.

Help a young person turn “I want to do something” into “here’s how I’m going to make it happen.” Our programme routes take different starting points, but they all teach the practical side of building something that can generate income and create impact.

Creative route

Creative Impact Accelerator

Make something from what you can create.

For young people with skills or ideas in art, photography, design, content, performance, fashion and other creative fields. Learn how to turn creative work into an offer people want to pay for — while using it to make a difference.

Spot a need their work could meet
Shape and price an offer
Find customers and funding
Build useful partnerships
Win contracts and commissions
Market their work without a big budget

Best for: young people who already create something and want to explore where it could take them.

Social enterprise route

Business for Impact

Start something that makes money and makes a difference.

For young people who can see something they’d like to change — and wonder whether they could build the solution themselves.

Turn a problem into a workable idea
Understand different ways to set it up
Work out where income could come from
Find and apply for funding
Build partnerships
Go after customers, contracts and commissions

Best for: young people with an idea for something that could help people, their community or a cause they care about.

Why Impact Makers exists

I didn’t learn this from a textbook.

I’m Alexandra Leo. Five years ago, I started Leo’s Circus CIC in Slough.

£349,000: generated in income
5 years: running a social enterprise
Slough → London & the South East: grown from one local area into multiple boroughs
Local authorities: commissioned to deliver publicly funded work

But none of that happened because somebody handed me a roadmap. I had to learn how to make it work.

How to spot a need. How to turn that need into something organisations would pay for. How to find funding, build partnerships, win contracts and manage the money — and how to put in place the safeguarding and governance that public funders expect.

In other words, I had to learn how you actually get paid for doing good. And that’s where the idea for Impact Makers came from.

What if young people didn’t have to work all of that out for themselves?

We tell young people to make a difference. I want to show them the practical steps that can turn that desire to help into something sustainable — something that creates income, creates impact and, potentially, creates opportunities for other people too.

Impact Makers takes the lessons I learned building Leo’s Circus and passes them on.

Free for organisations this autumn

Give us 90 minutes with your young people.

And let’s get them asking a different question: “What could I build?”

The Good Business Workshop is a free introductory Impact Makers session for 16–24s. We’ll introduce young people to the idea that doing good and making money don’t have to be two separate things.

Through real examples and practical exercises, we’ll get them thinking about:

What problem could I help solve?
What could I create around it?
Who might pay for it?
Where could funding come from?
Who could I work with?
What’s one thing I could do next?

And they’ll leave with three practical next steps for an idea of their own.

And we’re listening too. Impact Makers is still being built. Rather than sit in a room and decide what young people need, we want to hear it from them. That’s why we’re running these sessions with organisations across London and the South East. The session stands on its own — and what we learn from young people will help shape the longer Impact Makers programmes that follow.

Built with young people. Not just for them.

Length: 90 minutes
Group size: Up to 25
Ages: 16–24
Cost: Free
You provide: A room
We provide: Everything else

Bring Impact Makers to your organisation

Work with Impact Makers

You already have the young people. Let’s show them another route.

If you work with young people who are thinking about their future, Impact Makers can fit alongside what you’re already doing. Start small. Bring us in for a free session. See what your young people think. And if there’s an appetite for more, we can talk about what comes next.

Youth & community organisations

Bring us to your young people.

We’ll come to your organisation and run a free Good Business Workshop around what you already have happening.

No programme to buy first. No long commitment. Let the young people experience it — then we’ll talk.

Book a free session →

Colleges, training providers & employability teams

Show learners another route into work.

Employment isn’t the only possible destination. Impact Makers can introduce learners to social enterprise, self-employment and building something of their own.

Start with a free pilot on your site. See the delivery and how your learners respond, then decide whether there’s something worth building together.

Arrange a free pilot →

Let’s talk

Let’s turn good ideas into something more.

Maybe they already have ideas.
Maybe they’re creative.
Maybe they care about something happening where they live.
Or maybe they have absolutely no idea what they want to do next.

That’s okay. Impact Makers is about showing them a route they may never have considered.

Tell me a little about your young people and I’ll come back to you quickly — or just put a free session in the diary and let them experience it for themselves.

Email Alexandraalex@impact-makers.co.uk Based inSlough, Berkshire Delivering acrossLondon & the South East

Request a free session

No cost, no commitment. I’ll reply within a couple of days.