upReach Annual Report 2023-24 - Report - Page 38
Trustees’ Annual Report (Continued)
For The Year To 31 July 2024
Plans for Future Periods
At the 昀椀rst upReach Strategy Day involving our new CEO Nick Bent, in July 2023, our Board
and Senior Leadership Team agreed to keep our number of programme participants steady in
2023/24 – which we have achieved – with a view to returning to growth in Associate numbers
in subsequent years as part of a new plan to further improve Associate outcomes simultaneously.
As a team, we are pleased to have ended this past year poised for this renewed growth and
with a new and ambitious Strategy for the coming three years agreed and set to be announced.
Our 2024-2027 Strategy intentionally doubles down on what upReach is uniquely successful
at, namely our core employability programmes for our Associates; in order to sharpen our focus
on these core programmes, we will therefore be sunsetting or repro昀椀ling some
non-core programmes.
The title of our Strategy is ‘Unlocking Potential’ and these are the key elements of it:
By 2027, upReach has two main goals. Firstly, we aim to work with at least 3,300
undergraduates a year, sustainably increasing our reach from the 3,034 we currently support.
Secondly, having initiated an external review of our core programmes, we aim to have even more
robust, independently veri昀椀ed evidence for our effectiveness, principally by continuing to achieve
benchmark-beating graduate job outcomes for our Associates year-on-year.
upReach plans to achieve these goals by focusing on two key enablers. Firstly, we will invest in
our people and our technology, so that we can become a tech-powered, best-in-class charity
while maintaining our people-focused model with its unique one-to-one career guidance for
Associates. Secondly, upReach will inspire and engage more individuals and organisations and
create a step change in our income generation. By 2027, the charity aims to be raising more than
£5 million each year.
Signi昀椀cantly, the external review of our recent impact data has already begun, led by the National
Centre for Social Research. We are hugely grateful to the Hg Foundation, who are funding this
evaluation as part of our renewed partnership, and we expect to receive the outputs from the
research project by the summer of 2025.
Also, as highlighted last year, we have made good progress this past year on securing funding
and partnerships to launch impressive new programmes for our Associates in the 昀椀elds of
Motorsport and Net Zero in 2024/25.
In addition, in 2024/25 we hope to win yet more awards for the quality and impact of our work
and for our partnerships with employers and universities, as well as recruiting some new leaders
on social mobility to serve as Patrons alongside our longstanding champion, Baroness Helena
Kennedy KC.
Appointment of Trustees
All Trustees when appointed signed a declaration of known con昀氀icts of interest and the
Charity Commission’s Trustee Eligibility Declaration. They have all been appointed through
the following process:
• Annual assessment of need: At least once a year, the Board of Trustees consider if there is a
need for additional expertise or experience in a particular area. This should re昀氀ect both the
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