The Vodafone UK Foundation announces successful collaboration for 5m funding

Today The Vodafone UK Foundation announced the winner of its new flagship funding programme, Reach. A collaboration of four charities led by YouthNet in partnership with Rathbone, the Foyer Federation and Skill will share 5m funding across three years for work helping 16-25 year olds facing social exclusion.

The vision of the winning programme is to empower and equip all young people to make informed life choices about their work, study and training. The four charities will work with The Vodafone UK Foundation over the coming months to develop the detailed programme plan ready for launch in April 2008.

The Vodafone UK Foundation trustees selected the collaboration following a selection process that began in June of this year. The Foundationís trustees were particularly impressed by the inclusiveness of the programme and its substantial but realistic audience targets. The strength of collaboration shown by the charities and the real opportunity for sustainable capacity building within all charities were also important deciding factors.

Sarah Shillito, Head of The Vodafone UK Foundation comments,

ìThe winning charities truly showed that the collaboration would offer more than the sum of its parts and I am very confident that the programme will make a huge difference to the lives of thousands of young people.î

ìThe standard of applications for the Reach funding was exceptionally high, illustrating the professionalism within the sector today. Our aim in taking this approach to selecting our new flagship programme was to act as a catalyst for further successful collaborative working. From the positive feedback we have received from other applicants we believe that this has been achieved. ì

Reach is The Vodafone UK Foundationís second flagship funding programme, with the first bringing together Shelter, Samaritans and YouthNet in programmes to support 16-25 year olds.