About

Our overall thesis is that

·       Youth Mental Health and Suicide rates are alarming, especially in the post-pandemic world. There is increased concern about the future for young people as climate anxiety and financial insecurity dominate the media landscape. 

·       We believe that in this space, there are many charities delivering a disparate range of programs, however, these programs are not sustainable enough to have an ongoing impact.  

·       There is inequality in access to programs, tools, and resources across Australia, in particular, based geographically and on socio-economic status.

·       The Youth Impact Foundation believes that by producing a new model for the Youth Charity Sector, we can deliver more sustainable and more impactful programs for young people across Australia and beyond. 

·       The Youth Impact Foundation is a systems change project that, over five years will validate and grow a model of charity integration and collaboration that will have applicability across multiple charity sectors. 

·       The Youth Impact Foundation has developed a model that amplifies the impact on youth and reduces duplication between charities. 

·       We amplify the impact of programs that affect young people by increasing the capacity of organisational program delivery through streamlining operations and service delivery.  

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What is the problem? 

The Youth Impact Foundation sees two core problems: The current state of the Youth Charity Sector and the current state of Youth Mental Health in Australia. 

The Youth Charity Sector (As we see it) 

Within Australia, there is an abundance of well-meaning and passionate Youth Mental Health charities that work tirelessly as they seek to improve the lives of young people across Australia and beyond. The reality is that many of these organisations operate within silos leading to a disjointed, duplicated, inefficient and fragmented youth charity sector.  

What this looks like: 

·       There are thousands of youth charities in Australia all trying to make a difference to young people’s wellbeing / mental health.  

·       Between these charities there is considerable duplication and inefficiency in both back office and service delivery.  

·       Passionate vision-lead leaders often run these charities and struggle to take their charity to a sustainable level for ongoing operation.  

·       This leads to burnout with leaders often struggling to find sustainable long-term business models and build succession plans for their organisation's ongoing success.  

·       The sector would greatly benefit from increased collaboration between youth charities to strengthen the sector and outcomes for young people. 

·       Often youth charities collaborate from a ‘what’s in it for me’ approach rather than using the opportunity to problem solve and re-think ways of working, contributing to the low success rate of collaborative projects.  

·       Talent is lost to the corporate sector driven by the sporadic nature of employment, lack of clear career progression, and low compensation within the youth sector.

The State of Youth Mental Health in Australia. 

Youth Mental Health and Suicide rates are alarming, especially in the post-pandemic world. There is increased concern about the future for young people as climate anxiety and financial insecurity dominate the media landscape. We also recognise a disparity in access to support, programs, and other preventative measures for remote and regional young people, as well as amongst marginalised and disadvantaged communities.

What this looks like: 

·       Post-covid youth mental ill-health rates are increasing, and suicide rates are not reducing. 

·       Suicide continues to cause the largest loss of life of young people in Australia.¹ 

·       Schools are reporting more relational issues between young people than ever before. 

·       The annual prevalence of mental ill health in 16 to 24-year-olds has surged from 26% in 2007 to 39% in 2021.²  

·       74% of young people reported their mental health was worse since COVID-19.³

·       Over 75% of mental health issues occur before the age of 25,¹ and 50% of mental health disorders begin before the age of 14 years. Prevention and early intervention are paramount if we want to reduce the lifetime prevalence of mental health disorders.⁴

1. Beyond Blue 2. The National Mental Health Survey 3. Headspace report 4. Murdoch Children's Research Institute

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What is our solution? 

We believe working together as a sector rather than in silos will address these issues better. Central to this is our belief in doing so, leading to our programs being more sustainable and growing our young people into leaders who can use their voices to contribute to society and lead us into the future. 

The Youth Impact Foundation seeks to connect, integrate, and enable charities focusing on youth mental health, wellbeing, and leadership to expand their reach and amplify the impact on young people. We achieve this by focusing on increasing sustainability, expanding reach, and leveraging people networks in away that charities would likely never achieve on their own. 

What this looks like: 

·       Reduced duplication and amplify impact for greater sustainability of youth program delivery by building one sustainable organisation uniting multiple organisations working with young people. 

·       Merge or connect organisations to build a foundation for programs to thrive, multiple brands facing the community working with each brand, maintaining its unique brand and program delivery to the market. 

·       Enables us to approach stakeholders as one organisation with multiple offerings, allowing them to pick and choose values-aligned programs for their young people. Which provides for longer-term, more sustainable program delivery. 

·       Sets a vision of creating long-term financial and personnel sustainability where we can provide more consistent access to programs and camps for those marginalised and disadvantaged communities and provide work for skilled staff, access to development opportunities, and a talent pipeline. 

·       The ability to network with, attract, and potentially integrate additional like-minded charities from within the sector to strengthen their capabilities further. Doing so leads to more robust outcomes for the sector but, more importantly, more substantial results for young people. 

Each brand retains its identity and unique program delivery while allowing The Youth Impact Foundation to maximise the unique value propositions of each subsidiary to the communities they serve whilst achieving economies of scale into a broader group structure. 

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