Collaborative Future

Helping unemployed young people with the Collaborative Future Advisory Board

Helping Collaborative Future make a difference where we cannot.

Impact measured against UN Sustainable Development Goals

05 gender equality S 08 decent work and economic growth S 10 reduced inequalities S
View impact report

Intention

Having partnered with Collaborative Future in a number of initiatives, we deeply believe in their mission to make the world of work a more equal place. We formally and informally have helped to guide their positioning and communication, so that they can grow their impact and reach.

Rania, one of our product managers, sits on Collaborative Future’s advisory board, having been through one of their cohorts.

Directorship on the board of Collaborative Future allows me the opportunity to do what I can to support fellow risk-takers, who know what they want to do and not necessarily what they want to be, in finding their own fit.

Rania Nur, Collaborative Future Director and William Joseph Product Manager

85%

of CF alumni are in employment or education

33

young people have been supported by CF into employment

Results

  • Collaborative Future are currently running their fourth iteration of their work placement programme, having supported 33 young people into paid work so far.
  • 85% of young people who have joined a past Collaborative Future programme were in full or part-time employment, further training or education within 3 months of the end of the programme.
  • They have led 17+ recruitment and DEI consultancy projects with as many organisations, including Catalyst, Parkinsons’ UK, Local Trust and Dark Matter Labs.
  • Turnover has grown from 90k to 163k in one year despite being unfunded.

Collaborative Future have enabled William Joseph to make meaningful improvements to the accessibility of our industry. They’ve done so in the most collaborative and practical of ways, helping us meet and work with some truly inspiring people. The team’s approach to scaling their programme is really innovative, focusing on how they can empower others to be the change that is needed, rather than creating another centralised power structure. This can look messy and sometimes hard to understand, but is clearly a bold strategy that is centred on what’s needed, rather than what’s easiest.

James Gadsby Peet, Director of Digital, William Joseph

What’s next?

As successful as Collaborative Future are, they are keen to grow their impact in a way that doesn’t mean they simply become a new centre of power.

We are helping them to identify streams of funding that allow them to help others to implement their own programmes and initiatives, that can be run following Collaborative Future’s models but without their direct involvement.

We will be working with them to support an ongoing design internship cohort for William Joseph and other agencies, to improve accessibility for people from different backgrounds to get into the industry.