Accenture donation helps secure 3,500 jobs in UK

Consulting firm Accenture has reinforced its commitment to youth charity The Prince’s Trust by donating an additional amount of £200,000 – to be used for skills training for 7,000 young people in the UK. The training will be part of the ‘Get Into’ programme and aims at securing jobs for 3,500 of them. In addition, Accenture will assist in a new mentor programme.

In 1976 Prince Charles founded youth charity The Prince’s Trust with the aim to help young people, aging from 13 to 30 years, in the UK get their lives on track. The charity focuses on four priority target groups: long-term unemployed, people who have been in trouble with the law, people who are in difficulty at school, and people who have been in care. To support these groups, the charity runs different training programmes through which it provides practical and financial support needed to stabilise lives, help develop self-esteem and skills for work. Three in four young people assisted by the charity move into work, education or training, says the non-profit institution, and since its foundation, it has helped 750,000 young people.

Accenture
As part of its corporate citizenship initiative, Skills to Succeed*, consulting firm Accenture has decided to partner with The Prince’s Trust in 2012 and help expand the reach of its flagship employability programme ‘Get Into’. This programme offers intensive training and work experience to young people between the ages of 16 to 25 in different sectors with the aim of providing them with professional and industry-specific job skills.

Recently, the firm announced an additional donation of £200,000**, which will be used to provide skills training to 7,000 young people in the UK this year, with the goal of helping to secure employment for 3,500. The grant will consist of a mix of funding and the time and skills of Accenture employees. “The Get into program is at the heart of what we do at The Prince’s Trust. Within just a few weeks, young people gain the skills and confidence required to kick-start their way into the working world,” comments Tara Leathers, Director of fundraising at The Prince’s Trust. “The support being offered by Accenture – not only financial but also the expertise of its employees – is invaluable to the disadvantaged young people we support; helping them move from the very back of the job queue, right up to the front and into permanent roles and careers.”

In addition to this additional funding, the firm will help develop the charity’s new mentoring programme, through which mentors will provide personalised support and guidance to young people, helping them in their search for jobs, practice interview techniques, set future goals and improve their confidence.

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Accenture is not the only consulting firm that has partnered with The Prince’s Trust, Capita partnered with The Prince’s Trust in 2014 and recently announced its support the charity’s national entrepreneurial fundraising competition ‘Million Makers’.

* Accenture’s ‘Skills to Succeed’ initiative addresses the global need for skills that open doors to employment and economic opportunity. The effort plans to equip more than 700,000 people globally by 2015 with the skills to get a job or build a business. Another initiative of Accenture as part of its ‘Skills to Succeed’ is its Talent Growth Initiative, for which it partnered with Ashoka.

** With this additional contribution, Accenture’s total donation will equal £1.2 million, helping 22,000 young people receive the skills training.