Inspiring the Future celebrates 35,000 volunteers

Our own John Woodward is a volunteer working with Inspiring the Future, which puts professionals in the same room as school kids to inspire them for future career selection. And now John makes up one of over 35,000 volunteers registered across the whole country.

Inspiring the Future is celebrating this fact, with volunteers at all levels from apprentice to CEO, and all sectors from archaeologist to zoologist. Teachers and careers professionals have sent over 30,000 invitations to volunteers on the system and in two terms have supported over 100,000 young people at events across the country, reaching 1,325,000 young people in total.

Now they want to ensure 2017 is their biggest year yet in enabling schools to connect with volunteers. If you'd like to get involved, please visit the Inspiring the Future website.

Inspiring the Future has made a million connections between young people and employee volunteers

Inspiring the Future, the government scheme setup to get industry leaders volunteering and visiting schools, is something John has been a part of since the very start. We've written about it a few times on our sister site Demolish and Dismantle. It even led to Matt Birch getting a job with us as a trainee engineer because he heard John speak at his school and then wrote for work experience.

Now the scheme is four years old, and they've sent John an update you can read below:

Dear John

Inspiring the Future was launched in July 2012, and today we are publishing a four year review. We wanted to take this opportunity to write and thank you for helping to make a difference to the aspirations and life opportunities of the next generation of young people in the U.K.

Over 5,500 state schools, including 85% of secondary schools and colleges, have signed up and over 10,000 teachers have collectively sent 135,000 invitations to volunteers. As a result, over a million new connections have been made between young people and employee volunteers.

You can read the story of Inspiring the Future in our special 4 year review published today: Inspiring the Future 2012 - 16 (PDF)

There are now over 30,000 volunteers signed up to Inspiring the Future and its Inspiring Women and Primary Futures Campaigns. We are constantly striving to improve and make our service even better, and recently launched the new 'mapping' option on volunteer profiles, allowing you to volunteer within a 40 minute radius of your chosen address. We will be making further upgrades over the summer. We value your feedback, so please do get in touch if you have any questions or suggestions about any aspect of the Inspiring the Future experience.

If you don't already, then please follow us on twitter - @Edu_Employers. As always we have just one simple ask - that you forward this email to one friend or colleague and encourage them to also sign up to Inspiring the Future. Together we can really make a difference.

Best wishes

The Inspiring the Future Team

This is fantastic news, and long may it continue!