If you fund programmes that support young people, unemployed graduates, or early-stage enterprise—we would like to make the case for EmergIT.
Graduate unemployment is not a temporary problem.
The number of UK graduates who are unemployed or working in roles that do not require a degree has been rising for years. The causes are structural, not cyclical. AI-driven automation is eliminating graduate-level entry roles across law, finance, marketing, technology, and professional services. Graduate schemes are shrinking. The pipeline from degree to meaningful employment is narrowing.
Graduates after the shift.
The graduates bearing the cost of this shift are not failed students or people who made poor choices. They are people who did everything right—worked hard, studied, graduated—and arrived at a job market that had moved on without them.
The social cost of leaving this cohort without meaningful support is significant. The economic cost of not making use of the skills, energy, and ideas they represent is greater still.
Our response to the problem.
EmergIT acts as a genuine co-founder to unemployed and underemployed graduates who want to build a business. We provide a £5,000 grant in two milestone-based tranches, a real co-founder relationship with active involvement in the venture, AI tools and platform access, a structured milestone framework, and a peer cohort community.
An outcomes‑first programme.
We do not run workshops and hand out certificates. We build alongside the graduates we support—with money, time, tools, and genuine commitment—until they have a trading business generating real revenue.
The programme is designed to produce outcomes that can be evidenced: ventures launched, revenue generated, jobs created, grant money disbursed to milestone, co-founder hours invested per graduate.
We are currently in Phase 1—the founding sprint—building the platform and programme infrastructure and recruiting the five founding co-founders who will lead the organisation. The full graduate programme opens Autumn 2026.
What we are raising and what it will achieve.
EmergIT is seeking its founding institutional grant of £250,000. This funding will cover:
- The operating costs of the founding sprint phase—platform development, legal and governance infrastructure, programme design
- The first cohort of graduate ventures supported through the full programme from Autumn 2026
- The grant disbursements to the first cohort—£5,000 per graduate venture, paid in milestone-based tranches
- The co-founder support infrastructure—tools, platform access, mentor network development
- The financial reserves required by the CIC to demonstrate ongoing viability to the CIC Regulator
The cost of supporting one graduate through the full EmergIT programme—from application to launched, trading venture—is significantly lower than the cost of leaving that graduate on Universal Credit for the same period, and the return in terms of economic activity, tax revenue, and employment created is measurable.
We are happy to share our detailed financial model, programme unit economics, and three-year projections with any funder who requests them.
How EmergIT is structured and regulated.
EmergIT is a Community Interest Company (CIC) limited by guarantee, registered in England and Wales and regulated by the CIC Regulator at Companies House.
We are not a registered charity. We want to be direct about that because we know it is relevant to some funders’ eligibility criteria.
A CIC is a company that is legally required to operate for the benefit of the community. Our statutory asset lock means that our assets and profits cannot be distributed to our directors or members—every penny generated by EmergIT is locked into the programme and the community it serves. This provides a level of structural protection for funder confidence that goes beyond good intentions.
We chose the CIC model because the EmergIT programme requires both charitable purpose and commercial activity to work. The revenue share arrangements with the ventures we support, the service contract income from our platform, and the consulting and licensing revenues we intend to generate in time all require a structure that can trade. The CIC provides that structure while maintaining the statutory community commitment that underpins our relationship with graduates and funders.
Our community interest statement and asset lock declaration are filed annually with the CIC Regulator and are available on request. We are happy to provide our full governance documentation, CIC constitution, and director details to any funder carrying out due diligence.
If your fund requires registered charity status—please read this.
Some trust and foundation funders have eligibility criteria that require applicants to hold registered charity status with the Charity Commission. EmergIT does not hold that status and cannot apply to funds with that requirement.
We understand and accept that. We are not asking funders to bend their rules.
What we are asking.
We are, however, asking funders who have flexibility in their eligibility criteria—or who are in the process of reviewing those criteria—to consider whether the CIC model, with its statutory asset lock and CIC Regulator oversight, provides the governance assurance they are looking for under a different regulatory framework.
If you are not sure whether EmergIT is eligible for your fund, the best approach is a direct conversation. We are happy to provide whatever documentation or information would help you make that assessment.
How funders work with EmergIT.
We are not looking for a transactional grant relationship. We are looking for funders who want to understand what we are building and stay connected to it.
Funder involvement and impact accountability.
In practice, involvement looks like: regular impact reporting tied to programme milestones, an open invitation to visit and meet the founding team and the graduates we support, named recognition in our communications and on our website if desired, and a direct line to Ian Rea and the founding team for any questions or conversations that arise.
We report against outcomes, not activities. The metrics that matter to us are the same metrics that should matter to any funder: ventures launched, revenue generated, graduates moved from unemployment to self-employment, grant money disbursed to milestone.
Ian Rea
Founding Director, EmergIT CIC
ianrea@emergit.org