History
1994
Changemakers is founded by Jim Cogan, Michael Norton and John Potter. Dave Turner, an expat Aussie, helps them to establish the first 6 pilot projects in schools.
1995
Thanks largely to the fame of Michael's stripy socks, we secure our first major funding from a consortium of charitable trusts, including Tudor, Esmee Fairbairn and Wates.
1996
We commission think tank Demos to explore the potential of active learning in the community as an important part of the educational process, and sow the seeds for the later development of citizenship education in schools.
1997
Tony Blair finds time in his hectic first year as Prime Minister to introduce our suggestion of a national youth volunteering programme and creates Millennium Volunteers.
1998
We roll out our ideas to Scotland and Northern Ireland. They don't catch on, so we unroll. However, we have more success in Bristol, Newcastle and London.
1999
We open our first office in deepest Somerset. You can see cows from the window.
2000
We launch our flagship youth leadership development programme. The Lloyds TSB Foundation is kind enough to put their hands in their pockets to back our idea. It's still going strong today.
2001
A very clever man called Bernard Crick (sadly no longer with us) is commissioned by David Blunkett, the Education Secretary, to set up citizenship education in schools. We get to try it out in 22 schools in Cambridgeshire. Sir Bernard gets a knighthood. Meanwhile, Jane Buckley becomes our first Chief Executive.
2002
We help Sir Howard Davies with his review of enterprise education in Schools. Kiffer Weisselberg becomes our Chair and we become a limited company.
2003
We develop our new social enterprise programme in schools. Aussie Dave is back in his homeland and helps us to develop our first international foray in Western Australia. Everyone is jealous of Jane, who gets to go and cut the red tape.
2004
The late great Anita Roddick helps us celebrate our 10th birthday. Adam Nichols succeeds Jane as Chief Executive. We launch Y SPEAK, the country’s biggest ever youth led grants scheme. Over the next 18 months, young people distribute over £1m to their peers. We open an office in Newcastle. There is a lovely view of the Angel of the North. We open an office in London. There is a less lovely view of Waterloo Bus Station.
2005
Prime Minister Tony Blair ‘apologises' for nicking our name in his Labour Party conference speech and endorses our work in Prime Minister's Question Time. We launch the Big Boost with UnLtd, the Prince's Trust and the Scarman Trust which distributes over £8m to young social entrepreneurs over the next 3 years. Changemakers is strongly featured in the final report of the Russell Commission on the future of youth volunteering. Our globetrotting continues with projects in India, Bangladesh, Lithuania and Romania. We wave goodbye to Somerset. The cows look sad. We move our London office to Aldgate. There is a fantastic East End boozer called the Dog and Truck right opposite which becomes our second office.
2006
We work with the newly elected Conservative Party leader David Cameron to help him to develop some fresh ideas around youth policy which later become National Citizen Service. Thanks in part to our hugely successful Y SPEAK programme, the government introduces the new Youth Opportunity and Capital Funds, which place young people in control of £70m of local authority youth budgets per year. v, the government's new youth volunteering body, is launched and we are subsequently commissioned to develop the volunteering infrastructure in fifteen boroughs across England. There's something in the water as 4 of our team are expecting babies.
2007
We help the government to develop Aiming High, its new 10 year youth strategy, and our youth leadership methodology is now enshrined in national policy. We're all very sad as Jim, one of our founders, dies long before his time should have been up, having achieved a massive amount for young people in this country and Africa. Adam becomes a regular visitor to Number 10, advising Gordon Brown, the new Prime Minister, on his new flagship youth leadership initiative. They serve very nice tea and biscuits.
2008
We double in size to 28 people and open a new office in Birmingham. We are now working directly with over 7,000 young people, and reaching over 31,000 per year. We launch a new leadership programme for young Muslims in London, later expanding to Birmingham. Kiffer retires to his lovely house in Crete and is replaced as Chair of our Board by Richard Roberts.
2009
We are part of the consortium appointed to deliver The Youth of Today, the government's new National Body for Youth Leadership, and launch the initiative with the Prime Minister, who recoils at the glare of Scott's pink shirt. We begin projects focused on the criminal justice system in Birmingham and the arts sector in Newcastle. We contribute to Sir Jim Rose's review of the primary curriculum and are appointed a strategic partner of the Department for Communities and Local Government. Our international empire expands further with projects in Oman, Saudi Arabia and Gambia. Our London team expands to a new office in trendy Shoreditch, once the top secret location for the printing of war bonds.
2010
Our staff team now numbers over 40 people, we break £3m annual turnover for the first time and our work reaches over 12,000 young people across the country. We launch a new lottery funded programme to establish young people as commissioners of public services. We develop a highly successful new strand of work focusing on some of the most disadvantaged young people, particularly those not in education, employment and training and those who have come into contact with the criminal justice system. We advise the new coalition government on various elements of its youth and ‘Big Society’ policy and Commons Speaker John Bercow hosts a high profile event in his state rooms, where there is an enormous bed. Following a 12 month strategic review we rebrand and relaunch at a spectacular event at The Gherkin.
