Impetus-PEF has announced its largest ever venture philanthropy funding package, worth nearly £8m for three youth charities.

The three charities to receive funding are the Access Project, Action Tutoring and Resurgo. Educational charity Action Tutoring will receive over £2m from Impetus-PEF over three years, while youth unemployment charity Resurgo will receive £3.5m over the three years. The Access Project will receive almost £2.5m of leveraged funding over three years.

The leveraged funding figures comes from the cash value of a total of almost £2.8m awarded to the three charities, and then calculated by Impetus-PEF on a funding ratio of 2.74.

The £8m total includes value added through pro-bono experts deployed in portfolio charities and through partnership investment. In cash terms, Resurgo received £1.2m, Access Project received £840,000 and Action Tutoring received £800,000.

Julia Grant (pictured), chief executive at Impetus-PEF, said: “At a time when charities are under increasing operational scrutiny, the principles of venture philanthropy have never been so pertinent. Charities working with young people must focus their activities to deliver real and lasting impact to those communities they serve.”

“Impetus-PEF’s work with these charities will focus on operational performance and help ensure they deliver a lasting and real change. It can take several years for charities to benefit from focusing on impact, but when combined with effective performance management it means scale can be quickly and effectively achieved.”

Venture philanthropy takes concepts and techniques from venture capital and applies them to achieving a social, rather than financial, return.

Since its inception in 2005 and December 2014, Impetus–PEF has provided £69m of resources for charities and social enterprises, consisting of long-term unrestricted funding, management support and pro-bono services.