Ernst & Young measures up for the Private Equity Foundation
Ernst & Young has worked with leading venture philanthropy fund, the Private Equity Foundation (PEF), and helped it initiate pioneering work into the measurement and evaluation of the success of charities’ interventions. The move followed PEF’s own commissioned research which discovered an almost total lack of data for measuring attributable impact within its specialist sector of young people not in education, employment or training (NEET).1
Shaks Ghosh, Chief Executive of PEF, said “The problems faced by young people who are NEET are myriad and complex however with close to no hard data, there is no way through the maze to quantify what works best for them. Our portfolio of charities puts PEF in a unique position to begin to look into whether there is a common way to measure impact and we are extremely grateful to Ernst & Young for helping us kick start this long term project.”
Ernst & Young provided the services of one of its staff, Mark Porteous, who set about analysing the current financial and operating reporting capabilities of a core selection of PEF’s charities. His work has formed the basis from which PEF can start to understand and improve their metrics, create alignment and apply private equity methods and tools to the reporting process. The long term aim is to be able to quantify social impact and return on donations to better understand what impact PEF is having on the NEET problem.
Mark Porteous commented “Working with PEF was a fantastic opportunity to gain experience in the charitable sector and to use my commercial skillset to make a real contribution to the valuable work that PEF has undertaken, as well as to strengthen the relationship between PEF and Ernst & Young.”
In addition Ernst & Young, which is committed to making a difference to its local communities through helping charities and individuals achieve their potential, has also been involved with helping PEF with due diligence during its charity selection process. For Eva Goracz of Ernst & Young LLP, the role was not dissimilar to the “day job”. However, it opened her eyes to some of the pressures felt by the charity sector such as resourcing, funding and stakeholder management.
John Harley, Ernst & Young’s Head of Private Equity in EMEIA, added “Our involvement with PEF is of mutual benefit and is important to us. For our people it offers a real opportunity to apply their skills in a different environment and to deliver on our responsibilities to our local community, which helps us contribute significantly to PEF and their charities. It is a relationship which we want to continue to flourish in the future.”
1Research Findings, Issue 1, “Wasted Potential: young people not engaged in education, employment or training”, conducted by Matrix Knowledge Group, 2008
For further information please contact Rosie Davey at rosie@privateequityfoundation.org or call 020 7749 5129 / 07827 804066
