Dame Julia Cleverdon DCVO CBE and Amanda Jordan OBE were asked by David Cameron, the Prime Minister at the time, to review how sectors could work together to support young people to engage in social action. They looked at the Government itself, alongside education, business and voluntary sectors.

It was the recommendations of the report they produced that led to the creation of the #iwill campaign - to “bring all sectors together to contribute to making our country a place where the majority of young people are involved in social action and are encouraged, recognised and valued for their contribution to society.”

Dame Julia Cleverdon DCVO CBE and Amanda Jordan OBE co-founded the #iwill Campaign. HRH The Prince of Wales, as patron, joined the three main Party Leaders in Westminster to launch Step Up To Serve and the #iwill campaign at Buckingham Palace in November 2013. They came together with children and young people passionate about social action, and leaders across sectors.

The co-founders knew that to create sustained behaviour change, all sectors, not just the government of the day, needed to commit to supporting the movement. It would also require cross-party support, and a bold ambitious goal to drive momentum and provide a sense of possibility. This goal was to ‘double the number of young people aged 10-20 years old taking part in meaningful youth social action by the end of 2020’. In real terms this would mean roughly 60% of young people would be participating.

Once the campaign kicked-off, the first goal was to get a better understanding of what youth social action was already happening across the UK. Together with initial #iwill partner organisations and young people, the campaign set about defining youth social action, finding where it was already being done well, and assessing the challenges ahead.

This led to the development of the six quality principles of youth social action, an understanding of the double benefit, and the National Youth Social Action Survey (NYSAS) in 2014.

As this new evidence emerged, it became clear that factors other than just the number of young people participating required attention, and so the target of 60% participation shifted. In particular the survey revealed that young people from lower socio-economic backgrounds are around 20% less likely to participate in social action. So the #iwill campaign’s goals became more refined to focus on closing the socio-economic gap in participation; improving the quality of opportunities; finding sustainable solutions to help young people develop a habit for life and make youth social action the norm for all young people.

In 2014, the first cohort of #iwill Ambassadors were recruited. These 50 inspiring young people from across the UK - from the age of 10-20, of all backgrounds and interests - were profiled in order to demonstrate the breadth and diversity of youth social action.

Since 2014, #iwill Ambassadors have played an increasingly integral role in the campaign. Through #iwill Steering Groups and the Step Up To Serve Trustee Board, opportunities to work with partners, and the campaign’s communications, they have inspired many #iwill partners to grow the #PowerOfYouth. In recent years, they’ve been meaningfully involved in the production of the #iwill strategy beyond 2020, and the #PowerOfYouth Charter.

There is now a 700-strong cohort of young people leading the campaign as #iwill Ambassadors and #iwill Champions. You can read more about their journey in Leaders of Now: The #iwill Ambassador Story.

Embedding youth social action in education was a priority from the start. The National Youth Social Action survey data confirmed that most young people get involved in social action through their school or college.

In 2015, 100 leaders from 50 schools and colleges came together to better understand what common principles help to create a culture in which all students were empowered to take action on real-world issues. These pioneering school and college leaders spread their collective vision and practice through their peer-to-peer networks and together shaped national policy.

Throughout the early years of the campaign, the #iwill Business Pioneers started to develop a blueprint for what the private sector could do in support of the #iwill vision. Many recognised the value of youth social action, and the multiple benefits it gave young people in making the transition to employment - as well as the value of having young people involved in decision making.

In 2015, the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) supported the campaign to articulate the benefits of holistically integrating youth social action in recruitment processes. Centrica supported Generation Change to prototype an interactive mapping tool of structured youth social action opportunities across the country. This work proved instrumental for the #iwill Fund as they now capture similar data on the creation of new youth social action opportunities across the 25 match funders.

Whilst the work with businesses started with ambition, and businesses have continued to invest in the work of Step Up To Serve throughout its lifetime, not enough progress has been made to put business at the heart of the #iwill movement. As we navigate an uncertain future and economy, it is crucial that more business leaders invest in and work with young people to shape a brighter future.

This year saw the #iwill campaign successfully secure buy-in from Government and The National Lottery Community Fund to build a new fund to help achieve the campaign’s goals. The fund began with an initial investment of £40m, which had a longer-term vision for collaboration, learning and sustainability at its heart.The #iwill Fund has gone on to create a partnership with 25 match funders and will have invested almost £100m by the time it spends out in 2023.

During this time, however, wider investment in services and opportunities for young people has declined. The youth sector, as just one example, has seen a 70% real terms loss of funding to the sector since 2010/11. These funding losses have meant the loss of the infrastructure that surrounds young people and supports them to be able to meaningfully participate in youth social action.

Launching at the 2017 #iwill Ambassadors welcome event, new research from the Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues helped shift the focus of the #iwill campaign towards the younger age ranges, supporting organisations to start early in order to make a ‘habit for life’.

The research, drawing on insights from over 4,500 young people surveyed, found that starting social action before the age of 10 makes you more than twice as likely to develop a habit than if you start at age 16. As a result, the #iwill Fund prioritised investing in under-14s and more funders came on board to open up opportunities for the younger ages.

To mark the 70th anniversary of the NHS, the #iwill campaign worked closely with NHS England and the NHS Youth Forum to promote the role of youth social action in the health and care sectors.

The role of youth social action in supporting the future of the NHS was further cemented in the NHS Long Term Plan, pledging to grow the number of young volunteers and acknowledged that volunteering enables young people to develop skills and experience for work and education. This work continues to grow from strength to strength, spearheaded by the work of NHS Trusts in involving young people in health and care settings.

2018 also saw Public Health England pledge support to the campaign, and endorse the benefits of youth volunteering in improving the health and wellbeing of young people and their communities.

In January 2019, organisations came together at ZSL London Zoo to launch #iwill4nature, a year of focused action on the environment as part of Defra’s Year of Green Action. This followed the publication of the Government’s 25 Year Environment Plan in 2018, which committed to “helping children and young people from all backgrounds to engage with nature and improve the environment”.

Amidst the global youth climate strikes, and millions of young people demanding urgent action to address the climate crisis, 2019 saw The Woodland Trust launch the first forest created and shaped by children and young people. During the Big Climate Fightback, children and young people came together with their wider communities to plant over 10,000 trees at the Young People’s Forest.

Following extensive lobbying coordinated by the #iwill campaign’s Scale & Reach Group in April 2019, Downing Street and the DCMS announced their commitment to the creation of a Youth Charter - a cross-departmental offer for young people, which promised to ensure young people’s voices were heard when shaping policy. The Scale & Reach Group, bringing together youth sector leaders and young people, has since continued to develop, with a Back Youth Alliance now meeting regularly to collaborate, share learnings and lobby together.

In autumn of the same year, this was followed by an announcement from the Government of the Youth Investment Fund, a £500m commitment across the life of the next Parliament to build and refurbish youth centres, invest in youth workers, and create enrichment opportunities for young people.

The COVID-19 pandemic gripped the globe, exacerbating existing societal challenges, with huge consequences for children and young people in terms of education, mental health, employment, and much more.

Despite these many challenges, young people across the UK proved that they could continue to help build a better future. Whether offering peer support, volunteering in healthcare settings, or connecting with isolated community members, young people have continued to make a huge difference.

#iwill partners and young people came together to campaign for the #PowerOfYouth throughout the pandemic, collaborating to ensure all young people could access support, take action, be heard and be celebrated.

Moving into 2020 and the agreed time-limit on Step Up To Serve drawing nearer, it was heard loud and clear from organisations and young people that they wanted to continue to build on the #iwill campaign’s momentum. When the Covid-19 pandemic hit, #iwill ambassadors and partners we asked the campaign’s collective work on #iwill was still relevant, and if so, how? What should the next five years of the #iwill movement look like? They were clear that the momentum created over the past seven years must continue and that growing the power of young people has never been needed more.

In Autumn 2020, the Power of Youth Charter was launched to encourage existing #iwill partners to recommit, and encourage new organisations to join the movement.