A new report has found Upside Youth Mentoring Aotearoa is creating $1,702,712 worth of measurable good for New Zealand each year.

The GoodMeasure report created by New Zealand company ImpactLab, found that for every dollar invested in Upside, there was $4.70 worth of measurable good created in the community.

The youth mentoring organisation, based in Auckland, aims to improve the lives of young people, aged 9-13 years who have faced Adverse Childhood Experiences. These experiences include abuse, neglect and household dysfunction.

An Upside mentoring relationship costs $3,545 for one year which means that each relationship creates over $18,000 of positive social value and over $1,700,000 in value for the whole community each year.

Upside Youth Mentoring Aotearoa CEO, Dave Robertson, says: “I’m absolutely thrilled with the results reported by Impact Lab’s GoodMeasure Report,”

“We have always known anecdotally that Upside makes a huge difference in the lives of the young people it serves. However having scientific evidence and quantitative data that shows that in fact we create a 470% return on investment is incredible.”

ImpactLab calculates social value as the social impact in dollar terms that a programme achieves for participants over their lifetime. They measure the impact on an individual’s wellbeing across multiple domains when they’re supported by a programme to make positive changes in their life.

The figures are calculated through ImpactLab’s own systems which involve gathering evidence from global literature about how effective a programme can be, the size of the opportunity for the people an organisation serves to achieve more positive outcomes and

the number of people supported.

By combining these inputs, the social value calculation helps ImpactLab understand how a programme or intervention helps change lives for the better. They then combine the social value with cost information to calculate a programme’s social return on investment.

Upside’s mentoring relationships create social value in these areas:

• Improving mental health for young people aged 9-13
• Improving educational attainment
• Improving physical health
• Avoiding child placement in foster care
• Avoiding family violence
• Avoiding addiction
• Reducing offending

Impact Lab Chief Executive Officer, Maria English, says that her team are thrilled with the results achieved by Upside.

“It was a pleasure to work alongside their dedicated and passionate team of staff and volunteers to prepare this GoodMeasure Report,”

“By providing mentoring services to young people with adverse childhood experiences, Upside Youth generates life-changing, long-term impact.”

English adds, “It is inspiring to see that Upside Youth Mentoring are using data collection and research to inform the design of their programmes. This helps ensure that money invested in their service is directly contributing to changing the lives of young people and their families.”

To read the full report, please see here.

About Upside Youth Mentoring Aotearoa

Upside Youth Mentoring (formerly known as Brothers In Arms) exists to support change in Aotearoa New Zealand's young people with adverse childhood experiences. Young people aged 9 -13 are referred to Upside because they have been identified as needing a consistent adult in their life to support them through their recovery from the trauma faced in their early years. Upside has been matching young people with mentors since 2006 and with over 700 matches and 6000 hours of mentoring a year, and seen time and time again the life-changing effects of this connection.

About ImpactLab

ImpactLab was created to empower funders and service providers to make informed decisions. ImpactLab believes it is critical to consider both the human stories and the hard facts that support them. They combine powerful analytics, the best scientific evidence, and qualitative data from their clients about their communities to help people do good, better.

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