An exciting new social enterprise launched at Manchester United and West Ham Utd on the 17th September 2018
Goal 17 Founder, Fran Boorman, could be found roaming the streets of Manchester meeting with homeless people in the early hours of the morning on the 17th September. This was the beginning of a 36-hour launch event for an exciting new social enterprise that is predicted to generate £1m turnover in its first year. The trip also included meetings with senior management from Manchester United and West Ham United, homeless charities and ex-England Footballer, Paul Stewart.
Goal 17 is partnering with Premiership football clubs across the UK and aims to end youth homelessness by uniting vulnerable young people with corporate executive mentors. The enterprise will deliver an innovative corporate events package that empowers companies to get tangible value from their corporate social responsibility.
Through its partnership with the West Ham, Goal 17 will support the expansive nationwide delivery of a 10-week football academy for homeless 16 to 24 year olds.
Boorman, who also takes up the role as CEO of Goal 17, admits that she had not really been a football fan since Euro 96. However, as a proven entrepreneur, she could see the huge potential of football as a vehicle to unite people from very different backgrounds. Boorman developed a commercial concept to access funds that were not previously being diverted into this sector.
The pair of founders, who first met just 90 days before the launch, have developed a corporate ‘away day’ product. It claims to engage and inspire at a deeper level than the traditional company day ‘huddled round a flip chart’. Corporate clients will sponsor a cohort of young people through the programme and will also be invited to Premiership football clubs as part of their experience where they will get to meet those whom they are sponsoring. They will be challenged to deliver part of the first day training and invited to telephone support the young people throughout a mentoring aspect of the nationally acclaimed Academy programme. The interest in this start-up has been significant with many world-renowned football clubs partnering and several large corporate clients wanting to get started.
Boorman says: “This experience will not only change the young people, but we expect to see our corporate clients gain equally. They will learn vast amounts about themselves and become more engaged employees with an emotional attachment to the power of good that their company is achieving. The young people will also benefit vastly from their sponsor’s experience and association with people already in the work place.
Being able to do this within the inspiring environment of our football club partner’s stadiums helps level participants from both sides of the programme, supporting everyone in realising that underneath they are all exactly the same, but just have very different circumstances.”
“Our launch event was incredibly eye-opening. Getting under the skin of the ever-increasing homelessness issue was heart wrenching. Seeing the difference between Manchester and London was also very interesting. However, there is a lot of hope and we are confident that we can make a big positive impact on this issue through the power of football.”
Danny Lucasā€‹, Executive Chairman & CEO of Lucas UK, who is looking forward to supporting the new enterprise says: “Goal 17 is really powerful, it can make a big difference really quickly. The spin-offs are massive. It’s about improving the situation and turning a negative into a positive. It’s great!”
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