Statement from YMCA George Williams College

Friday 14 February 2025

The Trustees of YMCA George Williams College have taken the decision to close the charity, with operations ceasing from 31 March 2025. This decision has not been made lightly and follows an extended period of careful consideration and evaluation.

Since the merger of the Centre for Youth Impact into YMCA George Williams College in April 2022, we have worked diligently to define our role within both the youth sector and the wider YMCA movement. Our aim was to build on the rich legacies of both institutions while identifying new opportunities to support and empower our partners across the youth sector. Despite these efforts, we have faced persistent challenges in transitioning to a new environment. Over the past few years, the College has implemented a range of measures intended to create a stable and sustainable future. Despite the support of our partners, the measures undertaken, and the good work completed, we have reached the conclusion that we do not face a sustainable future.

The external environment remains challenging, and we are very conscious that we are not the only infrastructure organisation in our sector to formally close our operations. This context has contributed to our current position.

We are deeply thankful to our dedicated and hardworking staff and recognise the profound impact this will have on them. We are committed to supporting them through this difficult transition. We are also so very grateful for the dedication, hard work, friendship, and commitment shown by our partners and stakeholders over the years both for the Centre for Youth Impact and the College. We are pleased to have been able to work alongside so many over the years, to help shape the basis of youth work training, evaluation and impact measurement in our sector.

We pay tribute to the work of our peer organisations in the sector, some of whom have significantly invested in taking on more of the impact and evaluation work in recent years and we hope that the intellectual legacy we leave behind will help to shape that space.

While this marks the end of YMCA George Williams College, the impact of our collective work will continue to resonate in the lives of the young people and communities we have served, and we will work closely with our funders and colleagues at YMCA England & Wales to explore opportunities for some areas of our work to live on.