Young Enterprise is the UK’s enterprise education charity, delivering over four million learning hours each year. In 2012-13 the charity inspired more than 225,000 young people in 5,000 schools, colleges and universities.

Despite its huge impact, the charity has a relatively small team of paid staff and so it depends on its network of over 5,000 business volunteers to help deliver its programmes in the classroom. Those mentors are in the front line, encouraging young people to think outside the academic box and develop the essential life skills they need to avoid joining the 1 million 16-24 year olds are struggling to find work.

That is why support from corporations such as Lloyds Banking Group is so crucial. Last November the Group partnered with Small Firms Enterprise Development Initiative (SFEDI) on the ‘High Five’ campaign to raise £10,000 for the charity.

Richard Lee, Development Director at Young Enterprise said: “People often don’t realise how reliant organisations like ourselves are on the generosity of our supporters. Our projects inspire and support young people in enterprise activities and are crucial in fostering entrepreneurial skills in young people.

“Through this campaign business people not only committed to support businesses of today through mentoring, but were also supporting entrepreneurs of the future too.”

Ruth Lowbridge, Executive Chair of SFEDI, said: “This was a great way for the Get Mentoring project to bring benefit to Young Enterprise and to encourage even more volunteer mentors to get involved.

“We work on a huge range of enterprise activities across age groups, sectors and backgrounds, and the more we do so the more we recognise the benefit of collaborating on activities that will boost entrepreneurial activities across the board.

“In the long run that will reap rewards for the UK’s small business sector as a whole.”

Jackie Jenks, mentoring manager at Lloyds Banking Group, said: “This campaign allowed us to highlight the work we’re doing as part of the British Finance Taskforce mentoring initiative and support a deserved charity which embraces mentoring too.”