Sharon Davies ... TALKS IMPACT

For me it really is personal. When I was 19 and working as a cashier in a supermarket, a youth worker took a chance on me and that changed everything. It showed me firsthand what access to opportunity and having someone in your corner can unlock.

That experience lit a fire in me and a belief that your future shouldn’t be dictated by luck, postcode, school, connections or lack of them. And it’s that belief that has fuelled more than 30 years of work, alongside young people, communities, and leaders, locally, nationally, and internationally, to increase young people’s access to opportunity.

It’s also what inspired me to start Good Place Co: to partner those leading place-based change and help build fairer futures, one place at a time.

I’ve seen young people get their first taste of entrepreneurship through Young Enterprise and go on to launch successful businesses or thrive in incredible careers. Many of them credit that first experience, developing an enterprising mindset, as the turning point that gave them confidence, skills, and a sense of possibility they wouldn’t have otherwise had.

Earlier in my career, I led a programme in the North West England for young people excluded from school, combining outdoor residential experiences with community-based learning. It was brilliant to see them reconnect with and reset their relationship with education in a different setting and develop skills they could see would be useful in helping them build their futures beyond statutory education. Many of the young people successfully reengaged with education, and it was a real privilege to meet their families and hear proud they were of what the young people had achieved and how in many cases relationships were improving at home and in the community.

One experience that’s never left me was supporting a young person who lost a parent suddenly while taking part in a programme I was running. In the middle of their grief, they kept turning up to the group. Later, they asked me to attend the funeral with them and I will never forget the quiet privilege of standing beside them that day.

It was a quiet reminder of the understated power of youth work. It lives in the trust we build, the moments we hold, and the steady presence we offer. That kind of community-based impact rarely makes headlines. There are countless stories like that across the country – and they matter deeply.

Without naming names, what has been the worst?

I’ll focus on my own learning, it’s probably fairer! Early in my youth work career, I leaned heavily on pre- and post-programme self-assessment surveys as a standalone measure of impact. They seemed clean and straightforward. What I hadn’t yet appreciated was how much trust it takes to answer honestly before anything’s even begun, and how factors like culture, gender norms, and past experiences shape how people see themselves or want to be seen.

Looking back, those ‘pre’ scores often revealed more about how safe and supported someone felt than their actual skills or confidence. Self-assessment surveys are a great tool of evaluation, particularly in conjunction with other evaluation methods but early in my career I underestimated the importance of context. These days, I’m pleased to see approaches are far more nuanced. On a personal note, I’m much more attuned to the influence of place, culture, and societal expectations in shaping both experience and evaluation.

What frustrates you most about people/ businesses/ organisations trying to achieve impact?

Too often, the way funders commission for impact works against the impact we’re trying to achieve. Commissioners don’t often commission for collaboration, and yet we know that a single organisation rarely has all the answers, especially when it comes to tackling something as complex and long-term as increasing social mobility.

Organisations can make significant contributions, but it takes a whole ecosystem to effect sustainable change in a place. That kind of change doesn’t happen in silos, and yet we keep funding it that way. I’m particularly excited however, by the brilliant work of John Hitchen Co-founder of Stories of Change and charities such as Right To Succeed and funders like Steve Morgan Foundation who are successfully demonstrating collective approaches to place-based change (with communities fully engaged) are delivering really strong outcomes for children and families.

Another frustration of mine is how little credibility entrepreneurship is given as a viable and high-impact career option for young people. We talk about innovation and resilience, and yet still default to traditional pathways when it comes to defining ‘success’. That reticence costs young people, communities, and ultimately the country, a missed opportunity to harness the full contribution entrepreneurship can make to the UK, not just through start ups but through employees building  an enterprising mindset, contributing to small, medium and larger businesses across the country.

If you could change anything about how people talk about and report impact, what would it be? 

If I could shift one thing about how we talk about impact in financial education, it would be to spend more time exploring its long-term contribution to social mobility.

We often measure short-term knowledge and behaviour changes which absolutely is important. I’d love to see more research tracking how early financial confidence and decision-making skills can compound over time in shaping life choices, widening opportunity, and building economic resilience. That’s why I’m so encouraged by the long-term research Red Start Educate  is doing with primary-aged children, in helping to show that financial education isn’t just a nice-to-have, it’s a foundational tool for building fairer futures.

What is your biggest wish with regards to the future of impact? 

My biggest wish for the future of impact is that we move beyond one-size-fits-all solutions, especially when it comes to place-based change. Too often with impact, the holy grail is scale. If it works, then lift it, and expect it to deliver the same results elsewhere. As we know, real sustainable change is complex, layered, and shaped by the unique strengths and challenges of each community which are sometimes generations in the shaping. It’s rarely the work of a single programme or organisation.

I’ve founded  Good Place Co  to partner charities, leaders, and communities who are working to build place-based change and I’m keen to listen carefully to really understand what’s happening, the pressures, the possibilities, and the realities on the ground.  No two places are the same, and by taking time to understand the whole picture, place-based approaches to impact can be co-created, with communities, organisations, funders and systems partners. My hope is that the sector embraces that complexity, and values the slower, deeper work that true place-based change demands and deserves.