Our Mission

Innox Foundation exists to improve the mental health of young adults across the UK.

We invest in extraordinary organisations who share our mission. We prioritise those that take early and preventative approaches and whose work enriches the voluntary sector.

Our multi-year, flexible funding enables our partners to grow their impact so that more young adults can enjoy sustained good mental health.

The Background

We decided right from the start to apply a laser focus to our giving so as to develop our understanding of and expertise in our chosen field, as well as to ensure that our resources work as hard as possible.

We chose to focus on young adult’s mental health. Like many, we have been shocked by the steep decline in mental wellbeing among our younger generations. Young adults – those aged 18 to 25 – face unique stresses by virtue of being both ‘young’ and ‘adult’. They continue to be affected by issues related to self-esteem, peer pressure, drugs and alcohol, exams and relationships, while also facing additional pressures as they enter adulthood, such as leaving home to live independently, accessing housing, managing finances and finding employment.

Despite being among those most in need of our support, young adults can face a cliff edge of care. After turning 18, individuals can no longer access services earmarked for young people, while adult mental health services are often either not available or do not meet their circumstances, needs and interests. Furthermore, young adults can struggle to access support early as most mental health services focus on those in crisis rather than preventing issues from developing and escalating. These challenges are intensified for those living in poverty, leaving care or facing other social and economic disadvantage.

There is hope. The UK is home to some extraordinary non-profit organisations who have created and evidenced effective approaches to improving young adult’s mental health. We are proud that some of these have become our partners.

The need for effective understanding of what works to help this population is greater than ever.

About Us

We are a grant giving charity established in 2020. We believe in the power of collaboration to solve society’s biggest challenges and so decided to work towards our mission by partnering with others. We identify and fund high performing organisations who have the mental wellbeing of young adults at the heart of what they do.

We invest in organisations rather than fund projects. We take a relationship-based approach to grant making, placing considerable value on the partnerships that we hold with those that we fund. We offer our partners multi-year, unrestricted funding and aim to make their experience with us as positive as possible. We support our partners in ways that we hope put them in a better place to support young adults.

OUR TEAM

We are a small team, with a variety of work and life experience amassed between us. Our founders, Jacqui Edmiston and Andy Parsons, set up Innox Foundation as a charitable ‘vehicle’ for their family giving. Working alongside them are their son Daniel, who represents the younger generation of the family, and close family friend Tine Gregory, whose opinions and clear thinking we hold in great esteem. Our Foundation Director, Michael Fuller, has worked with us since 2020 and brings invaluable experience from his work across the non-profit sector over many years.

We all share a common desire to positively affect young adults’ mental health in whatever way we can – whether that is by supporting the work that others do or pioneering projects of our own in the future. We hope that our modest efforts can reap benefits that will improve the lives of a generation.

Jacqui Edmiston - Co-Founder

Jacqui has had a varied career in sales and communication, spanning three decades and three continents, with the common thread being a fascination with people. She set up Innox Foundation in 2019 having decided that her last career move would be into the world of philanthropy, where she hopes to be able to make a difference to the way young people experience life.

She is fiercely committed to the concept of ‘mental health’ as a positive term which she believes should be referred to as commonly as we do physical health. With 4 young adult children, she is acutely aware of the pressures affecting young people everywhere, along with the need for genuine connection which so many lack.

After almost 30 years working in the oil industry and an economist by training, Andy now divides his time between his fledgling investment business and Innox Foundation, where he provides a much needed sounding board to Jacquis’ ideas and enthusiasm.

Possessed of a keen analytical brain, along with a strong sense of justice and a desire for equality, Andy is very much the backbone that has allowed Innox Foundation to exist. He is married to Jacqui and father of their four young adult children.

Dan has first-hand experience of the hardship many young people experience at points of transition: at age 13, he left Singapore where he was born to live in the UK and faced head on the challenges that a new country, school, friendships and culture brings. He graduated in 2019 from Leeds University and is now pursuing a career in renewable energy, but retains a keen awareness of the struggles many of his generation face making their way in the world, particularly in the wake of the Covid pandemic.

Tine is Danish, has lived all over the world, and now resides back in Copenhagen. With an initial career in banking, some ten years ago Tine turned her considerable talents to the world of education and currently heads up the international section of a well known school in Denmark. Tine has direct personal experience of the crisis point which some young people reach, having tragically lost her oldest son to suicide earlier in 2020.  She is as energetic and highly motivated about wanting to help young people who struggle with their mental health and brings invaluable experience gained from working within different international systems and cultures.

Michael has over 25 years’ experience in the non-profit sector, with a focus on children and young people. Following senior global roles at ActionAid International and Save the Children International, Michael helped establish and then led a grant-making organisation in London.

Michael now wears several hats. Alongside working for the Innox Foundation, he supports non-profits to help them set their direction, scale, innovate and improve their performance and impact. Michael brings his knowledge to make our funding as beneficial as possible for our partners.

Our Work

We are a young foundation and are cautious in our approach, conscious that we are learning all the time. Proud to have partnered with some outstanding organisations, we are confident there will soon be more to follow. Below are some examples of the charities and other non-profit organisations that we have supported thus far:

Comics Youth
The Cares Family
The Wave Project
Young Roots

Grants

We fund extraordinary organisations whose work improves the mental health of young adults. We do not run an open grant application process. Instead, we actively seek out organisations to support. However, if you meet our funding criteria and would like to tell us about your work, please complete our Contact Form.

OUR APPROACH

Who, what and how we fund is shaped by five guiding principles:

Partnership

We consider those that we fund to be partners in our joint mission to improve young adult’s mental health

Impact driven

We offer our partners long term, flexible funding so they are better placed to achieve their mission. We limit the time organisations spend on applications and reporting so they can stay focused on their work

Proactive

We actively look for organisations to become our partners

Trust

We trust our partners to spend our grant wisely, offering funding that can be used for what they consider to be most needed

Relationship-Based

We prioritise people and conversations over application forms and reports

We fund organisations that:

  • Operate in England, Scotland and Wales
  • Support young adults aged 18 to 25
  • Work to improve young people’s mental health
  • Recognise the importance of loneliness to young people’s mental health
  • Take an early intervention and/or preventative approach to improving mental health
  • Enrich the voluntary sector either locally or nationally, such as through changing the way mental health is tackled, sharing valuable learning and influencing policy and practice
  • Demonstrate outstanding qualities, including strong leadership, expertise in their field, quality work, a drive to achieve impact, collaborative approach and healthy finances
  • Plan to grow their impact on young adult’s mental health and require support to do so

The Innox Foundation will not fund the following:

  • Grants to individuals
  • Work that does not have a direct benefit to young people
  • Work that is the responsibility of the state
  • The promotion of religion
  • Activity that is not legally charitable
  • Activity that involves breaking any UK laws
  • Work that has already been delivered
  • Work that benefits people outside of the UK.

We like to stay connected with our partners during the grant period so that we can find out more about their work and the issues that young people face. We take an informal, conversational approach which includes visits and meetings rather than formal reports.