A commitment to levelling up

It is less than a year since Ambassadeurs Group (AG) officially came together. But the Group is keen to accelerate its commitment to its core purpose, which is shaped around raising standards and giving back – with all the brands that operate under the AG umbrella helping to build better futures. It has partnered with the Purpose Coalition to measure and enhance its social impact.

The partnership is an important staging post in AG’s ambitions. It is an external acknowledgment of its intentions around giving back, and of its willingness to be scrutinised.

Under the partnership AG will develop a Levelling Up Impact Report to map its activity against the 14 Levelling Up Goals developed by the Purpose Coalition. The report will build on AG’s community engagement work which is focused on four areas: mental health and wellbeing, education, safer gambling, and community.

The Purpose Coalition, chaired by former Education Secretary Rt Hon Justine Greening, is made up of the UK’s most innovative purpose-led leaders and organisations. AG joins a number of UK businesses, universities and public sector organisations in assessing their best practice and measuring their impact against the goals.

Justine Greening is a long-term campaigner on social mobility and levelling up both inside and now outside of Parliament. In 2018 Justine co-founded the Social Mobility Pledge to bring businesses and universities together to improve social mobility. The Levelling Up Goals are the first major piece of work launched by the most committed of these organisations.

Justine Greening said: “The Levelling Up Goals provide a clear benchmark for organisations to measure their impact against. Only through working in partnership can progress truly be made and I’m excited to welcome another organisation to the Purpose Coalition that is committed to making a difference.

‘I’m really looking forward to working with the AG team on its levelling up work and helping the organisation to have maximum impact on its community and colleagues. The organisation has already shown its commitment to spreading opportunities through its community engagement and its Ambassadeurs Academy, and crucially it wants to go further.’

Tracy Damestani, Chief Corporate Affairs Officer at AG, called it ‘an important moment for our Group’. She said: ‘It underlines our commitment to a strategy that is centred around our core purpose of raising standards and giving back.
‘We help people achieve their potential through education and learning and we support organisations and good causes that need help. All our efforts begin with our employees – our WorkFamily – and we have already made tangible commitments to levelling up by helping our heart-of-house staff through the rising cost of living. We have recently taken basic pay from £9.50-an-hour to a guaranteed £15-an-hour for all employees – this is known as the Living Wage PLUS.’