Everybody at Magic Breakfast and Impetus was open minded and supportive – it really helped me to do my job in the short space of time available. I wish all pro bono work in the sector works this well.
– Phil Carrivick, Eden McCallum
Pro bono supporter: Eden McCallum
Charity partner: Magic Breakfast
Project type: Options to scale the programme
Why the project was needed:
Magic Breakfast has proven the impact of their work in a randomised control trial (funded by the Education Endowment Foundation), that showed that the support that they provided to schools to run effective breakfast clubs, improved the attainment of their pupils by an average of two months. The team were keen to roll out this proven model to as many schools as possible, to ensure that hungry children are fed and ready to learn at the start of the school day.
In early 2016, the government had announced plans for a sizeable tender opportunity to provide support to 1,500 schools. Magic Breakfast wanted to look at how fast they could scale their support up from their existing 485 schools, whilst maintaining the quality of delivery.
What the project involved:
Following an Impetus workshop to help the team agree the optimal model to scale, we approached Eden McCallum to help Magic Breakfast understand what an ambitious but deliverable scale-up could look like, in order to inform a bid for the tender.
Eden McCallum worked with the leadership team at Magic Breakfast to break down the key drivers of costs and built a simple but effective model which shows the implications of different growth rates on the number of Magic Breakfast staff required and the level of food and delivery costs.
Impact of the project:
The model created has been invaluable to Magic Breakfast in thinking about future growth scenarios. In October 2017, the Department for Education confirmed the release of a £26m tender to “kick-start or improve self-sustaining breakfast clubs” in 1,500 schools. Informed by pro bono support from Eden McCallum, Magic Breakfast submitted a bid to deliver this tender as part of a consortium. In 2018, Magic Breakfast and Family Action won a £24 million tender to deliver breakfast provision to children at 1,770 new schools in poor areas across England (see impact briefing).