No dedicated fund or institution for young men's civic engagement

The Centre for Social Justice's Lost Boys work documents male NEET numbers up 40% since the pandemic (vs 7% for women), suicide as the leading cause of death for young men 15-19, and a drift towards online influencers and right-populist politics; John Smith Centre polling confirms young men are markedly more right-leaning and distrustful than young women. Yet no UK funder runs a dedicated programme for young men's civic participation (contrast Rosa and the Tampon Tax legacy funds for women and girls), youth engagement programming demonstrably under-recruits young men, and government activity is limited to school-level role-model initiatives.

Young men are the fastest-growing disengagement cohort and the group most exposed to online radicalisation pipelines. Leaving their civic attachment to Andrew Tate-adjacent ecosystems is a democratic security risk, not just a welfare issue, and no institution currently owns the problem.

A pooled multi-funder programme for young men's civic participation (mentoring, male youth worker recruitment, offline third spaces, sport-plus-civics models) with a commissioned What Works evidence strand at Youth Futures Foundation or a new centre.

// Build now: First artefact: pooled multi-funder programme with commissioned What Works evidence strand at Youth Futures Foundation.

The fastest-growing disengagement cohort drifts toward online radicalisation with no funder owning the problem, so a pooled programme is high-value and ready even without a dated trigger.