Only A Pavement Away helps hundreds into employment

By Jo Gilbert

Published: 06 March, 2024

Hospitality charity Only A Pavement Away is celebrating a major milestone as reaches its five-year anniversary, by helping to place over 450 people into employment.

The charity was founded in 2018 by industry consultant Greg Mangham and his wife Gill on World Homeless Day (10 October), to help those facing homelessness, prison leavers and veterans find employment in the hospitality industry.

Releasing its five-year impact report at its annual conference last week, the organisation announced that the charity had helped hundreds of people into employment while adding a value of £12.8m to the UK economy through reduced government support, financial independence and increased household expenditure.

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The impressive results were presented by CEO Greg Mangham, who said: “I’m so proud of what Only A Pavement Away has achieved in such a small amount of time and I’m hugely positive about the future. Our charity offers a simple concept that provides people with new skills and life-changing opportunities, while also fulfilling a crucial recruitment requirement within the hospitality industry. What we’ve learnt over five years is this process works for our candidates, employer partners and the wider economy, and the numbers really demonstrate our impact.”

Across the five years since Only A Pavement Away was founded, the charity has also provided significant financial support to its beneficiaries, awarding £51,000 to help candidates and members start and sustain employment. Annual average grants have also increased to c.£30,000 per year as of 2024.

In addition to the support provided to members the charity has directly placed into work, over 1,700 people have also been through one of Only A Pavement Away’s training courses or workshops supporting their onward career.

At the conference, Mangham also laid out the charity’s three-year plan, detailing its ambitious goal of supporting 9,250 people by 2029, with a cumulative ROI of c.£473 million added to the UK economy.

Only A Pavement Away also operates a free-of-charge hospitality Jobs Board which has been developed to help streamline and alleviate the burden of the processes that employers go through in employing people who are struggling to reconnect with society.

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