Young Foundation

During the second half of the 20th century Michael Young was one of the world’s most creative and influential social thinkers and doers.

Together with collaborators including Peter Willmott, Peter Townsend and many others, he wrote a series of bestsellers which changed attitudes to a host of social issues, including urban planning (leading the movement away from tower blocks), education (leading thinking about how to radically widen access) and poverty.

He initiated, and in some cases directly created, dozens of new institutions including: Open University, Which?, International Alert, University of the Third Age, Economic and Social Research Council, National Extension College, National Consumer Council, Open College of the Arts, Language Line and School for Social Entrepreneurs.

It was the commercial sale of Language Line to a venture capital company that provided most of the funding for the establishment of the School for Social Entrepreneurs.

Other organisations Young created pioneered new approaches to funerals and baby-naming, neighbourhood democracy and the arts.