Dallaglio RugbyWorks

What Dallaglio RugbyWorks does

Dallaglio RugbyWorks is a registered charity (charity number 1130353 in England & Wales, SC046140 in Scotland) founded in 2009 by Lawrence Dallaglio, former England rugby captain, with the mission of supporting young people aged 12-18 who are excluded from or at risk of exclusion from mainstream education across England and Wales. The charity operates a youth development methodology built around four cornerstones — life skills, aspirations, physical wellbeing, and mental wellbeing — delivered through rugby-based long-term mentoring in 22 Pupil Referral Units, 17 mainstream schools, and community settings, with evening and holiday programmes and Career Taster Days hosted by 50 employers. In 2024/25 it engaged 4,014 young people, reporting 98.65% of school leavers transitioning into education, employment, or training and 95% reporting enhanced employability skills.

The charity's proprietary technology is Player Profiles, a gamified webapp co-developed with Reason Digital that enables young people to assess their current skillset, set goals, plan progression, and access support, while retaining ownership of their own data. The platform is positioned as a lifelong companion extending the charity's reach beyond face-to-face sessions and is funded in part by Sport England, CVC Capital (Marc Boughton), and the Nick Maughan Foundation. The integrated product set combines rugby-based mentoring programmes, Player Profiles, and Career Taster Days delivering qualifications such as the Level 2 Sports Leaders qualification.

Dallaglio RugbyWorks is funded through a diversified non-profit revenue model with no commercial pricing. Income streams include individual donations, corporate partnerships (including Career Taster Day hosting and employee volunteering), trust and foundation grants (Sport England, Youth Endowment Fund, Nick Maughan Foundation), regional programme sponsorship, and fundraising events. The flagship Cycle Slam raised over £8 million between 2010 and its final edition in April 2024, with the Liverpool Sporting Dinner adding £750,000+ over three decades. Headquarters are in London (House of Sport) with offices in Liverpool and a registered address in Derbyshire, and the charity is governed by a Board of Trustees now chaired by Rachel Maguire. The CEO is Zenna Hopson.

Name

Dallaglio RugbyWorks

Legal name

Dallaglio RugbyWorks

Website

https://dallagliorugbyworks.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2010

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

Dallaglio RugbyWorks is a UK charity founded by Lawrence Dallaglio that uses rugby-based mentoring to support young people aged 12-18 facing school exclusion across England and Wales, through its Player Profiles platform and programmes in 22 PRUs and 17 mainstream schools.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Youth Development Charity Services

NAICS

Sports and Recreation Instruction (611620), Educational Support Services (611710), Educational Support Services (61171)

SIC

Services-Educational Services (8200), Services-Social Services (8300)

akta.pro primary industry

Arts, Sports & Recreation-Based Youth Development Nonprofits (BPAGADAJ)

akta.pro secondary industries

Student Mentoring & Peer Support Programs (EDAJALAL), Sports Fundraising & Development Services (Foundations, NIL Collectives Support) (MPAKAKAK)

Keywords

• Youth mentoring programmes
• Sports-based education
• School exclusion support
• Employability programmes
• Rugby youth charity

Headquarters

HQ city

London

HQ country

United Kingdom

HQ region

Europe

Offices3 records

Markets served

GTM type

B2C

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Technology or R&D, Others

Revenue model

1. Individual Donations: The charity accepts individual donations from supporters who want to fund the organisation's work with excluded young people. Donations can be made directly through the website and support the charity's general operations.
2. Corporate Partnerships: Dallaglio RugbyWorks partners with businesses who provide funding, employee volunteering, Career Taster Days hosting, and other support. Corporate partners include organisations across various sectors who align with the charity's mission.
3. Fundraising Events: The charity runs flagship fundraising events including the Dallaglio Cycle Slam (which raised over £8 million since 2010), Six Nations Lunches, golf events, gala dinners, and the Liverpool Sporting Dinner. These events engage supporters and generate significant revenue.
4. Trust and Foundation Grants: Dallaglio RugbyWorks receives funding from trusts and foundations including Sport England, the Youth Endowment Fund, and the Nick Maughan Foundation. These grants support specific programmes and the Player Profiles digital platform development.
5. Regional Programme Sponsorship: Organisations can sponsor a school or region to support the charity's delivery in specific locations. This provides targeted funding for particular geographic areas or programmes.

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels4 records

Marketing channels6 records

Core offering

Dallaglio RugbyWorks is a registered UK charity that delivers long-term, rugby-based mentoring to young people aged 12-18 who are excluded from or at risk of exclusion from mainstream education. Its programmes are structured around four cornerstones — life skills, aspirations, physical wellbeing and mental wellbeing — and are delivered in Pupil Referral Units, mainstream schools and community settings across England and Wales, complemented by the Player Profiles gamified digital platform and employer-hosted Career Taster Days.

Product overview

Dallaglio RugbyWorks operates a single integrated product called Player Profiles — a gamified webapp-based platform that enables skill development, goal-setting, and progress tracking for young people. This digital platform is complemented by face-to-face rugby-based mentoring programmes delivered across schools, Pupil Referral Units, and community settings in England and Wales. The core service portfolio includes rugby-based mentoring programmes and Career Taster Days that provide pathways to education and employment. The digital and physical components work together: Player Profiles enhances and extends the face-to-face delivery beyond the school day, while mentoring sessions and events drive engagement with the digital platform.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• Player Profiles: A pioneering webapp-based platform designed to provide lifelong support and guidance to young people, focusing on skills development and facilitating ownership of progress journeys within skill areas identified by the World Economic Forum as essential for the 2025 workplace. Underpinned by gamification as an engagement technique.

Products and services

• Player Profiles webapp A pioneering gamified webapp-based platform co-developed with Reason Digital that enables young people aged 12-18 (primarily those excluded from or at risk of exclusion from mainstream education) to assess their current skillset, identify gaps, set goals, plan progression, and access support from the delivery team using real-world scenarios as evidence. The platform is built around skills development areas identified by the World Economic Forum as essential for the 2025 workplace and gives young people ownership and control of their own data.
• Rugby-Based Mentoring Programmes Sports-based long-term mentoring delivered in Pupil Referral Units, mainstream schools and community settings across England and Wales. Uses rugby's values of teamwork, respect, enjoyment, discipline and sportsmanship to build authentic trusted-adult relationships and deliver the charity's four cornerstones: life skills, aspirations, physical wellbeing and mental wellbeing. Reaches 4,014 young people annually (2024/25) with a 98.65% transition rate into education, employment or training.
• Career Taster Days Employer-hosted workplace experience days that connect young people on Dallaglio RugbyWorks programmes with corporate partners to explore career options, develop employability skills and progress into education, employment or training. Supported by 50 employers in 2024/25, with 226 young people achieving a qualification during the year.

Quantifiable outcome

• 98.65% of school leavers transitioned into education, employment or training (double national average for excluded youth)
• +6 more outcomes

Named customers6 records

Segments3 records

Ideal customer profiles2 records

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Feature2 records

Partnerships

Twelve partnerships are on record, tiered core and minor.

• Sport 4 Life UKcoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 26 June 2025Delivery partner for Birmingham programme providing sports-based personal development. Partnership blends DRW's mentoring and employability approach with Sport 4 Life's strengths in sports-based development to deliver tailored support to excluded young people.
• Obex FoundationcoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 30 April 2025Partnership supporting DRW delivery in Luton and Stevenage. Obex Foundation's Founder Sab Bhandal credits rugby with instilling discipline, teamwork, and resilience that shaped his own journey. The partnership helps young people build confidence, skills, and belief in themselves.
• APCOA and West London Business CommunitycoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 4 September 2024A three-year partnership allowing Dallaglio RugbyWorks to expand its transformative programmes across all four London regions, with new reach into Hounslow, West London starting September 2025. APCOA and the West London Corporate Leader's Action Group are supporting this expansion.
• British & Irish Lions TrustcoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 13 February 2024Two-year partnership (2024-25) making DRW one of five charity partners for the Lions Tour to Australia in Summer 2025. Allows DRW to use Lions digital platforms and branding for promotion, collaborate on fundraising and awareness events, and receive signed merchandise for auctions.
• Reason DigitalcoreTechnology or IntegrationAward-winning 'tech for good' business that co-developed Player Profiles platform with DRW. Built the gamified webapp designed hand-in-hand with young people focusing on skills development and progress tracking.
• CIOVITAminorGTM or Marketing PartnerOfficial Cycle Slam Kit Partner for the final Cycle Slam 2024. High-quality cycling brand based in South Africa providing cycling kit for riders.
• BidfoodminorGTM or Marketing PartnerLongest-standing supporter of Cycle Slam since its inception. Provides logistical support with trucks taking essentials for the event.
• Big Yellow Self StorageminorGTM or Marketing PartnerProvides safe storage space for bikes and essential equipment for Cycle Slam events year after year, enabling funds raised to go directly to young people.
• George P. Johnson AustraliaminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerCreative agency partnering with DRW to maximise fundraising and PR potential for the Ultra Endurance Challenge (1,000km run from Brisbane to Sydney).
• Entrepreneurs in ActionminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerSponsors the Gen Z Insight Programme in partnership with Sevenoaks School. DRW participated to learn how to engage young people more meaningfully.
• Sevenoaks SchoolminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerStudents acted as consultants analysing DRW's marketing and providing evidence-based recommendations on engaging Gen Z audiences.
• MediaTrustminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerCollaborated with DRW to create RugbyWorks Talks video content featuring alumni turned staff turned actors.

Scale indicators15 records

Recent moves7 records

Expansion highlights8 records

Direct peers

• Street League: UK charity using sport (football and basketball) to help disadvantaged young people move into sustained employment through structured programmes and employer engagement. The model — sport as engagement, employability as outcome — maps closely to Dallaglio RugbyWorks' Career Taster Days and EET-focussed mission.
• Greenhouse Sports: London-based charity using sport (tennis, football, basketball, and others) as a hook for long-term mentoring and improved educational outcomes for disadvantaged pupils. It shares DRW's combination of school-based delivery, long-term trusted-adult mentoring, and a digital skills-tracking component.
• Sport 4 Life UK: UK charity using sport-based personal development to support excluded and disadvantaged young people into education, employment, and training. It is formally partnered with Dallaglio RugbyWorks to deliver the Birmingham programme, operates the same sport-for-development methodology, and targets overlapping beneficiary cohorts.
• Active Communities Network: UK sport-for-development charity using physical activity and sport to engage marginalised young people and reduce offending. It is directly comparable to DRW on the sport-engagement-meets-youth-outcomes model, with overlapping funder relationships in the UK social-impact space.
• Access Sport: UK charity that uses sport to unlock life chances for disadvantaged children and young people, focusing on inclusion and community access. Comparable to DRW in targeting underserved youth populations through sport-based interventions, although operating a wider portfolio of sports.
• Wooden Spoon: Rugby-focused UK and Ireland children's charity funding projects for disadvantaged and disabled young people. It is comparable as a rugby-branded youth-development charity that uses the sport's profile to raise funds and direct support to vulnerable children, though with a broader project-grant model rather than direct delivery.

Broad incumbents

• Catch22: Large UK social business delivering services for disadvantaged young people, including education, employability, and justice-related programmes. It overlaps with DRW on the school-exclusion and NEET target populations and on public-sector commissioning routes, but does not use sport as its primary engagement tool.
• The King's Trust (formerly Prince's Trust): The UK's largest youth-focused charity, supporting 11-30 year-olds into education, training, and work — including some sport-linked programmes. While much broader in scope and delivery mechanisms than DRW, it serves the same target demographic of disadvantaged young people with similar EET-orientation outcomes.

Others

• England Rugby Foundation: The charitable arm of the Rugby Football Union, funding participation, community, and youth-development projects across England. Directly adjacent to Dallaglio RugbyWorks in using rugby as a vehicle for youth impact and in employer-partner networks within UK rugby.
• Sported: UK umbrella charity supporting a network of community sport clubs and organisations that deliver sport-for-development outcomes. It is comparable as the sector's representative body and potential convening partner for DRW's sport-based youth-development methodology.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• YouTubeyoutube.com/@DFR4C/videos
• Instagraminstagram.com/dallagliorugbyworks
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/dallagliorugbyworks

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles11 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Dallaglio RugbyWorks