Aims/priorities:
The Greater Manchester Community Grants programme has been developed to provide a mechanism to fund those organisations who are working with the hardest to reach residents in communities across GM, to support them to address their barriers and progress towards employment and skills opportunities.
GMCA have identified two initial strands of activity for which grants should be awarded during phase 2 of the programme. These are:
- This strand brings together funding from the GM Devolved Adult Education Budget (now known as Adult Skills Fund) to enable outreach and engagement activities relating to skills, in particular essential life skills such as maths/numeracy, English (excluding ESOL) and digital (ICT for users).
- This strand will be funded via UK Shared Prosperity Fund People & Skills and will offer engagement/re-engagement activity for residents in some of GM’s hardest to reach communities to enable them to progress towards skills and employment.
Who can apply:
a charity, Community Interest Company or Community Benefit Society, registered with the relevant registry body; or
an unregulated organisation which:
has a clear social mission which, in the reasonable opinion of the Fund Administrator, is analogous to a recognised charitable purpose;
distributes less than 50% of post-tax profits and reinvests at least 51% surpluses into pursuing its social mission;
has a constitutional or contractual lock on its social mission, its dividend and surplus distribution policy and “asset-lock”;
carries out, or has ambitions to carry out, trading activities in support of and which are causally linked to its social mission;
offers its products and services for general public benefit without restrictions and barriers, such as affordability;
is open to undertaking an independent social impact audit;
has remuneration and benefits policy which it is willing to make publicly accessible, and which is reasonable and proportionate relative to the market practice for VCSFEs;
Grant amount:
Strand 1: Up to £10,000
Strand 2: No limit
Application process:
Please send your application enquiries to: gmcommunitygrants@wea.ac.uk
Deadline: Friday 13th June 2025
Contact information: gmcommunitygrants@wea.ac.uk