Spirit of Manchester 2016 mini-grant programme
Our grants programme is currently closed
Why are Macc running a mini-grant programme?
The mini-grants have been created to form part of Macc’s annual Spirit of Manchester initiative. Spirit of Manchester highlights and celebrates all the excellent work that benefits our local communities being carried out by the city’s VCSE sector.
At the last Spirit of Manchester Awards event in October 2015, we raised £1000 on the night and now it’s time to give it away.
Obviously, £1000 doesn’t allow for a lot of mini-grants but we want to use it to start off some great activities and create good news stories from the sector about groups working together. We’ll then use those stories in future publicity with the aim of inspiring more people to make donations into the pot for future Spirit of Manchester Fund mini-grants. We hope this is the first round of mini-grants and that there’ll be more in the not too distant future covering a range of themes.
What is a mini-project?
This is all part of our Spirit of Manchester initiative so we want to see local voluntary and community organisations working together to make a difference. A "mini-project" is a small-scale and short-term activity to be delivered for the benefit of an area of north Manchester. It should contribute to the aims of your organisation and at least one other similar organisation that you will be working with.
In order to correctly complete the mini-grant application form and maximise the opportunity to receive up to £250 you need to think in terms of a beneficial activity that can be delivered by working with another organisation from the VCSE sector and that can finish no later than 16 September 2016.
We want to encourage you to develop project ideas with the aim of creating good news stories in mind and planning to provide a video blog, case study, photograph(s), or participant feedback illustrating the impact this funding has had on your beneficiaries.
What are examples of what a mini-grant can fund?
We do not want to influence the ideas that you may have: we want to see your ideas! However, we also recognise that there is a wide range of activities that VCSE organisations in Manchester carry out and that providing at least some examples indicative of what could potentially be funded would be useful. As long as your mini-project benefits people in north Manchester in some way, we are not prescriptive about whether your organisation works in or with:
- health and social care
- specific age groups such as children and young people or older people
- people with disabilities
- general community work/activism
- environment
- sports and leisure
- arts and heritage
- ethnic minorities
- promoting human rights/reducing discrimination
- etc
The following non-exhaustive list is of various types of cost which are of the sort we could consider as part of your organisation’s mini-project:
- costs associated with celebration events or special trips (e.g. venue hire, supplies and/or transport costs, etc) or other events to share good practice and joint learning
- workshops such as focusing on specific themes associated with the Spirit of Manchester
- hire of larger equipment/services for one-off activities (e.g. horticultural machines, cleaning machines, etc)
- training costs
- peer mentoring between VCSE organisations
- promotional activities for VCSE issues and causes (e.g. design and/or production costs for leaflets or posters, etc)
- specific forms of assistance and/or emergency supplies for disadvantaged /vulnerable groups in your area of north Manchester (e.g. hardship provision, safety equipment, labour-saving devices, health promotion tools, etc)
Why north Manchester?
North Manchester has the lowest levels of VCSE activity in the city. We want to help existing locally active organisations to increase mutual support in their sector and improve levels of VCSE activity.
If you’re interested, more information about the city’s VCSE activity-levels can be found in our State of the Sector report. Information about the sector’s strategic plans can be found in the Manchester Voluntary Sector Assembly strategy The Way Forward For the Voluntary and Community and Enterprise Sector in Manchester written by local organisations and launched last December.
What do we mean by north Manchester?
For the purposes of the Spirit of Manchester initiative, Macc is defining north Manchester as the following local authority wards: 
• Ancoats & Clayton
• Bradford
• Charlestown
• Cheetham
• City centre
• Crumpsall
• Harpurhey
• Higher Blackley
• Miles Platting & Newton Heath
• Moston
The project beneficiaries of successful mini-grant applications must be located within these wards because these are where levels of VCSE activity are lowest.