The Inspired Taskforce is a community organisation peer-led by a Board of 13 older people. It has been established for the last 2 years as a capacity building ‘outcome’ of the former Inspired People’s Project, based at Levenshulme Inspire.
The Inspired Taskforce has a proud record of campaigning for the local area to become more age-friendly and were instrumental in achieving an Age-Friendly award for Levenshulme in 2019 (from the Mayor Andy Burnham), working alongside the many other local older people groups and services.
Funding of up to £10,000 is available from In Our Nature. Information below.
Apply for up to £10k of grant funding & bring your community project to life!
Are you part of a Manchester based community, youth or voluntary group? Has your group got an innovative project idea to help your community come together to take positive action on the environment?
If the answer is yes – apply for a community project grant and bring your group’s ideas to life! You’ll be helping us on our mission to unlock the potential of households and communities to respond to the climate emergency.
What are we looking for? We are looking for projects that take an innovative, community-led approach to tackling a local environmental issue, which also delivers social and financial benefits to their local community.
Who can apply? We can award grants to a variety of non-profit and voluntary groups such as community groups, youth clubs, schools, resident and neighbourhood associations, community interest companies and social enterprises.
Successful groups will receive…
A grant of up to 10k to bring their project to life.
Opportunities to connect and share experiences with the other successful groups.
Access to wider support through the “In Our Nature” programme including:
Do you have an idea to help your community recycle, reduce or reuse? Apply for a grant of between £200 and £20,000 to get your green plans off the ground. The fund is a joint Recycle for Greater Manchester (R4GM) and Suez initiative to support Greater Manchester’s Community and Voluntary sector.
Now is the time for you to start thinking about how your organisation can help us improve waste and recycling in Greater Manchester.
The fund aims to support projects which prevent, reuse, or recycle household waste, and also reduce contamination, promote sustainable use of waste and resources, and generate wider social benefits for the communities of Greater Manchester. We want to encourage and support innovative projects that are novel and involve a new and untried approach to tackling an issue in the key waste areas. Your project will need to focus on at least one of these areas.
This year we will focus on these priority areas:
waste prevention
increasing recycling
reuse of household waste
reducing contamination
Your project will need to focus on one or more of these priority waste streams:
Food waste
Paper and card
Glass
Textiles
Furniture
Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment
When can I apply?
The Community Fund 2021-22 will be open for submission of applications from Thursday 1st April until 31st May 2021.
Who can apply?
Applications are welcome from Community and Voluntary Sector organisations such as:
Registered Charity (charity number must be provided)
Not-for-profit organisation (defined as a registered legal entity that does not make a private profit for directors, members, or shareholders)
Community, Neighbourhood or Voluntary Group
Faith group delivering community work
School, College or University
A walk-through application video from Greater Manchester Environment Fund can be found below.
The fund is supported through profits from the new ‘Renew’ reuse shops. The Renew shops will be opening spring 2021 and will be based at 3 household waste recycling centres:
Woodhouse Lane, Trafford
Boysnope Wharf in Salford
Arkwright St, Oldham
The shops will sell pre-owned items that have been donated by residents at Household Recycling Centres across Greater Manchester (excluding Wigan).
Design Your Own Eco-Street from Groundwork Greater Manchester gives communities the chance to win £6,000 funding to transform an unused area into a green space.
The Eco-Streets competition seeks to transform two un-used, un-loved areas in Greater Manchester into spaces that feature nature-based-solutions to climate change. Each design will receive £6,000 in funding and support from Groundwork’s Community Enablers to transform their spaces in 2021.
With support from Groundwork, Eco-Streets will equip communities with the skills to design, install and maintain natural features to create vibrant, green community spaces to benefit people while tackling climate change.
Further information including eligibility and how to register interest is available HERE
We know these are difficult times for artists and communities in Greater Manchester and that lives and livelihoods are being impacted daily. We want to support artists and creative practitioners to continue to experiment, dream and to support and influence society.
We are repurposing some of our artist development funds to support this and offering the following opportunities to GM-based artists and creatives. Alongside this we’re continuing to reach out nationally and internationally to support artists and projects impacted by these times. We are very open to proposals that would be delivered through online international collaborations in response to this call out, and we will be developing our ideas further in the coming weeks.
We encourage proposals under the following headings:
– Festival In My House – an opportunity to re-imagine MIF’s Festival in My Houseprogramme for today’s unique times. We want people to host their own micro-international festival at home, exploring remote collaborations and audiences – up to £1000 budget for each event
– Get creative – opportunities to create and deliver activity that safely engages artists / community / wider society during the crisis. This could take the form of an online workshop, performance, talk, discussion or other creative idea of your choice – up to £350 per activity.
– Remote residencies – an opportunity to develop your practice and to develop new ideas and projects. This could include responding to the COVID-19 situation or other imaginative ways to support communities, artists or audiences during the coming months, alternatively, this could be an opportunity to research and develop an idea you’ve always wanted to do. Residencies do not have to result in specific outcomes but need to take place at home – up to £1000 per residency.
Key notes:
We’re open to ideas that are not digital in form provided they are compliant with current government guidelines – these might include the use of phones, radio or other ideas.
Budgets includes all fees, materials and other expenses
Whilst our teams will do our utmost to offer support and help remotely, we’re unable to offer our usual level of producing or technical support at the moment; please bear this in mind when submitting your proposal.
You are eligible to apply for this opportunity if you are over 18 years of age and resident in Greater Manchester.
We encourage proposals from people with specific access needs and are happy to work with you to help with both the application process and to realise your idea.
How to apply:
We are accepting proposals from GM-based artists and creatives. Please send a maximum 500-word overview of your idea to creativeengagement@mif.co.uk; we will also accept video proposals (up to 2 minutes in length) or if you would like to apply in another way, get in touch. If you are applying via video, please send us the URL via email.
You should include:
what you would like to do and which of the three strands it sits within
how you might do it
who it would benefit or engage
any support that you might need in delivery
how your budget is worked out
your postcode
links to your previous work or any reference points for the ideas you’re suggesting.
Selection:
We aim to review all proposals quickly – we’ll be looking for:
interesting ideas with the ability to stimulate creativity and connection
ideas that consider the local and international
ideas that are deliverable on the levels of financial and practical support available
proposals that help artists to develop artistically, a space to dream, imagine, create and test new ideas
ideas that allow for audience participation and involvement, beyond simply broadcasting
proposals that represent the diversity of Greater Manchester.
We will be reviewing applications based on the ideas and the opportunities these will make for the applicants.
Timeline:
We’ll be accepting proposals on a rolling basis until the end of April, or until all available opportunities have been filled. We will be continuing to respond to the needs of our community during this time and will be looking at providing ongoing opportunities past April.
Questions or support:
If you have any questions or need any support in preparing your application please email: creativeengagement@mif.co.uk and a member of the team will respond. We can also arrange to call you if that is more convenient.
Further Links
Resources For Artists and Freelancers – An evolving open document of resources for the freelance creative community who are looking for support and guidance.
The We Love MCR charity has set up a fund to provide Covid-19 Community Response Grants. Full information is available HERE
Constituted community groups and organisations with a bank account can apply to this fund for £500 – £3000 for the items, equipment or supplies they need to support their communities in this difficult time.
The application process has been simplified to help get the money out to groups quickly. The application form can be downloaded here:
Please share this information with groups you are aware of and your wider networks. WeLoveMCR want to support as many groups and organisations as they can in this time of need.
