Forever Manchester

Forever Manchester is an independent charitable foundation dedicated to empowering grassroots community activity and building resilient neighbourhoods through asset-based community development. Its mission centres on unleashing local residents' unique assets, skills, and talents to lead self-sustained positive change, fostering happier, safer communities. Core values celebrate Mancunian entrepreneurial spirit, inclusivity, volunteerism, collaboration, and stewardship, prioritizing community-led solutions over top-down interventions. It believes lasting impact arises from amplifying local capacity to tackle poverty, health inequalities, loneliness, homelessness, domestic violence, and environmental challenges, supporting small volunteer-driven groups with flexible, unrestricted funding that honours community priorities.

It funds diverse grassroots interventions including mental health peer support groups and therapeutic activities addressing anxiety, depression, and isolation; disability inclusion services like clubs for children and adults with physical disabilities, learning disabilities, and complex health needs; youth work through sports teams, after-school clubs, mentoring, and employability training for young people facing barriers; elderly care via social gatherings and befriending schemes combating loneliness; poverty alleviation through food banks and financial hardship support for families in crisis; cancer support initiatives and carer respite; education programs, recreational activities, creative arts, and outdoor pursuits building social connections; environmental sustainability projects enhancing green spaces; and community events, neighbourhood festivals, drop-in centres, and holistic wellbeing clubs promoting social capital and resilience. Supported models emphasize person-centred, preventative, community-led approaches including peer support, advocacy, capacity building, and inclusive recreation that harness local assets for sustained wellbeing improvements among children, young people, families, carers, disabled people, isolated elderly, and disadvantaged residents.

Exclusions encompass large national organizations, statutory bodies, and projects lacking genuine grassroots leadership or community focus; it avoids tightly thematic or issue-specific funding, favouring broad flexibility. Distinctive priorities target small, volunteer-run, locally-controlled groups in Greater Manchester's neighbourhoods, emphasizing lived experience leadership, minimal bureaucracy, and asset-based philosophy that catalyses self-led efforts across diverse needs like social isolation, food insecurity, youth unemployment, family carer support, and domestic abuse recovery, uniquely sustaining thousands of hyper-local initiatives for widespread resilience.