Grants Programme Management

Macc works with funders and commissioners to find new ways to build relationships with the local voluntary, community and social enterprise (VCSE) sector.

Our grants programme management service is capable of delivering programmes of all sizes and durations. Macc’s approach embodies long-experience and understanding of commissioners’ perspectives and we know our sector and what it takes to reach them and successfully deliver funded activity.

All grant programmes have a purpose, a set of aims they are trying to achieve, and part of our role is to inform that purpose, and advise on how it can best be achieved.

The starting point is a set of problems or needs that the funders are trying to solve. These have to be turned into a set of clear programme objectives that are relevant to the voluntary and community sector and fit the local context. There needs to be some reasonable level of impact achievable within the timescale and money the funder is providing.

The second stage is to use the programme objectives to identify a set of conditions that groups who are applying for funding will need to meet, beyond the standard conditions that are general to most grant programmes e.g. the need for certain policies. These conditions are designed to maximise the likelihood of success of the programme and also determine the numbers and types of organisations that can apply or are likely to be successful.

The third stage is to develop a grant process based on good practice, that is clear, open, robust and proportional to the grant offered.

The fourth stage is to negotiate the level of support offered to organisations, how monitoring and evaluation will work and to be clear about any other requirements from organisations offered a grant.

The overall aim is for the whole programme to be coherent, with every element there for a defined purpose which can be explained and justified in maximising the impact of the programme.

Ideally, given time and willingness, the planning of the grant programme should be through a process of co-design with a range of stakeholders.

The expert role of Macc is our high level of knowledge, skill and experience in grant programme development, a detailed understanding of the local context and of voluntary and community sector organisations within Manchester.

Delivering agreed grants programmes involves:

  • Launching and widely promoting the grants programme in the VCSE sector
  • Providing prospective applicants with full and clear information about aims, outputs and eligibility requirements
  • Managing all aspects of the processes involved in the programme:
    • funding application forms (and guidance)
    • administering the selection panel
    • application feedback
    • due diligence
    • award letters and terms and conditions
    • payment of grant monies and financial monitoring
    • project monitoring, evaluation and final reports

Across the seven programmes that Macc has administered during 2011-2017, 350 grants have been awarded to VCSE organisations all around Manchester. The total amount of funding distributed is £1,805,478.

Click below for further information about Macc’s grants programmes past and present.

Programmes in the process of being delivered

Hate Crime Awareness

Spirit of Manchester Mini-Grants

Mental Health and Wellbeing of People with Mental Health Problems

Programmes previously delivered

Reducing Social Isolation and Loneliness

Atlas: mcr

Community First

Transforming Local Infrastructure

Please contact us on 0161 834 9823 or via [email protected] if we can assist you to develop and deliver grants programmes.

Open Data

We have released a range of data including grants we have awarded, statistics on the groups and volunteers on our database and the results from our State of the Sector survey. Take a look at our open data here

What is open data?
Macc subscribes to the following definition of open data:

  • Open data are data that can be freely used, reused and redistributed by anyone
  • It is subject only, at most, to the requirement to attribute and sharealike
  • Open data are the building blocks of open knowledge
  • Open knowledge is what open data becomes when it’s useful, usable and use

Macc is committed to a strong community and voluntary sector in Manchester. We believe that open data can assist with this ambition, through enabling transparency of our actions, in the form of open data.

360Giving - 360Giving supports organisations to publish their grants data in an open, standardised way and helps people to understand and use the data in order to support decision-making and learning across the charitable giving sector.

Search, explore and download grant data using GrantNav