Live Well Communities Fund

Live Well Communities Fund is sponsored by Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) and NHS Greater Manchester. This fund supports grassroots organizations across Greater Manchester, including Oldham, to deliver holistic, day-to-day support within communities through dedicated neighbourhood hubs.

Live Well Communities Fund - Greater Manchester Combined Authority The Live Well Communities Fund is being built to bring more funding into communities across Greater Manchester and to make sure this funding makes a real difference to health inequalities. Over the past year, we have been testing how the Fund could work and building strong partnerships to support it.

A partnership of NHS GM, GMCA, 10GM and the Greater Manchester Mayor's Charity is leading this work, with organisations all across Greater Manchester. Every Greater Manchester locality, supported through its VCFSE Local Infrastructure Organisations, has taken part in Year 1of the fund.

They have tried new ways of sharing power and getting funding directly to small, grassroots groups working with communities facing the greatest inequalities. More than £1 million has already been awarded - and hundreds of thousands of additional 'match' has been added to this. This funding has reached over 450 small organisations and supported more than 14,500 people from many different walks of life.

Around 2,000 local people have been involved in making decisions about how the funding is used. Read about the learning from year one: Live Well Communities Fund year one prototype learning pack (PDF 4. 2MB) Plain text version of the Live Well communities fund year one learning pack (DOCX 2.

6MB) Thank you to the GM Systems Changers and A Brilliant Thing for leading the evaluation. We are also putting the right agreements in place so the Fund can grow and operate independently in the future. A key milestone was reached on 21 January, when we launched our partnership with the GM Mayor’s Charity.

This partnership, called Powering Live Well (external website) , will help us attract donations from businesses and funders.

Looking ahead, we believe the Live Well Communities Fund can work alongside local areas, existing grant programmes and the Live Well Implementation Fund to: Bring more funding to grassroots community groups Improve how grants are awarded Better understand and measure the difference this funding makes Over the next year, we will continue to build these partnerships to make this happen.

Explore what the Fund has achieved in its first year through the videos below.

Bolton Central South Accessible Funding Sorry, your browser does not support IFRAMES Video transcript: Bolton Central South Accessible Funding In 2025, Greater Manchester Combined Authority and NHS Greater Manchester shared 1 million pounds of Live Well community funding to see how it could change things for communities if power were shifted into the hands of people who lived there.

And if decisions on how to spend it were community led, we wanted to learn together how we could get the funding into the hands of people closest to those experiencing inequalities. Kma in Arabic means serving the community. And this is what we are all about.

We are a safe space for women. We help them build confidence, develop new skills, and to improve their health and wellbeing. I just love it.

It's like a big family. You've Got so many problems of your own, but when you come over here, you just forget everything. We talk, we unwind or make new friends as well.

And now I'm more confident and my life improved for the better. Every town, everywhere, they need community hubs because there's a lot of isolation, there's a lot of loneliness. So that will combat all these.

This Is a fantastic group and it's the first group I've ever joined. I'm deaf. I can't hear at all.

I'm profound. After six months of me joining, Yasmine made me a coordinator. I found my voice because of my ladies.

And if I didn't have this lady, I would've been at home and then forward. This is what LiveWell is about and this is what I feel it should be about. For nine years, we did not get funding at all.

We use it from our pockets. Funding should be available. There should be people helping communities to access those funds.

Because funding is essential. It helps the group to build and grow so we can do more, far more. I am from Sapphire Partnership and we are an organization and a charity that works with young adults with neurodiverse needs and disabilities.

Bolton CVS have done an amazing job. They organized a series of consultation events and they wanted community involvement right from the beginning. It was inclusive.

Even the consultation meetings were held at different times, different venues so that people could come uh, and voice their opinions and and find out what it was about. So I came to a meeting here, actually to the Willow Center and to listen to see whether it would be suitable for our young adults. Everybody is excited about live.

Well, really very interesting learning process. The community came together to decide how they want to spend the phone. They have.

It was very participatory. It was very diverse. Different voluntary organization, people living with disability, uh, minority ethnic community.

It is important that when it's community led, that they know the priorities of their own communities. They have the autonomy to target the specific issues various communities face. They spoke about two separate groups that were going to be established.

The design decision making groups and the collaborative group. I think for me and our organization, it soon came to realization that there's not a massive pot of money and for us, we didn't want the funding, but still wanted to be involved in the collaborative. LiveWell fund was really good opportunity.

We saw other groups, which I've never even knew existed within this area. And this is all about community. It's about growing and getting recognized.

For me, it's what can it kickstart? Can it kickstart us Working better together? We know that makes the difference when we work better together.

There's quite a lot of organizations that already exist in this area. What they didn't know was a lot of information sharing about each other. For us, we have a lot of young adults that in the evenings and weekends they've nowhere to go.

So if I know about organizations that exist in this area, I can promote it. So therefore they get in more just by conversations. I'm always networking and I think that's what we need to collaborate more with other groups because I may be doing something they probably would love to learn.

They may be doing something that I would love to learn. So I think we need that more for this. I think the way that it's been set up feels like there's a legacy that's been built in here.

Tameside Community Led Design Sorry, your browser does not support IFRAMES Video transcript: Tameside Community Led Design Community is all about people. How to give people opportunities and give people what they really want.

Community-led design is so important for anything that we do in the community because if you have people in power or influence that are making decisions about what everybody else needs, it doesn't work unless you have a really good insight into what things affect people, what people are living with, what the issues are, what their interests are, what makes them tick.

It's a movement of change, Livewell, and a significant part of that movement is grassroots organisations. The Livewell Communities Fund really builds on our opportunity to invest more in their capability. People who've got great ideas who want to turn that idea into action, how do we support them and make sure it is genuinely community led?

Action Together, I liked that they were very keen on tackling health, social, and economic inequalities within Tameside. For years back, we believed that the big organisation are getting the funding while the small ones are struggling. But the small organization, they go to the root of it to help everybody and to touch everybody.

Welcome to West African Development. Come in. Discover a bit more about African culture and heritage, our tradition, and our cultural values.

Giving to kids in school something new, sharing something that probably they never heard before. Football activities is also part of our regular activities, and from this funding, it's going to be ongoing support. I can proudly say that the work we're doing is having an impact and people are happy in a better life and Livewell in our communities.

The greatest thing about a community-led project is that it comes directly from the community themselves. The ideas actually came from the volunteers and the young people who highlighted some of the issues that they were actually facing in the community. Physical inactivities for young people, especially those from ethnic minority background.

I feel really proud when young people come and tell me that, "Uncle, we maybe gone a different angle in their life, but we are in good path now." Players have actually created a really good friendship together where even outside of playing they interact with each other, making friendship within that circle. So this is called the Engage Program, and its primarily focus was to just allow people to come in off the street.

People who live on their own isolated. They would come in and they would have a breakfast, and just good company, someone to talk to. We got to know about their situations.

We offered support. The aim is to take people from where they're at and to go forward with them, whatever that means. We'll be here as long as it takes, and the doors will always be open.

These drop-in centers, they help. They make a bit of a difference with keeping people busy and keeping people's minds active, and just knowing that you're actually doing something and having some sort of purpose. James had a period of homelessness but was still accessing here.

Over time, started to build up a little trust, engaged in some of our life skills activities, and it's good to have been able to support him in some practical ways as well to move forward. I'm feeling a lot more healthy and a lot more happy and loved and feel good about yourself. We already have really good links with Action Together, and they invited us to become part of the Livewell Steering Group for Tameside.

The piece of work we did was working on our principles, really focusing on what community organisation or project, what values they would have to adhere to, to be able to be linked in with the Livewell. It was an opportunity for me to learn so many things. So it wasn't just about disbursing funds.

They had done their homework. There were weighted criteria that each organisation was measured against, which made the whole process very transparent and fair. I think you were very apprehensive at first, weren't you?

In terms of actually getting involved? Yeah, because I'm very weak on emotion. It's very hard for me to let someone down.

We then had a conversation about how important it was to be involved as part of the panel. It's a bit more equal opportunities, really, on decision-making. It's fair and I'm very happy to have that experience.

It's not ending there. We have to carry on and make sure we are making an improvement to reach out to more people. I hope it does continue and build and go forward with strength.

Livewell has come to stay, and we're here for Livewell as well, so we will all Livewell. Salford Live Well Communities Fund Building Relationships Sorry, your browser does not support IFRAMES Video transcript: Salford Live Well Communities Fund Building Relationships Hello, my name is Stuart. I'm a community filmmaker, artist, and also working with Community Little Hulton and Salford CVS as the Livewell development worker.

I've lived in Little Hulton all my life, and it is a place which I've seen change a lot. It's getting better. That is a testament to how dedicated people are to improving this area.

That's what we're trying to promote a bit more of, that neighbourliness and that word of mouth connection. We were all talking about how this grant-making process could work. It was myself with Community Little Hulton, Salford CVS, and the neighborhood development workers talking about how we could engage as many people and make this process as accessible as possible.

And this is when I suggested we could use videos because it made it more accessible for them as applicants and as the wider public as recipients and eventually voters on who they thought would deserve the money that we had to share. So videos seemed like the best way.

Everybody who was on the panel had been involved in the community research project that we'd done in the past, and all those people who'd done the community research projects were local residents from Little Hulton. It was good. It was nice to be involved in that kind of thing, seeing where money goes and how it gets decided where it goes.

I think that was really good to bring people together and also promote smaller businesses as well. Hi, I'm Becky. I'm from Body Mind Educate.

Let's go and see the prom shop. Body Mind Educate is a service that helps young people advocate for their healthy bodies, healthy minds, and healthy education. The first pot of funding that I got was actually from Livewell, and I was like, "Woo!"

I'm not very good writing funding applications because I'm ADHD, but I can talk. So I did this little video, and the community just really took to the idea. So that Livewell funding, it gave us more recognition within our local community.

You can try whatever you want on, my darling. Everything is donated by people, general public. I've never done anything with fashion in my life.

I'm an education practitioner. I worked within the NHS, within the councils, doing youth work for 15, 16 years. This came off the back of a whim.

I took my son for his prom where it was extortionate. I thought, "How are other parents coping?" And so I know that parents need it, and I know that the young people appreciate it.

It's the socialization, not being excluded. I think it's just an experience, isn't it? It's just fun to be with other people.

I had a lot of issues with school and stuff. I feel like that's why Becky's so good because she's really understanding as well because we've both got ADHD. So I just feel really comfortable because she understands, and it's easier to talk to people who understand and have that lived experience.

It's all about teaching the young people to be themselves, thinking, "Who did I need to teach me to be me?" I want to be that person for our next generation. She's dedicated.

That's how I describe Becky. She is good at bringing other services together to offer broader support to other people. Because I've worked with Heads Up, Gentlemen, I just thought it would be a really good opportunity for them as well.

It was awesome getting involved, finding out about the funding opportunity, finding out about the other groups. Most of them I'd never heard of. There were a lot of resources that people don't know about that actually are on offer.

Jeff brings together so many different people to sit around tables sharing food, using his lived experience to offer broader support to people to run new initiatives. Since I've been coming to Heads Up, Gentlemen, my family have noticed that my mental health has gotten better because of the support that I'm getting off the guys. Well, we are having a chat.

We sometimes playing dominoes. We just talking about ourselves, what the problem we face, and I really enjoy my time with them. They are the only place where I feel safe.

I've been working in communities for over 20 years. People coming together for a common goal. It is those bridges between services and people that matter.

Brotherhood. I want the guys to feel comfortable. We are a family.

My biggest reward is seeing the results. We've had so many success stories in such a short time. Community Little Hulton is now flagship Livewell center.

They have also committed to that participatory budgeting approach. So the legacy really in Little Hulton is in that ways of working and bringing people together. Oldham East Live Well Communities Fund Sorry, your browser does not support IFRAMES Video transcript: Oldham East Live Well Communities Fund One of the things I love about Oldham and projects like the Live Well is it brings people together.

We're rich in a lot of love. That's what I'd say, and a lot of good people who do good things. Food is a really good thing for bringing people together.

In our little hut, they run Wild Wellbeing Wednesdays. It is about your wellbeing. It's all sustainable, and we've gone off basically what the community want.

Projects that are going on outside and some that are inside for people who are maybe less abled, or they want to do other things, or they just want a natter, because sometimes that's all we need, isn't it? Just somewhere to go to have a chat and tell people how we're feeling. One of the nice things about it is the diversity of people that actually come into the hub, different skills that they bring in.

Charlene has been like my rock, really. She's like, "Give me a little bit of a push" to get me out, and it's really helped me for getting my confidence back. We were told by our local district team about an opportunity to get together volunteers, community members, and discuss Live Well and how best to get communities involved in making decisions to improve their own health and wellbeing.

That's what they called the first design jam. And there was loads of people there. We wanted to look at the funding, make it accessible and easy and not the same old thing.

What can we do a bit differently? How can we get more people involved? For Action Together, one of our strategic aims is about transforming our role as grant givers.

How do we transform as an organisation and to share power and control with communities? And this was a really great example of where we could really test ourselves. How can we go further?

How can we push it, what we've been aspiring to do, and really try and test some different ways of working, designing things with and alongside people that often don't get their voice heard, and make sure that there's an offer of support there that feels really accessible. We're here to help and support because we want people to succeed. So the Learning by Doing is we are here to help you.

We're trying to remove all those barriers so that more people can actually get doing what they're good at. I was in the group that were bringing our experience together of those of us that had applied for grants before and trying to make it as person-friendly as possible. We're really proud of our logo and the fact that we've got pull-up banners that we're taking around with us.

We've got some flyers out as well. We've tried to make them as readable as possible, and then there's a QR code so that they can find out more details as well. We really wanted it to not look corporate, just so that it was more community focused.

We found the best feedback was going out and speaking to people. That was much more responsive than the QR code. It is very accessible, and it felt like something that I could do instead of something that was completely overwhelming.

The fact that it's locally led and to attract not just organisations like ours, but just a local group, that's what's really unique about it and how simple it is to do. What do you think would be good then, Caitlin, for a project for young people around connecting with nature? Little group walks, but on the walk you can have your arts day or you can have a nature wellbeing day, which is such a good idea.

I can't get over it. You walked over it to me today. It's the best thing that's happened.

It's about planting little seeds, and you can watch them grow. They could be actual seeds or seeds of an idea. It's been taking a few risks and a few chances, but I'm pleased and proud of the team have really listened to people and it's not just been tokenistic.

It has been genuinely like, "Let's make this happen." Everybody's got good ideas. It's just convincing people that, yeah, just have a go.

Just try it out, and even if your idea might veer off this way or that way, that is part of the Learning by Doing, and you can only get better. Find out more about GM's Voluntary Sector Infrastructure Organisations work to support the Fund (external website). Mayor Andy Burnham and The National Lottery Community Fund join forces to grow Live Well spaces National Lottery Community Fund Partnership Greater Manchester to invest £4.

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