Manchester City Council is launching a new Extra Help and Support (EHS) funding programme aimed at Voluntary, Community, Faith and Social Enterprise (VCFSE) organisations.
Key Dates
Opening date: Monday 16 June, 9am
Closing date: Friday 4 July, 5pm
Decisions made: July to August 2025
Funding Start Date: 1 October 2025
Aims of the fund
The funding programme has two aims:
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To provide early support before a need for statutory services, to help people to manage their tenancies or resolve issues in their existing accommodation, manage their money, and access community support and services that help them to stay financially resilient.
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To provide extra support to help vulnerable families and underserved communities navigate ‘systems’ around benefits, money management, and housing. This includes, for example, people from ethnic minority backgrounds and refugee communities, people with disabilities and long-term health conditions, and economically disadvantaged people.
Target beneficiaries may include, but are not limited to:
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People living with long term health conditions and disability, including mental illness
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Communities experiencing racial inequality
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Individuals and families impacted by poverty
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Individuals and families impacted by insecure housing
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Older people over 50
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People living in some of the city's most disadvantaged wards
Funding is available under three separate strands:
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Extra Help and Support for Single Adults
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Extra Help and Support for Young Adults (18-25)
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Tackling Inequalities: Extra Help and Support Grants
Extra Help and Support for Single Adults
Funding is for a daytime and evening service. This includes a food offer. The food offer is found within a current adults day centre. The service will provide a mixture of early and extra support. It will focus on financial resilience, navigating systems, and acting on advice and guidance received.
The service will be delivered as a two-year contract, with funding set at £200,000 per annum.
Extra Help and Support for Young Adults (18-25)
Funding is to provide early support to young adults to prevent the breakdown of accommodation. A key aspect of this work will include mediation with family members, friends, and landlords.
The funded service will also offer extra help to young people who are insecurely housed (e.g., sofa-surfing or subletting). The service will give advice on realistic housing options and help them navigate existing systems. Support will include:
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Income maximisation
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Building tenancy sustainment skills, and
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Supporting young adults to access education, training, and employment.
The service will be delivered as a two-year contract with funding set at £150,000 per annum.
Tackling Inequalities: Extra Help and Support Grants
The Tackling Inequalities Grant Programme is a £350,000 funding pot aimed at families and communities with protected characteristics who face barriers to accessing support. Funding is available for organisations over two years. It is for piloting ideas and testing new approaches, or providing additional capacity to increase or expand work already taking place in the city.
The funding is available under two areas: Early Support and Extra Support. Organisations can bid for between £50,000 to £100,000 per annum. Bids are also welcomed for services that deliver both early and extra support.
Funding bids are encouraged for services that will:
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Tackle specific language, cultural, community or other barriers
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Support people to resolve problems at an early stage, linked to wider health and wellbeing objectives
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Support the Council’s agenda around homelessness prevention through helping residents at a pre-statutory prevention stage, including:
- Providing mediation and liaising with landlords and/or families and carers.
- Providing people with independent and realistic information and skills about how to search for and secure housing within the Manchester area
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Help people complete forms and gather evidence for things like PIP
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Help people to act on advice received
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Support to break down barriers to accessing services, such as practical help to make and attend appointments, and facilitate other contacts as appropriate
For further information and to request application documents, email commissioning.consultation@manchester.gov.uk. In your email, indicate which strand(s) of funding you wish to apply for.