The Housing Provider will invest £150,000 into projects that can create social value and change people’s lives. 
Housing and community service provider, One Manchester, is calling for entrepreneurs and social organisations to share their ideas, knowledge and skills to help to improve Manchester’s neighbourhoods and change people's lives.
For the first year, the housing provider is running a social innovation call, for which they have set aside £150,000 to invest in projects, designed to generate solutions to specific social problems that are an issue in the areas it operates in.
There are a number of clear social issues prevalent in One Manchester’s communities. This first series of calls is seeking to help develop new solutions to furniture poverty, provision of affordable and flexible childcare, and help create local employment opportunities through community businesses. The financial investment from One Manchester will support projects in these areas to develop and benefit the providers’ residents and communities.
One Manchester is seeking to offer grants and/or loans to the best ideas, as well as offering other in kind support.
Social Investment Manager at One Manchester, Anton Schultz, is keen to find projects or initiatives that are innovative, build on existing skills, knowledge and experience, focus on social outcomes, and present a sustainable business model.
Anton commented: “We see these calls as the starting point, allowing us to have a conversation about the best ways to improve our areas, and the opportunities for the people that live there, through partnership working.
We want to talk to people about their ideas, and the resources they might need to make their projects a success. Each project we invest in must link back to our social investment priorities.
All expressions of interest will be followed up and responded to, and we hope to start making our investments before March 2019.”
The best proposals will be invited to discuss their ideas further and if necessary, One Manchester’s team is on hand to help identify what is required to develop ideas further and put together a simple investment proposal that is appropriate to each applicant’s circumstances.
Larger investment proposals will be presented to the board for funding decisions.