Celebrate Manchester's local voluntary and community sector in 2026
Spirit of Manchester 2026 Awards Shortlist
The Spirit of Manchester Awards is a series of awards celebrating and highlighting all the excellent work being carried out in Manchester’s voluntary and community sector. 2025 was a great success and we want to make 2026 even bigger and better.
We will once again be running a face to face and virtual event, make sure you put the evening of Thursday 1st October in your calendar to celebrate the brilliant work of Manchester's voluntary, community and social enterprise sector.
We are excited to announce the shortlist for this year’s Spirit of Manchester Awards 2026, which was decided by our judging panel. We would like to thank our judges for volunteering their time to read through the many amazing nominations we received and to make the difficult decisions of selecting just three nominations for each category for our shortlist.
Shortlist
Volunteer of the Year
- Dave Crowe
- Jeff Seneviratne
- Les Cowell
Volunteering Team
- Birthday Stars Project
- The Taras Shevchenko Ukrainian School
- MadLab Volunteering Team (WEA)
Volunteer Involving Organisation
- Westcroft Community Centre
- Home-Start Manchester
- EMERGE
Young Volunteer of the Year
- Winner – Demi Murch
Tackling Inequalities (Supported by Manchester City Council: Equity and Engagement Team)
- Community Thriving Together CIC
- Equal Education Chances
- Maggy Moyo
Inspiring Campaign
- The Dianne Oxberry Trust
- Cash for Kids Greater Manchester
- Liz Godfrey, Manchester Mums for Lungs
Creative Community Spirit
- Silver Screen Community Film Studios
- 53two
- Max Trax – Kerrie Rimmer
Partnership and Collaboration (Supported by Manchester Metropolitan University)
- Greater Manchester Living Income Campaign
- Manchester Central Foodbank, Manchester South Central Foodbank, Burnage Foodbank, Chorlton & Didsbury Foodbank, Fallowfield & Withington Foodbank, Wythenshawe Foodbank
- Greater Manchester Immigration Aid Unit, Clyde & Co LLP, Dechert, Linklaters and Squire Patton Boggs
Community and Business Collaboration
- EMPOWER Youth Zones & BNY
- Deloitte (North-West) & FareShare Greater Manchester
- BAM – Victoria North Project
Trustee/Committee Member of the Year
- Sally Carr MBE
- Emile Pinel
- Andre Baron
Social Economy Champion (Supported by BAM)
- Winner – Manchester Urban Diggers
Service User Involving Organisation
- Home-Start Manchester
- Caritas Salford
- Mahtsen CIC
Community Cohesion (Supported by Flowhesion)
- Simran Whitham
- Qaisra Shahraz MBE FRSA (MACFEST) Muslim Arts and Culture Festival
- Building Bridges Project / Gerry Flanagan from Caritas Shrewsbury
- One Million Mentors
Climate Action Award
- Winner – Manchester Urban Diggers CIC
The Dr Sylvia Sham Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Voluntary Sector
- The winner will be announced on the night
The winners will be decided at our Awards Ceremony on 1st October.
Attend the Spirit of Manchester Awards Ceremony 2026
We will soon be selling tickets to attend our Awards Ceremony, watch out for the announcement in a future email bulletin. If you would like to express an interest in attending and to be notified when tickets are available please email: info@mcrcommunitycentral.org
Supporters
There are a number of ways you can become a supporter of our Spirit of Manchester Awards and help us celebrate and reward the voluntary and community sector for all their hard work. See more on how to be a supporter.
How do the awards work?
Click here for how the process works, how nominations are handled and how all of this happens.
Spirit of Manchester Awards 2025 Winners and Shortlist
Spirit of Manchester 2025 Awards brochure
Find out about all the amazing organisations and individuals that were shortlisted for the Spirit of Manchester Awards 2025. View our Spirit of Manchester 2025 Awards brochure.
Spirit of Manchester 2025 Review
Please see the link below for a review of the evening Spirit of Manchester Awards 2025 Review
Take a look at the winners from last year’s awards here.