100+ children and young people. 21 youth organisations. £200,000 up for grabs. What could go wrong? Not a lot it seems. Shared Future were happy to support Choose For Cheetham 2025, after the steering group decided to use participatory budgeting (PB) to select who should get funded.

Hope for Cheetham is a community-led, long-term project with a bold vision to create a Cheetham Hill where children and young people growing up here “are empowered and supported by the entire community and system to achieve their hopes and ambitions.”

Led by the locally based Hope For Cheetham steering group, and with youth empowerment at front and centre of their mission, £200k of money from the Youth Endowment Fund and #iwill was granted to projects in Cheetham Hill, North Manchester in February 2025.

The 2025 grant fund was called Choose for Cheetham, and it was decided that both young people in the area AND the 21 organisations seeking to support them would be able to have a say. The work was led by Young Manchester, and they asked Shared Future to help design the process.

It was always going to be competitive

Over £500k was applied for, so not every organisation could be successful. But to maximise the impact, and ensure young people were driving the decision, an innovative two stage PB process was created. One that was also collaborative, with relationship building and social action principles at its heart.

First, young people and their parents were invited to a public meeting, held at the Ukrainian Centre in Cheetham Hill on the 17th February 2025. The event included presentations and a ‘marketplace’ of the 21 applying organisations. Young people were able to visit the stalls and explore all the options available before voting. Hundreds attended, and well over 100 young people voted for up to 4 projects each.

Projects were expected to focus on youth led social action and play services, such as mentoring, sports, environmental projects, health and wellbeing and life skills. With a clear plan to embed social action to positively impact the whole community.

Participatory Grantmaking in Action

A few days after the youth event all the applicants gathered again, and talked through all the projects. Then they also voted, this time for up to seven projects (just not their own). The youth and applicant votes were combined to decide the final allocation of the available £200,000.

In keeping with the principles underpinning social action, we included a ‘pay back’ option too. This meant successful projects could gift back some of their award to enable other projects receive something if unsuccessful in the vote. Or offer in-kind support, such as venues, equipment, time or knowledge, .

Unlike most grant processes, normally decided behind closed doors by a small panel, the applicants were encouraged to meet, discuss their ideas and collaborate. That’s hard, but the initial feedback was positive. The applicants also loved that young people’s voices were being heard.

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If you would like to find out more or discuss your PB project, then get in touch with Jez Hall at Shared Future.

To follow what happens next, contact Young Manchester on their Hope for Cheetham web page.

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Images by Shared Future and Young Manchester