As the year draws to a close, we’d like to take this opportunity to offer another HUGE thank you for your continued support. Every few months, we round up our recent awards and celebrate some of the remarkable things local groups have been able to accomplish thanks to your contributions. One of the things we love most about our funding is the fact that it supports all sorts of projects and causes, from LGBTQ+ choirs to ESOL courses, and luncheon clubs. Most importantly, it puts local people in the heart of the decision-making, recognising that they know best what their community needs and ensuring every penny makes the biggest possible difference. From September to December, we’ve awarded an incredible £294,832 to 160 local groups, with each project supporting around 40 people on average. Altogether, this means our funding has directly impacted approximately 6,400 people. We’ve done our best with the calculations, and if you ignore that everyone is usually packed in like sardines on the Met, we’re fairly sure that number of people would fill about 31 tram carriages. On top of this, we were really pleased to be able to fund 139 projects through our Connecting Communities at Christmas programme, awarding a total of £17,375 to help spread a bit of festive cheer to communities across Greater Manchester. We couldn’t do any of this without the commitment of our incredible business supporters. Your generosity makes it possible for us to bring about lasting change in communities across Greater Manchester.