Renew Community Fund
Fund details & criteria
Fund purpose
The Renew Community Fund is designed to help people keep the things they love in use for longer while bringing communities together. Run in partnership with SUEZ and Recycle for Greater Manchester, money for the fund is generated by selling pre-loved, repaired, and upcycled household items at Greater Manchester’s Renew shops. The fund targets long-term, positive behaviour change. The goal is simple: make fixing, sharing, borrowing, and buying second-hand a normal part of everyday life. What sort of projects are we looking for? Projects that involve one or more of the activities below: Donating, sharing, repairing, upcycling or redistributing household items, like clothes, shoes, bikes, furniture, tools, books, school uniforms, IT equipment. Offering volunteers or people from your community opportunities to learn new skills in repair or upcycling. A measurable reduction in the amount of household waste thrown away by repairing or redistributing. Projects that help to change behaviour by encouraging residents to buy pre-loved or second hand items or hire, borrow or rent items rather than buy new ones. Examples of projects include: Sharing and borrowing hubs: Initiatives that prevent people from buying items they only use occasionally. Examples include ‘Libraries of Things’ where residents can borrow tools, gardening gear, or camping equipment, as well as community toy libraries and baby banks that distribute pre-loved essentials. Repair and upcycling cafés: Community spaces that give everyday items a second life. Things like repair cafés that help fix small household appliances, electronics, or furniture, alongside textile and fashion-flip workshops that teach residents how to mend and upcycle clothes. Community refurbishment: Projects that actively stop useful items going to waste and redirect them to those in need. For example refurbished bikes, digital inclusion schemes that refurbish old laptops, or furniture redistribution hubs. Skill-sharing and awareness workshops: Educational programmes designed to break down stigmas around buying second-hand or renting. This could be workshops that teach basic woodwork, upholstery, or composting while helping to reduce social isolation and boost mental wellbeing. This list is not exhaustive. All waste reduction, recycling and reuse projects will be considered. Ultimately, successful applications must demonstrate how they will reduce household waste across Greater Manchester.
