A decade of researching the challenges charities face in addressing some of society’s most pressing problems led the University’s Global Development Institute Dr Nicola Banks to search for a new and transformative approach to funding community action.

Time and again, she found that the short term, project focused nature of NGO funding to organisations working in the Global South was stymying opportunities for real progress and change. All too often, there was a fundamental lack of trust of communities to meet their own challenges.

In 2023, she and Chibwe Masabo Henry co-founded One World Together, an innovative social enterprise rooted in principles of trust, solidarity and equity that shifts money and decision-making power to the organisations closest to communities.

Pooling affordable donations from its Global Citizens and channelling these to its four partners on a long-term and unrestricted basis, One World Together moves away from flawed and short-term project-based approaches to invest in strong community organisations and infrastructure.

With partners in Manchester, the North-West of England, Kenya and Zambia, One World Together brings local voices and experiences to the forefront of the movement, deepening their supporters’ understandings of poverty and inequality and of why local actors are so important to overcoming these.

Guided by a Youth Board made up of committed University of Manchester students and alumni and supported by a new University of Manchester One World Together Students’ Union Society, Nicola and Chibwe are setting out to transform existing unequal funding systems and move towards an equitable and community-centred future.

Do you want to help the wave of change that begins in Manchester to have global impact?

•  Join as a One World Together Global Citizen and sign up to their Solidarity Fund today!