Reimagining global giving through trust and partnership

Years of community-led research showed that traditional, project-based charity grants often fall short. One World Together takes a different, trust-based approach – pooling small monthly donations into long-term, flexible funding that strengthens community agency.

How the impact happens

Collaborating with people from diverse communities in the UK and Kenya, researchers built up strong evidence about why charity grant-giving often falls short of its long-term goals. The problem isn’t donor generosity, but control. Short‑term, tightly‑restricted funding too often pushes local organisations to chase projects and paperwork, rather than lead change on their own terms. 

How could communities receive financial support yet retain agency and drive change from within? 

Turning research insights into meaningful impact meant finding new ways to raise donations, distribute funds and – most importantly  change how communities decide what to finance and where to invest day to day. 

Innovation through co-design, iteration and learning

As Professor Nicola Banks explains: “Delivering impact through One World Together required a conscious decision to work differently – slowing down, sharing control and treating collaboration as integral to the research. That’s innovation for me: not a new device, but a way of working so society can flourish.” 

The team explored options with several community partners and then agreed what flexibility in funding and decision-making was needed, what information was genuinely useful to share between funders and recipients and where control could be reduced. As Bernard Sudlow from Aquarius Community Savers describes it: “We weren’t being asked to fit into someone else’s system – we helped shape how funding worked and how learning was shared.” 

This new way of working placed mutual learning and decision-making at its heart. Rather than formal reports, partners, including Manchester’s Community Savers and youth-led groups in Kenya, held regular check-ins designed to generate collective insights into what had been tried, what was helping and what needed to change. Funding arrangements were adjusted in response to these discussions, allowing partners to redirect funds as new priorities emerged. When communities set priorities and funding is flexible and long‑term, organisations can respond to real life and sustainably build momentum over time. 

“Letting go of control might initially feel uncomfortable in a sector used to heavy oversight," Nicola reflects, "but replacing monitoring with relational learning made the work more responsive.

Knowledge was captured through shared reflection and immediately fed back into how the model operated, from fundraising and collaborative working to how partners communicated.

Learnings flowed both ways. UK partners adapted ideas developed through Kenyan community organising, while youth-led groups in Nairobi shaped how the work was communicated, using lived experience to engage wider publics. 

As Bernard puts it: “Real impact begins when people have control over decisions that affect their lives.” 

Review and revision are at the heart of One World Together. By testing the funding approach in real situations and adapting it in unison, the partnership has built a research-informed model that responds to people’s lives as they are lived, rather than relying on predefined plans or outcomes. 

Moving forward

The next phase of One World Together focuses on growing a sustained community of everyday givers and expanding the Solidarity Fund that pools donations to support grassroots partners in the UK and internationally. So far, partners have used this flexible funding model to meet urgent needs, from local crisis grants to helping young people overcome practical barriers to progression, that rigid project funding rarely allows.  

To grow its funds for distribution, One World Together mobilises small, regular donations (from as little as £1.25 per month) at scale while preserving the trust, flexibility and shared decision-making that partners value. As Nicola says: “What solidarity looks like in practice is that partners can respond to crises, fill gaps and put humanity at the centre.” 

Alongside this, the team is developing Next Generation for Change. Working with young people aged 14–21 through pilots with British secondary schools and universities, this initiative uses workshops, classroom resources and student-led activities to explore global inequality, why conventional charity models often fall short, and how alternative forms of solidarity and ethical giving can be built and sustained over time.  

Nicola received support for taking her research-based ideas into real-world impact through the UKRI-funded Aspect Research Commercialisation (ARC) Accelerator programme, and it now provides a valuable case study for other researchers from SHAPE (Social sciences, Humanities and Arts for People and the Economy) disciplines seeking to create impact through entrepreneurship.  

For The University of Manchester, this next phase reflects a long-term commitment to partnership-led impact. It continues to turn research into practical funding models, strengthen them through real-world use, and learn alongside communities as more equitable ways of sharing resources take shape. “This isn’t charity,” says Nicola, “It’s change. Trust‑based, unrestricted and long‑term.”