Salford Foundation

About Us

Salford Foundation is an organisation that supports the vocational, personal, social and academic development of young people and adults in Salford. It provides opportunities for those in education, business and the wider community to work together for their mutual advantage.

Salford Foundation has been in existence (originally as Salford Compact) since late 1988. The role of the organisation has expanded considerably since that time and it enjoys a strategic and operational relationship with GM Learning and Skills Council (LSC), a number of Greater Manchester local authorities, JobCentre Plus, schools, businesses and many other private and public sector organisations throughout Salford and the surrounding areas.

Salford Foundation is a social inclusion organisation, providing a range of support for a wide variety of people in Salford particularly and across Greater Manchester more generally. It is a company limited by guarantee and also a registered charity.

Since its inception in September 1988, the organisation has grown from an employee base of three to its current level of over fifty. It consists of a non-executive board of twelve members, drawn from senior management in business and education, a management team of five and a variety of project Co-ordinators and Administrators who make up the delivery team.

The Foundation's education/business projects operate through the Business Education Partnership (a distinctly branded programme within the Foundation) and are funded through the LSC, the Children and Young People's Fund and New Deal for Communities, with the focus on early intervention in addressing social, vocational, personal and academic issues.

The Foundation has a contract to deliver Millennium Volunteers (MV) in Greater Manchester. MV is a nationally-funded programme that engages young people aged 16 - 24 in voluntary activities. In this particular contract there is an emphasis on working with younger people in colleges, schools, youth groups and other social inclusion agencies supporting young people. This has been further enhanced by the development of a pre-16 volunteer programme in a number of inner city schools.

The Foundation has expanded its work over the years to include support programmes for vulnerable adults. This has included contracts with JobCentre Plus, focusing on delivering mentoring for post - 18 year olds under the Government’s strategy for supporting the unemployed.

The Foundation is being funded to develop programmes to support socially excluded groups:

• A teenage parent support programme in Manchester funded by the DCSF under the auspices of the Parenting Fund.
• A teenage parent support programme in Salford funded by Big Lottery
• A lone parent programme in Bolton, Salford and Wigan funded by Coalfields Regeneration Trust
• A women's centre for women offenders or those who are at risk of offending and...
• A mentoring project for offenders.

The Foundation is a partner of the National Council for One Parent Families and delivers a number of projects on its behalf, including the Marks and Start Programme - this is an initiative offering supported access to potential employment with Marks and Spencer for lone parents and other unemployed people.  The project includes a three-day personal development programme, two weeks' work experience and the opportunity for employment at the end of the process.

The Foundation has also delivered financial literacy training to lone parents across Greater Manchester.

The Gulbenkian Foundation has also given funding to the Foundation to develop a series of aspirational workshops for lone parents - the events encourage lone parents to meet with their peers and access information and advice from professionals, ranging from healthy eating to employability issues.

It also operates a trading company, the Foundation for Personal Development, through which a number of commercial activities are undertaken.

The Foundation has also developed a separate Trust to provide direct grants to young people to support their development. This will be part-funded by the main Foundation charity.