The Manchester Enterprise Challenge 2026 project

Manchester Enterprise Challenge Project Purpose: Attaining Sustainability

MEaP is pleased to share that we were selected by the University of Manchester to take part in the Manchester Enterprise Challenge.

The Manchester Enterprise Challenge project aims to offer students at the University of Manchester the opportunity to volunteer in an organisation and put into practice the skills that they have acquired during relevant courses. From the organisation’s perspective, it aimed to strengthen MEaP’s financial sustainability and public visibility. Five students were selected to volunteer with us working on the project: Kaiqi W, Jiaying S, Chengwei Y, Dillon R, and Yan T. They helped the organisation developed a clear, evidence-based approach to income generation, marketing, and supporter engagement enabling MEaP to better articulate its value, diversify income streams, and increase engagement with funders, partners, and volunteers.

It was important for MEaP and 3E Web Media Ltd who managed the interns that the individual subprojects that each of the volunteers undertook aligned with their career goals and their professional interests. As a result, each of them chose a relevant subset of the overall sustainability project.

What the Manchester Enterprise Challenge 2026 Project Delivered

• Kaiqi W explored and analysed MEaP’s social conversion, engagement, and retention. She chose to concentrate on the adults in MEaP’s target audience because they make the decisions especially the financial ones and therefore are more relevant for the sustainability arc of the project. She then presented systematic content structure recommendations per MEaP social networking in order to attract adults for financial sustainability.
• Yan T looked at best practices from MEaP’s competition in the non-profit realm, chosing a wide variety of competitors to glean different best practices and only competitors with similarities to MEaP for relevance. She then created a competitor and sector benchmarking summary, drawing areas in which they excel, as well as best practices and practical recommendations for MEaP sustainability.
• Her consulting ambition got Dillon R to review the comprehensive MEaP’s financial strategy. She concentrated on creating a tactical framework from it. She delivered a set of practical and actionable recommendations, including researching and proposing membership pricing​, identfying suitable partners​, suggesting potentail financial risks to explicitly mitigate, and proposing suitable financial responsibility allocation for temporary staff.
• Jiaying S analysed MEaP extensive employability data, suming it up to draw insights in Microsoft Excel. She then researched and identified 3 relevant and complementary questionnaires. Considering the costs in time and money of those questionnaires, she decided to created a more suitable and actionable questionaire inspired from these to measure MEaP’s employability impact on participants’ confidence, skills, and more.
• Chengwei’s social media and analytical skills were perfect for his digital marketing focus. His musicianship also found a great use. He did a SWOT analysis and social review that allowed him to deliver MEaP’s sonic brand identity which he composed himself, guidelines of best practices with actual MEaP’s examples of what works and what doesn’t as well as video templates that faciliate the quick showcasing of MEaP’s data impact

Manchester Enterprise Challenge Project Scope

Each student created an exhaustive final report for MEaP’s eyes only and a presentation outlining findings as well as actionable recommendations. Rather than delivering some generic recommendations, the students made sure to take in the uniqueness of MEaP to deliver tailored solutions and dig deep into making sure these solutions are feasible and actionable for the specific traits of MEaP’s team.  To do so, they had access to MEaP’s anonymised data, MEaP’s branding guidelines, MEaPs’ marketing information (target audiences, channels…), MEaP’s relevant strategies and the overseeing and support from MEaP’s team.

Within the defined scoped, they got to review current income streams and sustainability challenges, research into comparable charities and social enterprises, analyse marketing and supporter engagement approaches and develop realistic, costed recommendations and priorities. Direct implementation of recommendations and Fundraising applications, website rebuilds, or delivery of campaigns were completely out of the scope of this challenge.

Manchester Enterprise Challenge Project Stages

1. Initial briefing meeting to understand MEaP’s mission, context, and challenges
2. Individual meetings to understand each individual’s career goals, experience, interests…
3. Review of existing materials (website, social media content, analytical data, relevant strategy (e.g., MEaP’s financial strategy), brand guidelines, reports, marketing content)
4. Desk research including where necessary, benchmarking with similar organisations
5. Analysis and option development
6. Draft recommendations shared for feedback
7. Final report and presentation to MEaP and University of Manchester representatives

Manchester Enterprise Challenge Final Presentation

Following their extensive work, our interns created a comprehensive presentation that brought their research and practical recommendations together. Each of them delivered their section to the University volunteer department and MEaP representatives at the University of Manchester.

Manchester Enterprise Challenge: Skills applied and developed

The five students had the opportunity to develop a wide range of disciplines and to strengthen and apply their already owned skills and interests, including:

1. Working in a social enterprise and community development organisation
2. Increasing organisational sustainability
3. Digital Marketing, particularly social marketing, social sustainability and continuity
4. Communications and collaborations
5. Non-Disclosure Agreements, signing them and what they entail
6. Understanding the use and limitations of generative AI
7. Creating presentations with PowerPoint including using Slide Master features and creating presentations with Canva
8. Creating engaging videos with PowerPoint
9. Organisational branding guidelines
10. Market research
11. Analytical thinking, data analysis and problem solving including pivot tables with Microsoft Excel, data sourcing, cleaning and visualising
12. Report writing and productivity with Microsoft Word including structuring using Word styles, breaking layouts with sections…

After the Project

MEaP will use the project outputs to inform its strategic planning, fundraising priorities, and marketing activity for 2026-2028. Recommendations will directly shape internal planning and future funding applications, ensuring student work has lasting real-world impact. Many thanks to Beth C. from the University of Manchester Volunteering hub for all her support of the volunteers on her end.

Resources and References

• Volunteering (Volunteer Hub) at the University of Manchester
• The University of Manchester
• View other MEaP internships and volunteer projects here