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Build a Men's Group

Men's Groups: A Directory of Real Ones, and How They Work

Written by Robert Manthy, LPC · Updated August 2026

Wooden folding chairs set out in a circle in a plain hall before a meeting

Eight folding chairs in a room the church lends out on Tuesdays. Somebody brings coffee in a thermos because the machine there is terrible. At seven o'clock a guy who has said nothing for three weeks says his father is in hospice and he hasn't told anyone at work. Nobody fixes it. Somebody says thanks for telling us. That is a men's group, and there is no version of it that is more impressive than that.

The hard part isn't understanding what a group is. It's finding one. There's no phone book for this, the search results are mostly ads, and half the pages you land on are trying to sell you a weekend retreat. So below you'll find two things: a plain explanation of how these groups work, and a directory of organizations we checked one by one against their own websites in August 2026.

What a men's group actually is

A men's group is a small number of men, usually five to twelve, meeting on a fixed schedule to talk about what's really going on in their lives. Most run 90 minutes to two hours, weekly or every other week. That's the whole definition. Everything else is variation.

Three kinds cover almost all of them:

A group is not therapy, and a good one will tell you that itself. If you're dealing with depression, addiction, or thoughts of hurting yourself, a group can sit alongside treatment but it can't replace it. Plenty of men do both.

What happens in a meeting

Almost every functioning group in the world runs some version of this shape, whether or not anyone wrote it down:

The ground rules are usually short: what's said here stays here, no advice unless a man asks for it, and no fixing. If you want the version you can print and hand to seven guys, we've written up ground rules, a first meeting agenda, and discussion topics.

What it costs

More of this is free than you'd guess from the search results.

F3 Nation states on its own site that it is free and always will be. ANDYSMANCLUB in the UK is a free-to-attend charity. Men's Sheds set their costs locally, usually to cover materials and the rent on the workshop, so ask the shed near you rather than assuming. Church-hosted groups are typically free or ask for the price of a book.

On the paid side, MDI lists membership at 30 US dollars a month on its pricing page. Online group platforms run on a subscription. And then there are the weekend intensives, the trainings and immersions that some of the bigger organizations are best known for, which cost hundreds to a few thousand dollars.

Worth knowing before you spend anything: you do not have to buy a weekend to try a group. If an organization won't let you sit in on an ordinary meeting until you've paid for an intensive, that's a reason to look elsewhere, not a sign you're not ready.

How to tell a good group from a bad one

Go twice before you judge it. First meetings are awkward everywhere, and that's not information. By the second or third, you'll know.

Signs it's a good room: men interrupt each other less than you expected. Somebody says something genuinely uncomfortable and the group doesn't rush to fix it. Attendance is boring and reliable. Nobody performs. There's a way to leave that doesn't require an explanation.

Signs to walk: heavy pressure to recruit your friends. A leader whose decisions can't be questioned. Confidentiality talked about but never actually agreed. A group that positions itself as the answer to a clinical problem. Money that keeps escalating, where each level unlocks the next one. And any room where a man's feelings get treated as a weakness to train out of him.

The directory

How this list was built. Every organization below was checked against its own website in August 2026. If we couldn't confirm an organization was still operating from its own site, it isn't here. We don't list individual local groups, meeting times, facilitators, or phone numbers, because that information goes stale fast and a wrong meeting time is worse than none.

This list is incomplete and it's growing. If your group or network is missing, tell us about it and we'll check it and add it.

Groups you can join from anywhere

These run online, so where you live doesn't decide whether you can get in.

In-person networks with a location finder

Each of these publishes a map or a postcode search, which is the fastest route to something within driving distance of you.

Directories for searching your own town

These aren't groups. They're the search tools that will surface the local ones nobody has heard of outside a five mile radius.

Two things we could not verify, so they aren't listed: Junto, whose site would not load at all when we checked, and Men's Sheds Canada, whose site currently identifies itself as a test site under construction. If either is running properly and we've got it wrong, tell us and we'll add them.

Add a group to this directory

If you run a men's group or a network of them, send it over. We check every submission against the organization's own website before it goes on the page, so a link matters more than a description.

If tonight is worse than that

A group meets on Tuesday. If you need someone now, in the US you can call or text 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, any hour, or chat at 988lifeline.org. For treatment referrals, SAMHSA's national helpline is 1-800-662-4357, free and confidential, 24 hours a day.

Outside the US: in the UK and Ireland, Samaritans is 116 123, free from any phone.

If there's nothing near you

Then you're the guy who starts one, and that's a much smaller job than it sounds. You need four or five men, a room, a night of the week, and someone willing to send the reminder text. That's genuinely it. The organizations above exist because at some point one man in each of those towns decided he'd rather host it than keep looking.

Our step-by-step guide to building a men's group covers who to ask, what to say when you ask, how to run the first meeting, and how to keep the thing alive past month three, which is where most new groups quietly die.

Start one instead

The free guide walks through every step: who to invite, what to say, how to run the first meeting, and how to keep it going when life gets in the way.

Read the free guide →

Common questions

What is a men's group?

A small number of men, usually five to twelve, who meet on a fixed schedule to talk honestly about their lives. Most run 90 minutes to two hours, weekly or every other week, with a simple format and a few ground rules about confidentiality and not handing out advice unless it's asked for.

How do I find a men's group near me?

Start with the organizations above that publish a location finder: Men's Sheds in the US, UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand, F3 Nation for free outdoor workouts, ANDYSMANCLUB in the UK, and the ManKind Project. Then check Meetup, the Psychology Today directory, and your own faith community. Our men's group near me page goes through the local search step by step, and directories country by country has the national locator for wherever you live.

What's the difference between a men's group and a men's support group?

A support group is usually organized around one shared thing: divorce, grief, addiction, a diagnosis. A men's group is open-ended. In practice they overlap, and many men who join for one specific reason stay for the general one. There's more on the men's support group page.

How much does a men's group cost?

Anywhere from nothing to a monthly subscription. F3 Nation and ANDYSMANCLUB are free. Men's Sheds set their own costs locally. MDI lists 30 US dollars a month. Weekend intensives are a separate and much larger expense, and you never need to buy one to try a group.

Is a men's group the same as therapy?

No. A peer group is men helping each other, not treatment, and it shouldn't be your only support if you're dealing with depression, addiction, or thoughts of suicide. Plenty of men do both. Our page on therapy for men covers when to add a professional.

I'm not in crisis, I just don't have close friends anymore. Is that enough reason?

Yes, and it's the most common reason men join. Nothing has to be wrong. If that's where you are, how to make friends as an adult is the more useful starting point.

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