Alongside its open grants programmes, Allchurches Trust currently provides an annual grant to dioceses and cathedrals across the UK and Ireland.
In recent years, our annual grants have helped support a range of activities that are focused on social action, enhancing community engagement, ministry, mission, musical and schools outreach and much more.
In the Diocese of Coventry for example, our recurrent grant is funding a Director of Regeneration, Jet Jones, to spearhead a range of social impact projects making a huge difference to disadvantaged communities through Together for Change Coventry and Warwickshire (TfC) – a partnership between the diocese and Church Urban Fund (CUF).
In January 2020, Jet’s most recent project came to fruition with the opening of phase one of Saints – a landmark building in Nuneaton that is being transformed to provide a range of support to families and young people, particularly those struggling to make ends meet, and remove barriers to them building a brighter future. The ground floor has now opened as a new Enterprise and Equip Centre, and there are exciting plans for the rest of the building.
Peterborough Cathedral’s annual Allchurches’ grant is funding outreach to young people. Having introduced new activities, including songs and stories for the younger visitors, and arts, crafts and exploration to teach older children about days gone by, they are now re-imagining their physical and online resources. The focus will be on interaction, particularly through digital imagery, increasing footfall over the longer term and being more inclusive, ensuring they are reaching all children, from different cultures, faiths, backgrounds and abilities.
The Diocese of London uses the Trust’s recurrent grant to fund clergy members for a number of parishes and churches in areas of high need, including St Paul’s and the Good Shepherd in Hounslow West – one of around 2,000 churches and charities throughout the UK that now runs a food bank, alongside a community café and providing debt advice and access to representatives from local social services.
The Diocese of Chester is using its annual grant to support its parishes to make the most of their church buildings and create dynamic spaces for mission and ministry. The grant funds Emily Allen’s role as Chester’s Church Buildings Missioner, who has been brought in as a fresh pair of eyes to encourage the diocese to take full advantage of the fantastic buildings at their disposal, and provides 1:1 support as well as regular group training programmes and resources.
Other dioceses and cathedrals spend their annual grant on capital projects or equipment and the Trust particularly welcomes its grant being used to fund work that will improve accessibility and encourage community use of buildings, but also to support environmental projects that improve energy efficiency and help to combat the effects of climate change.
St Paul’s Cathedral is using its Allchurches’ annual grant to help fund the construction of a permanent, accessible, ramped entrance to the north side that will make the cathedral more accessible and be built with the same stone originally used by Sir Christopher Wren to build ‘the new’ St Paul’s.
In 2019, Norwich Cathedral used its grant to organise regular school visits and produce resources for every key stage. These were sent to all schools in Norfolk and the Diocese of Norwich and were closely matched to the national curriculum – to be delivered by staff in the cathedral, at home or at school. The cathedral has also developed a programme of teacher training activities. They have big plans for their 2020 funding too with plans to grow their music outreach.
Our annual grants to dioceses are allocated based on population and the degree of deprivation in the area, with the aim of ensuring that more money goes to those areas that need it most.
Each year, both dioceses and cathedrals are required to report back on how they have spent their recurrent grant and the impact it has had, and tell us how they intend to spend the next year’s funding.
In 2020, the Trust made arrangements to bring forward the first payment of its recurrent grants from September to June, recognising the hardship many dioceses and cathedrals are facing in light of the Coronavirus pandemic. You can read more about our Coronavirus response here.