Money For Mission
News From The
Stewardship and Income Generation and Finance Teams
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In This Issue
Who's Who?
What's Been Happening
COVID-19 EMERGENCE MISSION GRANTS and other Grants
PGS Update
Training
Finance Team Update
Parish Resources and Parish Buying Webpages
National Giving and Digital Team Webinars
Safe Giving to your Church
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Welcome back to our regular Money for Mission. We hope you have found the last 5 special editions, produced in response to the rapidly changing financial situations in our churches, useful. Most of our previously reported news is summarised or updated below, but you can still view all previous editions on our web page
here.
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Top of our exciting things to report in this edition are the
BRAND NEW COVID-19 EMERGENCE MISSION GRANTS
now available from the Leeds Diocesan Board of Finance.
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Lead Stewardship and Income Generation Officer
0113 353 0216 or 07496 265509
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Stewardship and Income Generation Officer
0113 353 0214 or 07376 525684
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Accountant (Financial Services)
0113 353 0231
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Finance Officer (Financial Services)
0113 353 0226
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Finance Manager
0113 353 0220
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Finance Supervisor
0113 3530 223
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Over recent weeks we have heard from many clergy, church treasurers and PCCs each with a unique set of challenges and worries over the financial situation in their church. Congregations are at home, unable to give their usual gifts to their church, valuable income from lettings has been lost and still the bills need to be paid.
We are constantly in awe of the resilience and the determination of people to pull together and dig deep when with faced difficulty. We've heard stories of givers who have have diligently saved their gifts for the offertory (and in many cases given more) and returned to their churches with many envelopes. Congregations have embraced digital means of giving as well as the Parish Giving Scheme to ensure their church stays financially secure and church leaders have adopted new ways of asking for and receiving donations online. PCCs have carefully managed the reserves and made difficult decisions that will affect the balance sheet for many months if not years to come.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Parish Share receipts have gone down (30% in May compared to 2019) and the longer term impact of that is not yet known. As you would expect, in the Diocesan office we’ve had to make similar difficult decisions as yourselves. To save expenditure, around 40% of staff have been, or continue to be on furlough leave, with colleagues picking up their work to ensure parishes continue to be supported, and many activities have been cancelled or postponed. We are utilising our reserves month by month to ensure all our financial obligations are met. We are very grateful for the continued generosity shown by people to enable churches to meet their financial obligations and to pay Parish Share thereby ensuring valuable mission work continues across the Diocese. We must also acknowledge too, those churches who have bravely embraced new ways of giving, overcoming their reservations and fears and doing it anyway.
Thank you all
Becky
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***Brand New LDBF Grants***
and other Grants
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BRAND NEW Grants from The LDBF
The Leeds Diocesan Board of Finance has made £50,000 available to support mission work in parishes as they emerge from lockdown. Grants from £100 to £1,000 are available. Applying is easy and you will get a decision in the month following your application.
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Council Discretionary Grants
You may recall that in our Special Edition Numbers 4 and 5 we reported that some churches may be eligible to claim either £10k via their local authority from the Small Business Grant Fund or as much as £25k from the Retail, Hospitality and Leisure Grant Fund; both of which form part of the UK Government's financial measures in response to Coronavirus. More funding has become available via a
Discretionary Grant Fund
and is available to business who are not eligible for the small business or hospitality grants. More information about all available Government Grants can be found
here.
Please also check with your local council if you are unsure of the eligibility criteria.
Places
of Worship Protective Security Funding
The Home Office is providing a total of £3.2 million in grant funding this year to help places of worship who feel they are vulnerable to hate crime to install more secure gates, locks, alarms and CCTV in order to deter and prevent hate crime attacks.
Places of worship in England and Wales, including churches, gurdwaras, mosques, temples and associated faith community centres, can apply for grants of up to £56,000 per place of worship.
More information is
here
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Ecclesiastical Movement for Good Awards
Ecclesiastical have launched their £1million Movement for Good awards. £1,000 awards are open to eligible charities registered in the UK and Republic of Ireland - these could range from smaller volunteer-run groups to larger, well-known organisations. Anyone can nominate a charity to win one of the £1,000 awards.
Ecclesiastical want to continue to put giving directly into the hands of the communities they serve and support remarkable organisations in their efforts to change people's lives for the better.
For more information and to nominate click
here
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Ecclesiastical have also produced a
fundraising hub
to advise you on all aspects of fundraising. Containing top tips for fundraising and grant funding advice and much more, it is well worth a look if you are trying to fundraise in your church.
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During the last 12 weeks, churches have found that the Parish Giving Scheme offers a safe and secure way to collect regular donations from their congregations and communities.
The shift to digital giving has accelerated at a phenomenal rate, so much so that the PGS team are reporting unprecedented demand.
We are holding two more Zoom presentations for churches wanting to find out more about the PGS:
Thursday 9
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July 12-1p.m.
Monday 20
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July 12-1pm
Please join us if you can!
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Making Best Use of your Parish's Financial Assets
The Diocese of Leeds invites you to the webinar 'Making Best Use of your Parish's Financial Assets' on Tuesday 14th July from 1pm to 2.30pm.
Treasurers and their fellow council members often report that their long term reserves seem to be stuck ‘on hold’ for year after year – neither being spent to further the Church’s mission today, nor generating resources to help sustain the parish’s work into the future. You may already recognise that vital spending power is being depleted as inflation takes its toll on cash balances over the long term. This webinar will focus on the obstacles that you may encounter as you seek ways to release some of that spending power, and how to overcome them.
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Return of Parish Finance
An Update on Gift Aid Small Donation Scheme & HMRC
Full guidance on the rules for claiming GASDS on cash donations can be found
here.
Did you know you can take Gift Aid Declarations verbally or over the phone?
Parish Resources have provided updated guidance online
here
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A Church Near You New Authenticity Certificate
Many churches have requested an improvement to the certificate, to make it really obvious that a church is a charity even if they are not registered with the Charity Commission. The certificate, available as a download for all churches on ACNY, now includes reference to the church's charitable status.
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The pace of the digital transformation in the Church of England has been phenomenal and some new statistics have been revealed by the
National Digital Team:
- 5.2 Million people have watched the Church Of England's weekly live -streamed service in 3 months
- 5,000 services and events have been listed on A Church Near You since Easter
- 30 million page views on ACNY since January
- 635 online giving accounts have been opened with SumUp/Give-a-Little since 6th April
- £30,593 raised in one week 12-19th June on SumUp/Give-a-Little, up from less than £1,000 from 31st March to 6th April
If you're not online and engaging digitally with your givers we can help
Don't miss out on this opportunity!
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Parish Resources and Parish Buying Webpages
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Regular readers of Money for Mission will know there have been a flurry of films and information from the National Giving Team to Dioceses. If you haven't managed to keep up, don't worry! Parish Resources have put all the information and links together in one place:
This page
describes how to begin receiving online donations.
This page
describes how you can encourage online giving
And finally if you prefer visual and auditory information
this page
shows you how to do it all using superb explainer videos! (note, these are on the Parish Buying website and you will need to log in to view them all).
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National Giving and Digital Team Webinars
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Churches rely on the generosity of their congregations and their communities to support their mission and ministry. Many people give regularly to their church by standing order or direct debit. Others give in cash when the offering is taken in a church service or when visiting the church, and people will not be able to give in this way whilst our church buildings are closed.
Many individuals are going through financial uncertainty as a result of lost or changed employment during the restrictions, and that may affect their giving too. This means that it is even more important that those who can give are able to do so.
This very popular one hour webinar covers setting up and receiving online donations, encouraging online donations, communicating with your community, as well as providing an opportunity to ask questions which will be answered live.
Dates and times:
Thursday 2nd July 2pm
Monday 13
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July 2pm
Friday 24
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July 11am
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Safe Giving to Your Church
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Top Tips to Encourage Safe Giving
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Parish Resources, in partnership with the Diocese of York, have produced some guidance for churches to encourage safe giving.
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Anglican Diocese of Leeds, 2020
Stewardship and Income Generation and Finance
resourcingparishes@leeds.anglican.org
Diocese of Leeds
Church House
17-19 York Place
Leeds, LS1 2EX
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