Finance update for clergy, church treasurers, secretaries and fundraisers

Money For Mission

Monthly E-newsletter from the Finance, Stewardship and Income Generation Teams

In this edition

Giving Days

Brand New Grant Finding Tool

Parish Giving Scheme

Books for Fundraising

New Grants Available

Scam Emails

Key Dates for Church Finance

Training from ACAT

Events for 2022 - Giving Days

We spent a lovely day at Ilkley All Saints this week, talking about Giving and Generosity and places are still available at our next giving days.

Generosity is at the heart of our faith. We believe in a generous God and our own generosity is a testament and hallmark of our faith in action. Every day we see generosity in our churches and Christian communities, reflecting the generous God we believe in. However, we often struggle to know how to harness this generosity and grow our generous church culture. Our GIVING DAYS aim to support you to grow your generous church by giving tips and sharing resources.

Thurs 31st March – Wakefield Cathedral

Weds 11th May 2022 – Huddersfield Parish Church

Weds 18th May 2022 – Settle, Holy Ascension

Weds 25th May 2022 – Leeds, Church House

Weds 8th June 2022 – Richmond, St Cuthbert’s Church Hall, Colburn

Weds 29th June 2022 – Bradford Area Offices, Bingley

New grant finding tool

The Stewardship and Income Generation team, in partnership with Funding4Community, and the Dioceses of Manchester and Chester now have access to one of the UKs largest funding portals enabling you to find a funder for your project, whether it be for your church or community.

We are holding webinar sessions with Matthew Godfrey from Funding4Community who will demonstrate the portal and give tips for finding the right funder for your project. These will be on Tuesday 5th April at 12 noon and again at 7pm. Each session will last approximately 1 hour.

We will be following up this webinar with our own 'How to Write a Great Grant Application' webinar on Thursday 7th April at 12 noon. All the webinars will be recorded and available for you to view afterwards on our training webpage.

Please click the links below to register your place.

Grant tool webinar 5th April at 12noon to 1pm

Grant tool webinar 5th April at 7pm to 8pm

How to write a great grant application 7th April 12noon to 12:45pm

Growing number of churches join The Parish Giving Scheme

We are having conversations with several churches who feel now is absolutely the right time to join the PGS as church communities join back together in person.

To help your PCC decide about joining, why not request a free pack of PGS leaflets for the PCC from Stewardship Officer Janet Edmond by emailing [email protected].

To find out more and to see the latest figures on how the PGS is growing in popularity across the Diocese of Leeds click here.

Books for fundraising and income generation

'Beyond the Collection Plate' written by Steve Pierce of the Diocese of Liverpool offers clear accessible advice of value to everybody involved in the leadership and financial management of churches, as well as to community groups engaged in church fundraising activities. New titles in the same series have been released and are short but very useful guides for anyone involved in church fundraising.

Find out more

Grants for Christian books

Speaking Volumes give grants for Christian books for public libraries, schools, prisons and other places. Run by the Christian Book Promotion Trust they work to engage and empower local communities to explore the Christian faith through literature.

Any local group or organisation that wishes to place Christian books and DVDs in community places such as public libraries, schools, hospitals, hospices, prisons or churches in the UK or abroad (as long as the applicant pays the postage) may apply.

The latest grant round is now open until 30th April 2022.

Find out more

Magic Little Grants

This grant scheme from the People's Postcode Lottery is opening again this year from Wednesday 16th March. Grants of £500 are available and the application takes just 10 minutes to complete. This year the scheme will make grants to 2,650 organisations, compared with 2,000 last year.

Find out more

Be wary of scam emails

We have heard from a parish who were targeted by scammers, receiving an email from what looked to be one of our clergy asking for a BACS payment to an unknown bank account. The treasurer had his suspicions confirmed as 2 similar emails came from other clergy members afterwards.

Please be wary of such emails and do make extra checks before making any new payments.

Key dates for church finance

31st May 2022 - Latest date for holding your Annual Parochial Church Council Meeting

28th June 2022 - (national target date) Return of Parish Finance – (to allow parishes sufficient time to prepare the figures from the independently examined or audited financial statements that will have been approved by the PCC)

30th June 2022 - Last date for submission of 2021 accounts to your espicopal area office

31st October 2022 - Charity Commission annual return

Training - ACAT, The Association of Church Accountants and Treasurers

We are pleased to be able to subsidise the cost of every finance-related training session with ACAT by 50%. All you need to do is book your place and send your paid invoice with your bank details for remittance to [email protected].

New courses for 2022 have just been released and may be of particular interest to new treasurers.

Don't forget, if you wish to become a member of ACAT the Diocese will also pay your full joining fee.