Hope Beyond Grants

Our Hope Beyond grants programme aims to enable churches and Christian charities to meet changing needs within their communities, helping them and the communities they support to adapt to the challenges and opportunities presented by the Coronavirus pandemic. 

Through our Hope Beyond grants, we aim to fund innovative, impactful projects that will enable people, organisations and communities to flourish in life after lockdown, building resilience and encouraging hope. 

We’ve been inspired by the many examples already shared with us of our beneficiaries changing their model, support and activities as they look to continue to provide practical and pastoral care and support to the people they help in the most effective way possible.

In developing the Hope Beyond programme, we carried out an online consultation with our beneficiaries to better understand what they felt the key needs of people of all ages in their own communities would be as the longer term impact of Covid-19 becomes clearer. As a result, Hope Beyond funding will look to address these three aims:

• Projects responding to the issues of loneliness and isolation exacerbated by the Coronavirus pandemic. 

• Projects focused on growing community resilience and promoting mental and emotional health and wellbeing, including the provision of mental health and wellbeing support groups and 1:1 counselling for people of all ages (including clergy).

• Projects focused on growing technological capability and resilience, particularly increasing digital capacity and provision, and supporting those without online access to get online through training and support. 

In all cases, applicants will need to demonstrate how their project is seeking to directly respond to increasing/new need as a result of the Coronavirus pandemic.   The Hope Beyond programme will fund project-related salaries and some other revenue costs (to the end of 2021), such as training of staff and/or volunteers. This recognises that many churches and Christian charities are facing significant financial hardship at this time and that additional resource may be required to implement new ways of working and introduce new and/or enhanced support and activities to meet changing need.    Hope Beyond will also provide funding for capital projects, such as adaptation of buildings, the purchase of equipment, accessibility improvements and measures to ensure buildings are Covid-19 safe, but only in cases where this makes new and/or enhanced support possible as a direct response to the pandemic. The programme will not support general ‘business as usual’ running costs, or cleaning and PPE costs.   Grants of up to £50,000 are available to churches and Christian charities, and the amount you receive will depend upon the cost of your project and the level of need in your community, ranging from 10% of project cost through to 80% - the highest percentages being awarded in the most disadvantaged areas.