Centenary Fund

Grants for Anglican organisations within the Diocese of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich for projects that benefit the local community.

The Diocese of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich has created the Centenary Fund, to mark the centenary of the Diocese and to create a lasting legacy. The Centenary Fund has been established to promote community engagement by churches throughout the Diocese.

The objectives of this fund are to support community based projects, which could include:

• Work on buildings (excluding maintenance and/or repair) to make them more accessible to the community e.g. disabled access toilets, ramps and kitchens. If the total project cost is over £4,000 then at least 70% must be secured prior to making an application.
• Supporting initiatives in children’s or youth work (open membership).
• Supporting the work of a parish nurse associated with the Anglican Church.
• A joint project with a school.
• Joint working with other organisations to create a project for the benefit of the wider community.
• Projects that support vulnerable and/or isolated groups in the community.

Please note that the Centenary Fund will not support the promotion of political or religious causes with overt intentional evangelism or one off events.

Other criteria to support your application includes:

1. Projects must be based within the Diocese of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich and be made by a recognised Anglican body, e.g. a Parochial Church Council (PCC).
2. Projects must be undertaken for the benefit of the wider community and successful projects will demonstrate consultation with the community and strong volunteer involvement.
3. Priority will be given to those projects that demonstrate clear planning and strategy and reference evidence of need from the following:

• Parish spotlights
• Suffolk Observatory
• Community strategies/action plans
• Other research, including the Suffolk Community Foundation Hidden Needs report.
• Where possible projects should also make reference to how the project fulfils the third strand of the Diocesan Growth Strategy ‘growing in influence’
• https://www.cofesuffolk.org/about-us/our-vision/

4. Priority will be given to projects that seek to work in partnership with other churches and community groups.

Who can apply?

Applications must be from an Anglican organisation. This could be a PCC or perhaps a church school seeking to work with others to create a project for the benefit of the wider community. All applications where the project involves work on a church building will require the support of the relevant archdeacon and also faculty approval.

Note that groups can only receive continuous funding for a maximum of two years.

Please see Suffolk Community Foundation’s grantmaking guidelines here for full details of what it cannot support.

Size of Grants

The Fund will make grants between £200 and £4,000.