Funding conditions and other information

Standard funding conditions

Grants made under Cloudesley’s Church Grants Programme 2020-25 will usually be subject to our standard funding conditions. These may be updated from time to time, but are currently:

  1. The Grant must only be utilised for the purpose(s) specified.
  2. The Grant should be spent promptly within 12 months of the date of this offer, unless otherwise agreed. If there is expected to be a delay, then the Church must notify the Charity and the Charity will normally agree to an extension of up to 12 months.
  3. The Church must contact Cloudesley immediately to advise of any changes to the budget or circumstances of the work. The Church must not make any significant changes to the work prior to the grant being spent.
  4. This agreement is sent to the incumbent and the named person on the grant application form. Please liaise with all other interested parties in your Church and notify your PCC of the grant award and this agreement.
  5. Usually the grant amount will not be increased in the event of any overspend in the delivery of the work. However until 11 June 2024, additional top-up grants will be considered. Please contact your Grants Manager if you would like to discuss a top-up grant.
  6. Within six weeks of completing a funded project/work, the Church will submit a brief monitoring report, including a photograph or copy of a professional report signing off the works where appropriate. You can use Cloudesley’s Church Grants Monitoring Report Form (which will be emailed to you upon the project’s completion) or if you have already prepared a similar report for the Diocese or another funder for this work which covers the above points, you are very welcome to submit that to us instead. The report should include:
    • A brief summary of the purpose of the award
    • The amount of the award and the final total cost of the works/project, with details of other funding sources
    • A brief assessment of the work that the grant supported
    • An indication of the difference has the project made to the life of the church and the church community
    • Any challenges or learning points from the project
    • The details of any contractors, whether you would recommend them and why.
  7. The Church must promptly repay any money incorrectly paid to it as a result of an administrative error or otherwise.
  8. If at the end of the funded project/works any amount of the grant paid to the Church is unspent, within six weeks of completion the Church will contact the Charity to discuss this. Unless the Charity agrees otherwise, the unspent amount should be paid back to the Charity.
  9. The Church must ensure it demonstrates appropriate recording in its accounts, using the correct acknowledgement to “Cloudesley”.
  10. The Church is expected to comply with the Charity’s acknowledgement policy which is set out in our Managing your Grant page.
  11. Future grant applications will be reviewed against timely and accurate fulfilment of the above conditions.

Managing your Grant

Contributing minor funds to a large overall scheme

Cloudesley will not usually be a general contributor of minor funds to a very large overall scheme. However, the charity is happy to fund an identified piece of work which will enable a larger scheme to happen, or which is an integral phase or part of a scheme – for example, under its ‘Project development and feasibility studies’ priority, Cloudesley can provide funding for feasibility studies and other planning which will then enable major developments to go ahead.

Living Wage Funder

Cloudesley is proud to be a Living Wage Funder. This means that Cloudesley:

  • is itself a Living Wage Employer
  • encourages grantees to pay the Living Wage (London rate) to posts which the Charity fully funds
  • encourages grantees generally to become Living Wage Employers.

The charity recognises both that (i) the nature of the funding which it can provide means that it will rarely make Church Grants to cover funded posts and (ii) that churches benefit from the generous support of volunteers to whom the Living Wage scheme is not applicable. However, if you are considering applying for a fully funded post or would like more information about the Living Wage scheme please do contact us and/or see the Living Wage website.

Living Wage Funders

Living Wage Foundation

Team parishes

For team parishes, each church should make an application in the usual way. Additional guidance on this is provided on the application form. Copies of both team parish and, if produced, individual church accounts should be provided with your application. As the PCC has overall responsibility and will be agreeing priorities for the parish, where more than one church in the team parish applies for support, we require a letter from the Team Incumbent indicating the priority for the parish between the applications of the team churches.