National funders

• Churchcare provides an excellent and comprehensive information service on all the main national funders for large and small projects. Whilst the site is administered by the Church of England most of the information is relevant to all faith communities.
• The Methodist Church website also has a wealth of information about funding.
• The Architechtural Heritage Funds runs a comprehensive website where you can search for Funds for Historic Buildings.
• Certain national funds, such as the Landfill Community Fund and the Aggregates Levy Sustainability Fund have particular arrangements in Cumbria and these are detailed in our Funding in Cumbria section.
• Heritage Lottery Fund. The HLF grants have had a makeover; a number of existing grants have been altered and there are also a number of new grants. For a quick summary, click here.

Guides

A very useful set of 20 Funding Guides (provided by the Funding Good Practice Group of the Church of England) cover everything from Preparing a Funding Strategy to Working in Partnerships, Fundraising Events and Gift Aid.  Highly recommended!  It is particularly advisable to consider your fundraising strategy at an early stage, because some elements of your project may be more difficult to fund than others.

Churches and Faith Buildings: Realising the Potential is a paper to help faith groups identify sources of funding that could develop places of worship to make them better able to deliver public services. It has been produced by a working group involving a number of government departments and the Church of England.