Grants for Parish Development

Application Process and Timeline for 2024 Grants:

By July 24, 2023: Information and forms are available on the Diocesan website

By September 8, 2023: Parishes submit a completed application form (no cover letter required) to the Parish Development Grants team: pdgrants@vancouver.anglican.ca  This may be followed by further consultation and clarification with the Director for Mission and Ministry Development and the Parish Development Grants Team.

September 23, 2023: The Parish Development Grants Team reviews all the grant applications.

October 14 & 21, 2023: The Parish Development Grants Team meet with selected parishes to explore/discuss their applications and projects.

December 14, 2023: A final list of recommended proposals is approved by the Administrators of the Anglican Initiatives Fund.

December 18, 2023: Granting decisions are completed. The Parish Development Grants Team: (1) notifies parishes of the outcome of their application (2) shares comments with each parish (3) provides information on the process to receive funds and (4) explains expectations for the parish reporting its progress back to the Parish Development Grants Team. 

Questions:

Questions about the Parish Development Grants process can be sent to the Parish Development Grants team by clicking here.

The Purpose of Parish Development Grants

The overall purpose of Parish Development Grants is to assist parishes in the Diocese as they develop, with God’s help, into healthier, more faithful, and more effective communities of faith. We are interested, therefore, in making grants to parishes that have a vision for their own development and want the Diocese’s assistance in moving toward the vision. $15,000 is the maximum amount which will be granted to a project in a single year.  

In preparing an application, parish leaders may find the following definition of parish development helpful:

Parish Development is the development of parishes of all sizes, locations, and conditions into more faithful, healthy, and effective communities of faith that are:

• • Focused on and faithful to their unique reason for being/primary task as parishes; which are local expressions of the Body of Christ that gather people into Christian community, transform people in their baptismal identity & purpose, and send them out to be God’s presence in the world.
  • Connected to and expressive of their unique ecclesial tradition, ethos, and character.
  • Self-renewing and responsive to the challenges and opportunities before them.
  • Sustainable or working towards greater sustainability in terms of congruence (or “fit”) between the elements of their organizational life: vision for ministry, leadership, culture, size, property, finances, etc.
  • Nurture a parish culture that is transparent, honest, open to learning and hopeful [1].

Some examples of the kinds of grants we would like to support are:

• Grants that seek to increase attendance, and stewardship within a parish via the development of an additional liturgy that will attract new people and/or a different population to the parish.
• Grants that seek to build the capacity of a parish to attract and form children in Christian faith via the initiation of Godly Play or some other program of children’s formation.
• Development of pilot programs of any size that would be of benefit to the broader Church and are sustainable by the parish over time.

Examples of Parish Development Projects
 In 2022, the Parish Development Grants team awarded 13 grants to projects around the diocese. Among these projects included:

• St. Andrew, Langley to develop a Family Ministry. This ministry is growing with new families attending Family Ministry events. Their goal is to employ a Children's Ministry Assistant to help with the new service, and to help provide some programming for children & youth at the Sunday morning services. The new position helps with planning and executing children's programming, including recruiting and managing adult volunteers.
• St. Hilda, Sechelt hired an Indigenous Teacher in Residence to create a space for settlers to become more effective allies to local shíshálh. The Indigenous Teacher in Residence leads drumming circles, film viewings and discussions, book studies, dialogue circles, and other public and private encounters with Indigenous history, culture, and spirituality.
• St. James, Vancouver launched an initiative to reach out to growing communities in their geographical area with the goal of creating greater awareness of who St. James' is and demonstrating the value the parish adds to the community as a whole.
• St. Thomas, Chilliwack created spiritual formation opportunities for adults, families, and children. This included adult spiritual formation practice groups, family-focused Saturday evening services and events, and the further development of Godly Play.
• St. Titus, Vancouver created a Chinese Language Ministry to welcome and meet the spiritual needs of Chinese Language speakers in their community.  

Parameters:  

• The Diocese does not fund capital projects through this Parish Development Grants process, funds for such projects may be accessed through other granting facilities.
• For new church plants Parish Development Grants will be limited to projects such as website design, gathering events, workshops and training, etc.
• Grant applications should demonstrate ways in which the project or the effort will, over time, become self-sustaining. 
• Grants are awarded for a single year only. If the proposed project requires funding for multiple years, a yearly application must be submitted for each subsequent cycle to be considered, on the same timeline as new grant requests.
  • The maximum term for any multi-year grant is three consecutive years.
  • To demonstrate a path to sustainability, multi-year grant applications must show a substantial decline in the amount of funding requested each year.

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