DIOCESAN projects that receive a share of the £340-million of strategic funding over the subsequent three years will probably be expected to adopt agreed metrics for measurement, a recent report from the Strategic Mission and Ministry Investment Board (SMIIB) states.
The annual report of the board, Seeking the Vision, was published on Tuesday. A release issued with the report speaks of “success” enjoyed by the “overwhelming majority” of projects. But at the identical time it acknowledges that, for projects supported by the Strategic Development Fund (SDF) — totalling £198 million between 2014 and 2022 — “monitoring and evaluation have been difficult to conduct well”.
In searching for to deal with this, the board has worked with Eido Research to “propose improvements”. There are plans to develop a “shared final result framework” for national funding, and an improved “learning framework” for the broader Church.
In future, all projects funded through the Diocesan Investment Programme (DIP), which replaced SDF last yr (News, 28 March 2023), will probably be asked to measure metrics in the identical way. These include changes in attendance and “variety of disciples”, but in addition metrics corresponding to “scale of evangelism” and “individual discipleship”.
The Chote review of the SDF programme highlighted the challenge of measuring its impact. Staff given this task told the review that they “didn’t regard the estimates of latest disciples witnessed and expected for individual projects as a sturdy basis to check their actual and expected performance” (News, 11 March 2022).
The review observed that the definition of latest disciples “varies considerably between projects, and the numbers of reported recent disciples don’t at all times reflect the fact on the bottom”. Quite a lot of different measures of numerical growth had been adopted.
Both the number of latest disciples and “fresh social motion” were “very hard to measure accurately and consistently”, it said. “People’s journeys to faith might be lengthy and sophisticated.” It also warned against “allocating funding mechanistically to the projects that appear to supply the upper numbers of disciples per pound”.
Projects awarded funding between 2014 and 2021 were expected to create 89,375 disciples. The Chote review said that, so far, 12,705 had been “witnessed”. Since then, an extra “outcomes review” has taken place. The board estimates that, consequently of SDF payments (£126 million of the £198 million has been spent so far), 900 to 1000 recent worshipping communities have been formed, and between 26,000 and 27,000 persons are “newly participating in several church gatherings backed by SDF”. A press release issued with the report said that the “overwhelming majority” of the projects were “successfully accomplished or making good progress towards their targets”.
In a foreword to the brand new report, Carl Hughes, who chairs the SMIIB and in addition chairs the Archbishops’ Council finance committee, writes that “wealthy learning is emerging from the funding previously distributed — each about what does, and what doesn’t, work well. The Board is investing to be certain that that this learning is widely shared and informs future funding proposals and their delivery.”
Few independent evaluations of SDF projects have been made publicly available, and the “learning points” listed within the SMIIB report are broad, including: “Diocesan vision and good leadership might be critical within the success of project”, and “Working in teams (slightly than as individuals) has many clear advantages.”
Strategic Mission and Ministry Investment funding was launched last yr as a recent funding stream through which the Archbishops’ Council allocates funding to dioceses (News, 31 March 2023). It replaces Strategic Development Funding, Strategic Capacity Funding, and Strategic Transformation Funding.
In addition to the £340-million Diocesan Investment Programme for the present triennium (2023-25), it includes £91 million of Lowest Income Communities Funding (News, 7 November 2019). Dioceses must bid for the remaining money, and the report makes clear that applications must exhibit how the cash will “advance their plans for the Vision and Strategy in local parishes and communities across the country”.
The board awarded funding to 12 dioceses and three partners last yr. To date, £38.4 million has been allocated, although the Board has agreed in principle to make further awards to a few of these programmes. People and Partnerships Funding (PPF), which recognises that there are “specific priorities which is able to support the Vision and Strategy’s daring outcomes that are best addressed through national cross-cutting investment”, has been allocated £49 million of funding in the present triennium.
Dioceses awarded a grant include Canterbury (News, 25 March), Durham (News, 15 March), Portsmouth (News, 5 January), and Worcester (News, 31 March).
Just lower than half (46 per cent) of the DIP and PPF funding has been allocated to projects where the “predominant strategic alignment” is with the Vision and Strategy objective to “double the number of youngsters and young lively disciples within the Church of England by 2030”, which has been described because the “priority of priorities” (News, 28 July 2023). It is estimated that, for 30 per cent of projects, the alignment is with the target of “a parish system revitalised for mission”.
The diocese of Guildford has been awarded £3.3 million for the primary phase of its nine-year Youth Catalyst plan, which is able to entail placing youth ministers in 4 secondary schools; recruiting and training ten church-based apprentice youth ministers; and training 4 existing youth ministers. Also planned is recruitment of a team to steer “high-quality youth worship gatherings”.
The diocese of London has been awarded £1.5 million to expand the youth-worker apprentice element of its Capital Youth project, awarded £2 million in 2017 (News, 7July 2017), supporting the deployment of 24 such apprentices to parishes in deprived contexts. It is hoped that greater than 900 children will “select to have interaction with faith-related activities and 230 will engage in lively discipleship or leadership roles.”
The Launchpad scheme — an initiative that helps clergy formulate plans to work with young people of their parishes, run by Youthscape — has been awarded £1.29 million to expand to 450 churches in 18 dioceses. The grant may even fund training produced by Youthscape for as much as 2500 church volunteers to do youth work, and resources to support youth work, in as much as 2000 churches or groups.
A complete of £450,000 has been awarded to the Centre for Theology and Community for a project working with inner-city parishes to “harness the potential of community organising for ministry to children, families and young people”.
Resource/resourcing churches remain a significant factor of diocesan bids. A proportion of the £6.5 million in Southwark will go towards 4 resourcing churches to “send clergy, resources, and potentially a graft into one other church to enable it to grow and thrive”. In Winchester, a share of £3 million will fund two “Partnership Parish revitalisation plans” in Bournemouth and Southampton, and a “church-planting ministry pipeline”.
The £4.8 million allocated to Sheffield will support five church “revitalisations” in highly deprived areas, that are projected to end in 300 to 500 “recent disciples” and 50 recent regular-giving households. The funding may even provide support for lay- led congregations through a small-grants scheme.
An additional £11.7 million of DIP was awarded to 21 dioceses in “capability funding” to assist dioceses “address constraints of their capability to develop and implement strategies and to take forward major programmes of transformation”. Much of this has been used to fund posts for workers to implement these transformation programmes, including project management and fund-raising positions.
The £6.8 million awarded to the diocese of Bristol’s “Transforming Church Together” five-year strategy includes funding for a series of “parish support” posts, including a “clergy flourishing enabler”.
The recent report features a have a look at Lowest Income Communities Funding: the stream of funding allocated to the 28 dioceses with the best number of individuals living in such communities. A complete of £91 million will probably be distributed through the current triennium, of which £29 million was allocated in 2023.
In 2022, at the top of the previous triennium, 61 per cent (£19.2 million) of the overall was allocated to parishes during which probably the most deprived 25 per cent of the English population live — an identical number to the previous two years. “On average, better-off parishes receive a smaller allocation,” the SMMIB report says. “However, some deprived parishes are still missing out, while some better-off parishes are benefiting as a substitute.” The 2020 Chote review reported that 56 per cent of the funding went to the ten per cent most deprived parishes.
According to the SMIIB, “recent evaluation has shown that church attendance growth amongst children and young people is feasible in deprived areas, with average growth rates nearly as good as or higher than within the Church as an entire.” Evidence from the evaluations of several projects has also highlighted, nonetheless, that “additional investment may very well be needed within the poorest areas”. A learning point, it says, is that “Work with low-income communities is best seen as a part of the core business of a diocese and as a part of a long-term strategy, not as a distinct segment interest or short-term project.”
Also taken from the DIP pot last yr was funding for 63.8 additional stipendiary curates, totalling £8.9 million (News, 16 August 2023). Future bids for curates, the report says, are expected to be included in dioceses’ bids for DIP.
The press release said that DIP funding had “supported around 200 frontline ministry roles” in 2023, including curates and youth and family ministry positions.
