St Cuthberts' Hardship Fund
As a church, we maintain a small fund to support people in financial hardship and acute need (within and beyond the church family). It runs separate from regular ministry costs. Please look below at how the fund works, and consider whether you might be willing and able to support it.
What is the fund used for?
We’re a very mixed group of people living in a sin-spoiled world that is often sad, broken and messy. That means we come face to face with people experiencing all kinds of different and unpredictable needs. In recent years, money from the fund has been used to help people in different ways, for example:
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to help a family of asylum -seekers to settle into a new home
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to pay for a video-doorbell for a local family to be and feel safe after their front door was kicked in
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to contribute towards the funeral costs of an asylum-seeking family who were not entitled to state support
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​Sometimes small amounts of money or gifts can make a big difference to people. Other needs create much bigger financial demands which we can only partially support. We do what we can, trying our best to wisely steward what we have.
You can contribute to the fund online in two ways:
Please look below at how the fund works, and consider whether you might be willing and able to support it...
Where does the money come from?
We are grateful for the generosity of some in the church family – and others beyond St Cuthbert’s – to support this fund.
How do we protect where the money goes?
Money given to this fund is held in a Restricted reserve (the ‘Vicar’s Discretionary Fund’). Money in the fund can only be spent with the approval of the vicar plus one warden. This means that needy people can be helped (when we have the resources to do so) without people’s circumstances being widely known about. (Confidentiality is sometimes appropriate).
How does the church oversees the fund?
Both presenting needs and the amounts of money in the fund vary over time. The PCC reviews the level of the fund annually. In the event that income is much greater than demand, the PCC can re-apportion money to other ministry needs. (This is to preserve flexibility so that, were amounts in the Fund to rise over time to be much greater than ongoing needs, money would not be trapped unused, but could be re-deployed to meet other needs through wider ministry). To date, the PCC has never felt it necessary to do so.
