Ready for School Fund

The Bishop of Lincoln’s Ready For School Fund aims to support schoolchildren who are lacking the things they need in order to access confidently the full life of school and the curriculum. 

Grants are made through the fund to head teachers so that they may seek to meet some of the identified needs of individual pupils. Items such as revision booklets, coats, school uniform or PE kit, lunchboxes, cookery ingredients or art or maths equipment are just some examples of where the fund can be put to work, with the fund guided by an awareness of the effect on a child of being unable to participate in school activities alongside their peers because of belonging to a family living in poverty. 

The fund is a practical expression of the diocesan central staff’s commitment to service as an outworking of – and central to – faith. The prayer is that funds will continue to meet the very real social needs in our schools and witness to the generosity of God through His people. Every penny raised will, through head teachers, go to the pupils thanks to the generosity of the Lincoln Diocesan Trust and Board of Finance (LDTBF) in administering the fund at no cost.

Application guidance

The Bishop of Lincoln’s Ready For School Fund is:

• for small grants of no more than around £100 for individual children

• administered at no cost by the LDTBF

• not to be used for such things as could reasonably be expected to come out of the pupil premium grant

• administered by the Diocesan Secretary, the Diocesan Director of Education and the Vice Chair (clergy) of the Diocesan Board of Education.

Applications must be on forms downloadable from the Board of Education website.

For further details contact: [email protected]

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Social Justice Fund

This grant-giving fund was set up in 2014 as a partnership between the Diocese of Lincoln and the Lincolnshire Community Foundation.

It is particularly appropriate for projects that aim to assist and improve areas relating to community cohesion, community facilities, young people, older people, the local economy and arts and heritage. Individual grants are offered up to a maximum of £5000. 

For more information and an application form, please follow this link or go to lincolnshirecf.co.uk/grants. 

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Transformation Fund 

This Fund provides grants to help churches launch new missional initiatives or significantly develop existing projects that will help transform lives across greater Lincolnshire.

It gives churches, parishes, benefices, deaneries or church-affiliated groups (all connected to the diocese) the opportunity to develop projects that will help them express more effectively God’s mission in the community they serve, along the lines of our three diocesan priority areas:

Faithful worship – growth in the number of people worshiping Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour 
Confident discipleship – growth in the depth of Christian faith and spirituality, learning to be followers of Jesus Christ and become more like him
Joyful service – growth in serving the church and local community.

Priority will be given to projects that develop and grow our ministry, lay and ordained, which help with our administration and governance, such as by developing and improving communication, and which strengthen local partnerships to allow mission and ministry development to flourish, such as in work with schools.

We will particularly be looking to help finance projects that

• promote growth
• are prayerfully considered
• are researched and evidence-based
• encourage parishes to take considered risks
• are well thought out
• demonstrate good stewardship 
• will lead to transformation.

NB the Transformation Fund does not fund building projects or repairs. See the Frequently Asked Questions document for more information. 

Since its inception in 2016, the Transformation Fund has allocated a significant number of grants to missional projects across the diocese:

Grants may be applied for at two levels:

Tier 1

Tier 1 grants are up to £500 in value. This tier is designed to help churches quickly progress their ideas. A variety of projects which have been successful this year are included in the image to the right. 

There is a helpful Transformation Fund - Tier 1 Information Booklet that will tell you more.  Applications can be made at any time of the year by completing a simple application form. 

Special project: Getting your church online

Many churches have made new contacts through lockdown. Churches can apply for Tier1 level funding to develop their online offering, particularly in relation to live-streaming services. £500 - £1000 is enough to get everything you need for 'entry level' access, so you might find the grant will cover all your set up costs, or else use the grant to augment what you are already doing. Download these stories and see what has been achieved on small budgets by some of our rural and urban churches with limited resources.

To get some advice on technical requirements, please contact Revd Richard Steel, St Peters Eastgate, by e-mail or by calling him on 07720 740955.

Tier 2 

Grants available from £501 to a maximum of £20,000 within any one year.

Continuation funding on a sliding scale into future years can be considered. Because these grants are larger, the application forms require more rigorous preparation. There is a helpful Transformation Fund - Tier 2 Information Booklet that will tell you more. 

Applications are considered by the Transformation Fund panel at four meetings each year, with deadlines for the forms to be received, either electronically or in paper form. You will be informed about the outcome of an application within a week of the meeting. Click here to see an example of a completed Tier 2 form.

The closing dates for 2023 applications are as follows:

5^th June deadline for a panel meeting on 19^th June (14:30-16:00)

29^th August for a panel meeting on 13^th September (13.30-15:00)

28^th November for a panel meeting on 12^th December (14:00-15:30)

Please submit forms by email in either Word or PDF Format two weeks prior to the deadline.  

Theological Resources are available to help engage with the Transformation Fund.

Contact: Sarah Spencer, Mission and Discipleship Officer early in your thinking on 07375 638635 or email via: [email protected]