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Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire Historic Churches Trust
The United Kingdom is blessed with a unique collection of historic churches, all of them requiring regular and careful stewardship. As places of worship and centres for diverse social and cultural activities, they often provide a focal point for the communities they serve. There are 39 Historic Churches Trusts, nationwide, whose shared mission is to raise and manage the funds needed to restore and repair these ancient buildings.
£3m endowment fund
Earlier this year, The Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire Historic Churches Trust engaged Gifted, to assist with the planning for a £3 million endowment fund, aimed at securing the Trust’s future financial sustainability. The first step was to undertake a Feasibility Study which examined the Trust’s scope for support and recommended an outline action plan for raising the money. Trustees have now had time to consider the report’s recommendations and have invited Gifted to manage its milestone endowment campaign. It’s both a confident and timely decision, given the Heritage Lottery Fund’s recent announcement that their Grants for Places of Worship programme will close in September, this year.
‘The shape of grant-making may be evolving,’ says Gifted’s Chris Goldie, ‘but churches will continue to attract support as long we persistently remind people why they matter to us. In Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire, as with other parts of the country, they matter because they remain places of architectural beauty, spiritual well-being and social cohesion. They also move us because they’re such a striking feature of the heritage we cherish.’
You can read more about the Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire Historic Churches Trust here.