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Completing your application
All applications must be endorsed by two senior office-holders (typically this would be one clergy and one lay). Some examples:
- For a parish/benefice application: the incumbent and one of the churchwardens
- For a deanery application: the area dean and lay chair
- For a parish-school application: the incumbent and the school’s head teacher
- For a chaplaincy or other non-parish/deanery application: the senior chaplain and one other member of the organisation (to include at least one Anglican member of the community)
Signatories may sign a paper copy of the form, alternatively attach an appropriate email confirmation provided it is clearly from the individual/role concerned.
In doing so, you are confirming the information in the application is accurate and reliable, that the parish/benefice/deanery/chaplaincy is committed to the project described and that you are willing to participate in the learning and monitoring & reporting of outcomes:
Submitting your application
The completed application form, plus any other supporting documents, can either be emailed to the address on the form or else printed, signed and posted to the address on the form.
Where the form is submitted by email and a written signature is not possible, evidence of endorsement will be accepted via email from the persons endorsing the application. Supporting documents can be accepted as email attachments in Word, Excel, PDF or JPG format.
After you submit your application
We will acknowledge receipt of your application and will respond to applicants with a decision within two months of the submission deadline.
Grants are awarded with some expectations:
- That you will provide the Development Fund Administrator with an End of Project Report. This helps you to reflect on the work you have done, recognise what you have learned and how you have become a more Christ-like Church. It will also help the diocese understand the impact of our Development Funding across the diocese.
- That for longer-term projects (usually Tier 2 grants), you give us an update every six months using the Monitoring Feedback form.
- That you will share your learning. You may be invited to join a learning group, to share what you learn with others engaged in similar work (and potentially with others who we have not been able to support with a grant).
- That you will spend the grant on what you say you will spend it on, also that if the grant money is not all used, the unspent amount is returned to the diocese.
- That you ensure that the grant money received is recorded as restricted income in your PCC accounts. This will enable you to record any project expense against this, even in your expenditure spans multiple financial years. Your PCC treasurer will find advice on handling restricted funds in the Parish Finance section of our website.
We may ask for further confirmation of costs or progress before making the grant payment. Also, for large (Tier 2) grants, we may pay in stages that we will agree with you at the outset of the award.
It may not be possible to give a grant to every request, and we may not be able to fund the total amount requested. When we are unable to award a full grant, we will give feedback about the decision (which may include advice on how to make an improved application in the future); we may put you in touch with a learning group or another parish which has experience in a similar area and may be able to help you.
The Communications Department in the Diocese of Oxford is always interested to hear about any work by our churches that could make an interesting story. They may get in touch as a result of a grant application or award.
Monitoring forms
Six-monthly feedback form
For longer projects, we ask for monitoring feedback every six months, using the template set out in the End of Project Report. If you are required to send feedback every six months we will automatically send a reminder email to you when the report is due.
End of project report
We ask all grant recipients to submit an End of Project Report. This helps you to reflect on the work you have done, recognise what you have learned and how you have become a more Christ-like church. It will also help us understand the impact of our Development Funding across the Diocese.
Download the End of Project Report: Word | PDF
While we encourage as many applicants as possible to complete and submit the form electronically, if you wish to complete your application in hard copy, contact the Development Fund Administrator, Fiona McGrady, for a pack of paper forms.
Fiona can be reached at Church House Oxford, Langford Locks, Kidlington, Oxford, OX5 1GF or via email.