BYM receives generous grant
Benefact Trust 'delighted to support Quakers in Britain with a grant to expand their innovative LDW programme'.
Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM) has been awarded £200,000 by Benefact Trust to support Quaker communities to thrive.
Benefact Trust, a Christian grant-making organisation founded by the Church of England, has donated the grant over three years towards Quaker local development workers (LDWs). Previously called the Allchurches Trust, most of its grants used to be for the repair and maintenance of church buildings, but now also supports projects that more widely benefit local communities.
Benefact Trust joins two other grant-making trusts, Bader Philanthropies and WF Southall, which are supporting the work with grants of £100,000 each over two years.
BYM said that, together, the grants will ‘allow staff to enable Quaker communities to be inclusive, welcoming and diverse, as well as supporting Quaker role holders and helping to simplify meetings’.
Chloe Ewen, grants officer for Benefact Trust, said: ‘We’re delighted to support Quakers in Britain with a grant to expand their innovative LDW programme.
‘Having specialist workers on the ground within Quaker communities will help to grow and strengthen modern Quakerism. With diversity and inclusion at the core of their work, Quaker communities can continue to thrive, stay relevant, and welcome people of all ages and backgrounds.’
Paul Parker, recording clerk of BYM, said they were deeply grateful for the support. ‘Quaker worship, where everyone has an un-mediated relationship with the divine, has provided a warm home for many and we want to continue extending and strengthening our welcoming faith community.’
The Quaker programme received the grant through the Benefact Trust’s Transformational Grants Programme, which offers funding for Christian organisations to increase capacity, reach, impact and spiritual growth.
The organisation’s key funder, Ecclesiastical Insurance, has been criticised for allegedly resisting and restricting financial settlements in abuse claims because it was too closely affiliated with the Church of England.
The LDW programme, which began as a pilot in 2016, now consists of eleven workers with more on the way. The goal is to place an LDW within easy reach of every Quaker community by 2023.
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