Foreword by Bishop Libby

I am encouraged by your generosity. As I visit parishes across our Diocese, I have seen and heard stories that show how so many people have contributed - and continue to contribute towards resourcing God’s Mission and Ministry in every parish.

Your generosity is expressed in different ways: people giving their time and talents, people giving their money. Many parishes have been inspired by their parish priests, to develop in discipleship and stewardship. Projects like repairing a Miner’s chapel, restoring a war memorial, opening church for the local school to become a prayer space, are all examples of how the resources received into Common Fund directly support the work in the communities of Derbyshire and the City of Derby.

As you think thoughtfully and prayerfully in your parishes about your own level of giving, please take some time to read this leaflet and discuss with your PCC, as it is only through your generous contributions that work can continue to share the Good News in Christ in our local communities.

Common Fund is a practical way to share our financial resources across the diocese

• Proportionality with parishes paying into a pool of resources.
• Shared funding so that those who are able can support others who may struggle.
• Ensures that stipendiary clergy can be in places where they are most needed.
• Generosity of an affluent parish allows us to put stipendiary clergy in a less affluent parish that would otherwise be unable to afford ministry costs.

The Challenge

Meeting the Common Fund is a challenge for us all. With national funding declining and costs increasing, the cost to maintain the levels of clergy and support to deliver our collective mission falls upon our local income.

Working together, we can sustain the ministry that God has called us to provide.

What we receive from our parishes goes directly to support mission and ministry.

Each PCC is asked to make an annual pledge of the requested amount they will contribute to the Common Fund. This allows the diocese to budget effectively.

Please be realistic, challenging and generous as you consider prayerfully your contribution so that mission and ministry is supported in every parish.

Where the money goes

2022 contributions

In 2022, we requested £5,720,089 from our parishes and received £3,967,633 (69%). In 2019 (pre-pandemic) parishes contributed £4,718,739, meaning that post-pandemic receipts are some £0.8m lower. 

In 2022, despite the struggles of church life, and the increased cost of living pressures, many churches managed to reach their full contribution towards Common Fund and many other churches made a valued contribution towards Common Fund. This made a positive impact on our diocesan finances.

Thank you for all that you do towards resourcing God’s Mission and Ministry.

Our onward journey together

As the income from Common Fund pledges currently does not cover the full cost of ministry, we need to increase our level of giving to maintain ministry and grow the mission of the church.

As we journey together, we give grateful thanks for all God’s generosity and pray that we too can embrace this spirit of generosity to ensure that "Christ’s presence reaches every community".

Aur medium term financial budget forecasts highlight significant budget deficits, which need to be closed by increasing income, of which the generosity from parishes to the shared resources required to run the diocese are vital.

Common Fund experiences shared 

"As a priest, I see quite clearly the hopes and dreams of the local community as I come alongside them at key moments such as christenings and funerals.

"As I arrived in the parish, I noted the importance of our mining heritage and we established the mosaic project to tap into what the community needed - something that would unite them around a common passion.

"The project raised the profile of our church in the village and brought lots of people into church who haven’t been before for our special mining festival - people are now visiting the church just to see the mosiac!

"We were able to involve not just congregation members but people of all ages from the community in creating a lasting memorial to the mining involved people of all ages from the community in creating a lasting memorial to our villages’ mining heritage."

Revd Bryony Taylor
St James Barlborough & St John the Baptist Clowne 

Resourcing God's mission in our parishes

"Every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights" James 1:17

As we learn to live with Covid-19 and build back following the struggles we faced with the pandemic,
we fully understand that live in challenging times.

As a diocese, we want to assure you that we will continue to support you in any way we can,
in particular with the financial constraints many face in parishes.

See also:

>> On the money On the money is a new publication explaining diocesan finances. Please take a look.

>> The Parish Giving Scheme

What does Common Fund pay for?  

The common fund contributes towards ministerial costs: clergy stipend, housing, council tax and water rates, remuneration costs, national insurance, pension, training (curates and ongoing CME); safeguarding and wider church responsibilities, including parish support, statutory contributions to the national church and education.

If the Diocese makes any savings could these passed on to parishes in the form of lower Common Fund contributions?  

The diocese is not a profit-making organisation and any investments from savings gets put back to subsidise ministry in our parishes. What is received via Common Fund payments does not equate to the amount it costs to keep the level of clergy and ministerial support that is needed for the ongoing sustainability of the diocese. So, it is not possible to return any contributions.  Each parishes calculation is based on their estimated ability to contribute and all that is received goes straight back to support ministry.

If we cannot pay the suggested amount of CF can we adjust our payments accordingly?

Your payments can be adjusted to reflect what is affordable to you, however, the common fund request will remain the same and we ask that you contribute as much as you can. For assistance in fundraising and stewardship or new ways of giving contact the Finance Team, telephone 01332 388650, finance@derby.anglican.org.

Will we lose our vicar if we cannot afford our Common Fund payments?  

Not necessarily as, within the spirit of the Common Fund, it is through generosity of an affluent parish that allows stipendiary clergy to be placed in less affluent areas. We all share the costs of ministry so there can be a Christian presence in every community.

There is a problem with the formula

We agree that every formula will have its own problems, that no formula will be ‘perfect’ because the complexity of any Diocese cannot be neatly captured in a formula. But the question remains for us as a Diocese: how do we fund our Common Life and live out the Gospel imperative to ‘love our neighbour’?

We should not have to pay for ministry we’re not getting?

Within the Diocese we understand ministry more widely than the Vicar or the Parish Priest in a parish. As we reflected on this question other questions emerged. For example, if we only pay for the ministry we receive how will this affect the life of other ministry that is currently offered in the Diocese eg. Reader Ministry, Self-Supporting Ministry, Safeguarding, DAC?

Our congregations can’t afford it / won’t be persuaded to pay

As we continue to reflect on the new Common Fund, we recognise that for some parishes there will be a difficulty in paying what is asked. But we really do want to live up to the name of ‘Parish Support Office’: we want to support parishes that might find it difficult to contribute to the Common Fund. We have prioritised the work of a number of staff in the ‘Parish Support Office’ to support parishes as the new Common Fund is introduced. They will work with parishes and with deaneries through open conversations and drawing on a variety of resources.

We have abnormal costs

We recognise that the formula cannot capture the complexity of the different parishes in the Diocese. As we journey together as a Diocese in our Common Life we will become more aware of these costs. In listening to parishes and walking with them we hope that we can be imaginative in finding ways to take account of ‘abnormal costs.’

The money is going to churches that are not pulling their weight

This is an important point for clarification. This statement raises all sorts of other questions: Do we want to go down the line of ‘enforcement’ and ‘sanctions?’ How do we encourage people to build God’s Kingdom, to be healthy, outward facing, growing and learning? How do we help parts of our church family find a new life and a new way of ‘being and doing church’? How do we avoid being judgemental about what another church is doing or not doing, particularly if we are not familiar with the particular context of that church?

There needs to be a conversation about the viability of some churches

This is another important point. We are aware that some ‘small’ churches feel they are struggling. And we are aware of the historic, cultural and social importance to the wider community of churches. How do we discern viability? How do we do closures well? How do we celebrate the past, but also mourn the loss of one part of the Diocesan family in the present?

The diocese needs to spend less money and cut staff costs

We recognise that in any financial planning – for business or personally – it is important to balance the budget. Income and expenditure need to be the same; if there is over expenditure in one area then cuts are need to happen in another area. The Diocesan budget reflects the Diocesan priorities for mission and ministry, for our Common Life together as a Diocese. How we spend less money and still achieve the Diocesan priorities for mission and ministry is an important – and challenging – question. How do we decide what we need to keep and what we can do without so that together we can work to achieve the Diocesan vision ‘Christ’s Presence in every community?

>> Our Finances

Thank you once again for your important contributions to our thinking about the Common Fund. As together we continue our journey into the next phase of the Common Fund we pray that together we may hear and listen to one another and that together we pray the Common Fund Prayer:

God our Father,
make us to think more of what we can give to life and less of what we can get out of it.
May we be mindful that we hold our gifts, our talents, our possessions, our life itself,
in trust for you and the service of all people.
Save us from thinking only of our own needs and desires;
and help us to remember that it is more blessed to give than receive,
according to the teaching of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
Amen

For our Diocese, Indices of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) scores for each parish/team range from 3.5320 (least deprived) to 61.4208 (most deprived). Individual Parish Deprivation Scores are calculated inversely to individual parish/team IMD scores.  These range from 12.43 (least deprived) to 5.80 (most deprived) *. A lower amount means a parish/team will be requested to pay less Common Fund. *The figure of 12.43 is the amount that would be required to finance the full cost of ministry in the Diocese per person per week.  The lower figure of 5.80 represents 5% of a 2015 Basic State Pension. 

The attached spreadsheet lists all parish/team IMD scores and Parish Deprivation Scores download here