The Spark Fund is back – we can’t wait to see what young people will do with grants of £500-£5,000 to promote mission in the Diocese of London.
The Capital Youth team are looking for more young people to come up with innovative ways to help their generation explore the Christian faith. The Spark Fund has so far supported 15 innovative and exciting projects, started and led by young people in parishes and schools across the Diocese with support from adults. Projects involve anything from using games to create videos about the Bible, to contemporary classical music. Some projects have used important topics to broach the subject of faith, like climate change or mental health. There’s a real variety of things that are happening, and we can’t wait to see what the next round of projects will present.
What qualifies for funding?
The heart of The Spark Fund is that projects are primarily missional. Ideas must come from a young person (or small group of) and be their idea, as they will be the person in charge of running the project, with support from their adult sponsor.
What do we mean by mission? In short, sharing the love of God. We’ll consider projects that align to at least one of the five Marks of Mission:
- To proclaim the Good News of the Kingdom
- To teach, baptise and nurture believers
- To respond to human need by loving service
- To transform unjust structures of society, to challenge violence of every kind and pursue peace and reconciliation
- To strive to safeguard the integrity of creation, and sustain and renew the life of the earth
The prospect of starting a new project at this time may seem a little daunting, but this is a great opportunity to engage young people and encourage them with a sense of purpose as things restart again. There is a team available to provide support along the way and we aim to make the process of applying and carrying out projects as simple as possible, because we know that adult sponsors will be generally busy.
The process
Ideas must be submitted by Friday 4 March to be included in the fifth round of funding and must be submitted by one or more young people with an agreed adult sponsor from their church or school (youth worker, vicar, chaplain or volunteer). Once the idea has been submitted, if it fits the guidelines, applicants will be invited to attend a Funding Factory workshop which will take place on the evening of Tuesday 15 March. The board and other creatives will be on hand to help young people develop their ideas into a plan, before completing the funding application.
Find out more and submit your idea via The Spark Fund’s webpage: www.london.anglican.org/spark