Innovation Fund pledges over £500,000 in funding
The Innovation Fund offers grants to Unitarian congregations and groups across Great Britain who want to try something new; from fresh worship formats to bold community projects. We want to back the ideas and people best placed to grow British Unitarianism from the ground up.
The Fund opened for applications in May 2025, and in its first year we have pledged over £500,000 to communities across England, Scotland and Wales, creating a wave of new ideas, new energy, and new confidence across the movement.
The Fund exists on a simple belief: that Unitarians already know what their communities need, and sometimes just need a financial nudge, and a bit of encouragement, to take the leap. One applicant put it best:
“The Innovation Fund has been a disruptor by virtue of its existence. It has provided fresh hope and possibility… Being able to say ‘but we could get funding for this’ carries a certain power in terms of persuading others that something is worth discussing.”
The numbers
- 26 grants awarded in Year 1: 8 larger Innovation Grants (£5,000–£125,000) and 18 smaller Development Grants (£1,000–£5,000) for congregations wanting to test an idea before going big.
- £9 in every £10 has gone to projects outside London and the South East — with the biggest grants pledged in Wales, the Midlands and the North of England.
- Every pound the Fund pledges is being matched by contributions from elsewhere – districts, congregation reserves, other trusts, and local government and lottery funding – plus around 2,000 hours of volunteer time. It’s not just the General Assembly investing in congregations; it’s the whole Unitarian movement choosing to invest in itself.
The projects
We’ve funded several experiments with spiritual practices, including Bradford’s “Flow Zone” arts and ritual project, new midweek meditation gatherings, and Rosslyn Hill’s “Heart Spaces” – a new weekly worshipping community in central London built around music, meditation and open mic events. Shrewsbury Unitarians started small, piloting midweek meditation sessions with a Development Grant, and went so well that they now have ambitions a much larger, multi-year project. The largest commitment we’ve made in this category is a three-year collaboration between Doncaster Unitarians’ and the ArtBomb community arts festival, bringing poets, musicians, visual artists, and local people into the life of the church.
We’re supporting Unitarians to create inclusive communities. This includes a small grant for Golders Green’s new LGBTQ+ community choir, “Golders Queens”, Lewisham’s consultations on LGBTQ+ spiritual wellbeing and trans inclusion, and a national research project into how Unitarian congregations can better support weddings – especially for LGBTQ+ and younger couples.
We’ve helped to build capacity within congregations too, including funding a shared administrative post between Ditchling and Lewes, governance and fundraising advice for congregations in Wales and Lancashire, and funding Unitarian Transformers to give dedicated capacity support for trustees in Shrewsbury, NELUM, Chorley and Warwick. Brum Unitarians used a Development Grant to commission expert advice on income generation – that would have been very difficult to produce in-house – and are now building new operations and communications roles on the strength of it.
We’re also investing in the spiritual and emotional health of congregations too. This has included Cambridge’s self-compassion workshop – which every single participant said they’d recommend to others – short-term “developmental ministries” piloted in Southampton and Ditchling & Lewes, and new peer support groups in Edinburgh.
We’re helping congregations connect with their local communities. Funding has created a primary school newspaper collaboration at Chowbent Chapel, community conversations hosted jointly with Evesham Quakers, and a new community development role bringing people together across the North East. At Graig Trebanos, a part-time community minister is turning a disused chapel and hall into a thriving community hub open to the whole neighbourhood, not just the congregation.
What could you apply for?
The Fund is deliberately open to almost any idea that helps a Unitarian community thrive – from new worship formats and inclusion projects, to capacity-building, community partnerships, and strengthening the connections within and beyond congregational life.
We would love to see even more ambitious, bigger-vision proposals in Year 2.
One area we are especially keen to support going forward is trusteeship and governance – recognising that healthy, well-resourced governance underpins almost everything else a congregation hopes to achieve. If your congregation has ideas for strengthening how it’s led and run, this is a great time to bring them forward.
Every grant, and how to apply
You can see the full list of every project funded so far. If reading these stories sparks an idea of your own, details on eligibility and how to apply are on the Innovation Fund application page.
This is only the beginning. With thanks to founding donor the Bowland Trust, whose generosity created the Fund, Year 1 has shown what’s possible when Unitarian communities are trusted, resourced, and given room to experiment. Here’s to the leaps still to come.