CHURCHES embarking on fund-raising efforts to reduce carbon emissions can take advantage, from next month, of a C of E pilot scheme that could help them to double their money.

Under the scheme, Give to Go Green, first piloted over six weeks in the dioceses of Leeds and Exeter this year, churches can raise up to £10,000 to fund “quick-win” projects such as LED installations, insulation, or a new heating-control system. The funds raised will then be matched through by the Net Zero Programme.

In the pilot, 27 churches were supported to raise £162,155 for small-scale projects. Seventy per cent of them raised more than their target amount — some by as much as 200 per cent. The Rural Dean of Plymouth City and Team Rector of Plymstock and Hooe, Prebendary Jennie Appleby, said that the scheme at St Mary and All Saints’, Plymstock, in Devon, had caught people’s imagination not only in the church, but in the community. It would “help us reach out, because environment and climate change are issues that everybody is concerned about”, she said.

The Bishop of Ripon, the Rt Revd Anna Eltringham, commended the scheme. “Encouraging giving is a challenge for the church, especially in such financially uncertain times. But people are more likely to give to something tangible,” she said. She described the pilot as “a fantastic and rewarding way to make things happen”.

A case study of Christ Church, Upper Armley, in Leeds, in which the age of participants on a sponsored walk around the parish ranged from ten to 80, showed that a total of almost £6000 had been raised through the scheme. The Vicar, the Revd Philip Arnold, said that the reason that it had been so successful was its grounding in “one simple challenge that everyone could get behind and work towards”.

Chester, Derby, Exeter, Leeds, Sodor & Man, Southwark, St Edmundsbury & Ipswich, and Winchester dioceses will all be part of the second pilot. The C of E’s national fund-raising adviser, Helen Simpkiss, said: “Once we have looked at the results from our second pilot scheme, we hope we can then roll the scheme out nationally to other regions to help as many churches as possible get the support they need.”