22/05/2025
What is the Cornerstone grants database?
Developed by the National Giving Team, Cornerstone is an online generosity tool available free of charge to all Church of England churches. It offers three distinct functions: Insights, Pathways and a comprehensive Grants database. While Insights and Pathways can be accessed through consultation with your Diocesan Giving team, the grants database is now available for any Church of England church to access.
The Cornerstone grants database contains well over 600 grants – all suitable for churches. It’s totally free to use and you can filter the grants by the activity you need money for, or your location, or even by the method of application. With a single click you can add a potential funder to your shortlist and print this to share with your PCC or fundraising committee.
Why should I use it?
Funding from charitable grants is so important for many church projects. However generous your congregation is, or however ingenious your fundraising plans are, a cash injection is sometimes the most helpful way forward. But finding these pots of money can be a lot of work for time-pressed clergy and volunteers.
The Cornerstone grants database supports this important source of revenue by making it easy for churches to identify which funders are right for their project and by giving them the best chance to craft a successful application.
Carolyn Leigh from All Saints Fulham has already used the database and said: “This is a great free resource for churches and all the better for having some of the legwork about eligibility taken out of the research process.”
Joshua Townson, Giving Advisor at Oxford Diocese, said: “When I show it to people, they generally say: ‘Wow! This is amazing!’ So many churches immediately see what it can do and start to think about how they might be able to use it for more than the initial fundraising project.”
Another individual said: “Thank you so much for putting all these grant making bodies together in one easily accessible file. This is surely a great advantage to us all. I can now throw away lots of paper which I have accumulated over the years about grants.”
How do I use it?
Speak to your Diocesan Giving Team to get a login to the Cornerstone website. Once you have access, just go to ‘Grants’ in the Cornerstone menu and you’ll see the list of available grants to browse. You can filter your search based on purpose, closing date, location and size of grant. The video below explains more about Cornerstone, and explains the grants database from 02:45.
What else can I do with Cornerstone?
Cornerstone isn’t just about grants. Finding suitable grants to apply for is a big part of the funding puzzle, but making the application is also vitally important, and again, is hugely time-consuming for parishes. The Pathways section of Cornerstone guides you through ‘Building a Case for Support’ and ‘Applying for Grant Funding ‘– both vital parts of most applications.
If you’d like to get started with the grants database, or want to learn more about Pathways and the other functions of Cornerstone, contact your Diocesan Giving Team. If you have any problems getting access, email the National Giving Team at [email protected].
