National Churches Trust Grants: What They Fund and When to Apply

The National Churches Trust is the funder most church treasurers meet first when a roof, a tower or a drain fails. This guide sets out what its grants are described as paying for, how the application runs, and where they stop. It is written from the Trust’s own programme descriptions and funding-directory summaries, with the date they were checked, because thresholds and deadlines move. Confirm everything on the National Churches Trust website before you plan around it.

We publish guidance and reply to enquiries by email; we do not award grants and nothing here says your church qualifies.

The main programme: Large Grants (formerly Cornerstone)

Funding-directory listings describe the Trust’s Large Grants programme, previously called Cornerstone Grants, as support for structural repair and maintenance of places of worship of any Christian denomination and age, and for some facilities work such as kitchens and toilets. Points to note:

• Two stages. An initial application, then a second stage by invitation only for those who succeed at the first.
• Deadline. A listing gives the next deadline as 3 November 2026. Check the Trust’s page for the current round.
• Threshold. Listings disagree: one gives projects costing more than £100,000, another describes priority funding of up to £50,000 for urgent structural repair costed at more than £80,000 including VAT. That disagreement is the reason to read the Trust’s own guidance rather than a directory.

Smaller grants

Local funding directories list two smaller routes: Foundation Grants of £500 to £5,000 for urgent maintenance, and Gateway Grants of £3,000 to £10,000 for project development, with grants covering up to 50% of costs and the rest to be found from other sources. These listings may be out of date, so confirm amounts and whether the programmes are open.

What it is for, and what it is not

These are repair and maintenance funds. If your project is solar panels, a heat pump or other energy equipment, they are generally the wrong fund; the energy-and-building-improvement funders are covered in grants for churches and, for solar in detail, solar panels for churches grants. Many churches do both in sequence: repair the roof with a repair grant, then put the array on the repaired roof.

How a repair grant interacts with solar

• Do the repair first. Fitting panels to a roof that needs reslating or releading means taking them off again. Funders and installers both prefer the roof to be sound.
• Keep the budgets separate. A repair funder will want repair costs, an energy funder will want energy costs; shared scaffolding is a saving but not a reason to blend the applications.
• Consent still comes first for a listed church. See the faculty process and solar panels on listed buildings.

Other repair funding in England

For listed places of worship in England, the Places of Worship Renewal Fund run by Historic England replaced the Listed Places of Worship Grant Scheme, which closed on 31 March 2026. It funds repair and maintenance in rounds to 31 March 2030; the details we could verify are in grants for churches.

Before you apply

1. Decide whether the project is repair, energy or community space, because the funders draw the line firmly.
2. Check eligibility on the Trust’s own page for your denomination and building.
3. Line up match funding.
4. Note the deadline; a two-stage process means a gap of months before you know.

Sources (checked 18 October 2026)

• National Churches Trust: nationalchurchestrust.org; Large Grants descriptions as summarised by regional funding directories (Action Together, Devon County Council funding news, Bath and North East Somerset Council funding finder).