Cornerstone has been created by the National Giving Team to support Church of England churches in exploring their giving culture and understanding their financial picture. It is designed to guide you with clear and practical steps to strengthen generosity and grow income.
Cornerstone is an online platform that uses your church’s data to identify giving opportunities with the greatest potential for impact in your parish. Through simple step-by-step “Pathways”, you are guided through practical actions that grow generosity and will support the long-term financial sustainability of your church.
Insights
The Insights page pulls together financial data from the annual returns, as well as mission data, to identify what is going well already and what areas to focus on.
Pathways
Insights help to determine where your energy is best focused when trying to grow your church’s finances, and which Pathways to work through. This might mean just a couple of quick, easy wins or it could be running a bigger campaign. With over 40 different Pathways to choose from, you can do as many or as few as your church is ready for.
Each Pathway breaks down a topic such as 'preaching & teaching on generosity', 'running a giving campaign' and 'applying for grant funding' into simple, manageable steps, each taking between 5 to 30 minutes to complete. You will also find ready-made templates, short videos, and clear instructions. It’s designed to be flexible – skip what doesn’t apply and use the parts that work for you. Pathways are also a brilliant way to involve volunteers who might be unsure at first, but are glad to have a bit of guidance.
Grants Database
Every church has access to a free database of over 600 grants, specially selected for churches. It’s searchable and easy to filter, and it’s updated weekly. Each grant comes with a clear description and a direct link so you can explore and apply. This resource is free to use and could be a real boost for your church’s projects and mission.
What’s Involved?
- Invitation: Once you have let the Diocesan Generous Giving Team know you are interested, you will be invited to take part in Cornerstone. We will ask you to create a small team (2–4 people from your PCC) to work with you through the process.
- Briefing: You will be introduced to Cornerstone in a short online webinar, which will explain what’s involved and what you can expect.
- Research: Your PCC and congregation will be invited to complete a simple questionnaire. This helps gather useful insights into how your parish currently talks about and encourages giving and gives a good foundation for the next steps.
- Workshops: We will meet in person to look at the data together, reflect on what it tells us, and identify opportunities to grow giving in your church’s context.
- Pathways: During the workshop you and your team will choose the actions (called ‘Pathways’) most suited for your church’s current situation.
- Implementation: With your team, you will start working through your chosen Pathways, step by step, to help grow generosity and strengthen your church’s financial future.
What's my next step?
If you would like to discuss how Cornerstone can help your church(es) grow generosity, contact Vicky Alford at Generousgiving@diocant.org.
The next scheduled workshops are:
- Monday 2 March, 2pm & 6pm, at St Paul’s Parish Hall, Canterbury
Registration for Cornerstone opens on Monday 17 November 2025 – complete the form for your church.