Examples of other organisations that have been funded

The Trustees of CIT believe that relatively small amounts of funding can make a real difference to people with new and emerging ideas. Sometimes its difficult for individuals to gather funds to test an idea before growing it further and developing an organisation – it can be a challenge for small organisations to try new and better ideas out. CIT offers the opportunity for the best ideas that promote the Christian faith and/or help communities as an expression of that faith to be trialled and – hopefully, in time – grown.

CIT has supported a number of organisations with grants and a range of input over more than 40 years. Many organisations have gone from strength to strength since CIT’s funding has ended and we continue to be excited by their achievements. We’ve listed a handful or organisation’s we’ve supported to help you understand some of our patterns of grant making. We hope this helps you tailor any application to CIT.

Please click on the individual organisation’s logo to go to their website.

Accept
People with mental ill-health often experience severe isolation and loss of confidence. This exciting faith-based organisation helps to bring people together for social interaction which helps support their medical situation. They meet in the places we all meet in: pubs, cafes etc and not hospitals. A grant of £8,581 contributed towards the expansion of ACCEPT’s work from Warwickshire into Leicestershire.

The Forgiveness Project
The Forgiveness Project works at a local, national and international level to help build a future free of violence by healing the wounds of the past, using inspirational stories, and in particular their powerful exhibition ‘The F Word’, to share the extraordinary journey some people have taken to come to the point of forgiveness and reconciliation.

In 2007 CIT along with it’s sister trust ACT each issued a grant of £5,250 to support the development of website and organisational costs of their internationally acclaimed exhibition on forgiveness.

Donna Interra
Donna Intera is a Coaching, Counselling and Training service for women who want to learn how to break out of cycle of unsatisfying, painful or abusive relationships. The term ‘Donna Intera’ is Italian for ‘whole woman’ and aptly describes the intentions of the company which is to help women become ‘whole’ so that they can create healthy and whole relationships.

CIT issued Joanne Robinson (founder of Donna Intera) a grant of £4,753 to set up and run the Right Step programme to deliver to women and teenagers/young teenage mothers that have a history of broken or abusive relationships. CIT also issued a grant of £5,000 to support Joanne’s salary in getting Donna Intera known within her local area and setting up the Right Step programme.

Love Life
Love Life UK was founded in 2008 by ex-professional football player Bruce Dyer and gospel singer Janine Dyer as a christian organisation that wished to enhance social activity with a godly ethos. The company was named Love Life Uk based on the bible verse John 10:10 where Jesus said ‘He had come to give life and life that was more fulfilling’.

In 2011 CIT issued Love Life UK with a grant of £2,000 to be used towards the organisational costs of the first Love Life UK champions league football tournament. Football is a great tool to be used to pull community together, so Love Life’s aim was to host a tournament for churches and the community to socialize and have a day of fun.

The Pilgrim Bible Society
The Pilgrim Bible Society is dedicated to supporting the mission to Gypsies. CIT issued a grant of £3,000 each year for 3 years to support the work of Elsie Smith who teaches gypsy women and children, who rarely attend formal school, to read the bible. Elsie not only provides the community with literacy skills but aids christian and spititual development.

Narthex Sparkhill
Unfortunately many women from ethnic minority/faith communites have felt isolated due to their inability to speak English. Narthex Sparkhill whose ethos is to ‘Encourage cohesion through education, social action, families, and children’s and young people’s work’, were issued a grant by CIT in 2009 to teach very basic English to these women wrapped around simple children’s faith stories about characters that are present in the Bible and Quaran.

This Way Up
The teenage years are times of great change for young people. For most, these changes are exciting and challenging, but for some they cause anxiety and pain. When young people experience a significant loss during this time of change it can be really helpful to have someone to talk to. CIT issued a grant of £5,000 to ‘This Way Up’ a Christian charity based in Solihull, supporting children and young people affected by bereavement or family breakdown. The grant was to support the costs of their ‘Lost & Found’ courses, designed to enable young people to identify feelings in relation to significant loss and develop strategies to cope.

Act4
In 2009 CIT issued a grant of £3,000 to Act4 to support the costs of the performances of their ‘Star Citizen’ performances with schools. ‘Star Citizen’ was a motivational and theatrical performance using Christian values to illuminate the themes of community cohesion, global citizenship and ways children can get involved in their communities. Act4 were awarded the world record for this show by completing 51 performances in 51 different locations in 50 days.

In 2010 CIT issued Act4 with a further grant of £3,600 to support the costs of the ‘Time to Act’ project which was a project to train and equip volunteer teams in several locations in the United Kingdom to deliver Christian values via high quality assemblies for primary schools. Act 4′s work challenges the traditional notion of an assembly by including within its presentations music, drama, dance, videos and more, all original material.

Creative Metier
The founders of Creative Metier Ltd recognised that people were often making major life decisions in times of change with little time to reflect on their priorities, fundamental values, gifts and the contributions they want to make, so developed a one to one process and tools for working with people to give them a context for reflection. They then went on to develope a web enabled version (v-interactive) of this process to make it available to a much wider audience.

In 2007 CIT issued Creativie Metier with a loan of £6,160 over a period of twenty four months to adapt their existing V-Interactive software programme into a christian package which individuals and home groups attached to the church could use to identify how they can bring to life their Christian beliefs within their daily and work lives (so it is not just about going to church on Sundays).

Emmanuel International
Emmanuel International in the UK is an interdenominational mission agency. For the past twenty five years EIUK has sent missionaries to serve in countries around the world from Jamaica to Malawi with a policy of working through local churches.

EI saw that there was a need for a more culturally appropriate children’s bible with pictures that were suitable for Ugandan children and which told bible stories more simply and accessibly for those with low levels of literacy. CIT provided a grant of £2,000 to support the printing and distribution costs for the ‘Ugandan Childrens Bible’ that had been developed by EI.