Getting Money for the Lord

No matter if you're a leader of a place of worship, or a religious-based center, you need help in paying your bills…and serving your community. There's certainly nothing wrong with asking for money to promote your faith of choice - especially if you're running a Christian-based group or place of worship.

But, unlike other types of grants, religious grants applications and proposals are not highly favored by many granting organizations. One of the main reasons for this is because they don't want to be seen as promoting a certain type of group. Another reason is there more secular funding places than religious ones.

That all changed in 2001, when George W. Bush passed faith-based initiative laws that has provided more funding for religious grants, with a blend of getting more people involved in caring for their communities.

What places offer religious-based grants? One place is the Center for Faith-Based and Community Initiative. Since 2001, this center has helped many churches and local, Christian-based organizations get the money they need to keep their doors open. Your church or organization can also receive this money (check with them to see how you qualify.)

However, if you prefer to request money from a private, Christian-based organization, check out the Lily Foundation. Since the foundation opened its doors in 1937, it has supported many Christian schools, churches, and even Christian day care centers.

Here are some of the programs the Lilly Foundation fund:

• Worship training/mentoring at Christian colleges
• Funding of Christian studies programs and Christian-based publications
• The national, clergy renewal program. The program gives each selected, Christian congregation a grant totaling $45,000 per annum to create a renewal program for their pastor. In order for your congregation to qualify, the lead pastor must hold at least a master of divinity degree.

For other places on the web where you can get more info on how to obtain a grant for your church, go to Church Grants. The site is ran by a group called Gabriel Ministries. The site lists many different resources, such as articles, links to other religious grant sites, and tips for writing grants proposals for religious groups and nonprofit organizations. The link to the site is Church Grants.

While on the Internet, you should also check out FundsNetServices.com. They have a whole library of religious, nonprofit, disability, education, and many, many other types of grants that you can apply for. Just click on “religion grants” and you have a list of such grant programs. The names of some of these grants are the Roger Clemens Foundation (kid's), Fund for Theological Education (religious learning), and Faith In Action (faith-based initiative.) The site even list grants for funding of arts and science programs. The link to the site is Fund Set Services.

If this doesn't satisfy your need to find info on how to apply for a religious-based grant, use the major search engines like Google, Yahoo, and AOL.