Harnessing potential to reach communities in need

For more than 30 years, the Church Urban Fund has been working to bring about change in neighbourhoods across England. Through its far-reaching network of local parishes, and working alongside other faith-based and secular organisations, it has the potential to address the issues of greatest need in local communities.

The challenge facing incoming Chair Andrew Barnett was how to best harness this potential to have the impact the Fund wanted to achieve.

“Looking openly and honestly at our current operations, the Board came to the realisation that whilst we had much to be proud of in reaching communities across the country, it was unclear what it all added up to,” says Andrew.

Taking bold steps

The Board took the courageous step of taking a hard look at their areas of weakness and brought in Lucent to help them build a strategy for the future.

“Katherine helped us uncover that there was a fantastic opportunity to reconnect the Fund with its founding principles and purpose and establish a fresh vision matched with realistic plans for development,” explains Andrew.

The structure of the Church Urban Fund large and complex organisation also posed a challenge. “We are very much a family structure, with 24 boards in all and no clear relationships between them. As we entered this process of renewal, we wanted to ensure it touched everyone in the family. At the same time, we wanted to simplify our governance structure to help us work in the most effective way possible.”

Light-bulb moment

The ‘light-bulb moment’ was in harnessing the idea of the Church Urban Fund being less of a network and more of a movement. This gave the opportunity to bring together the Fund’s work under an over-arching cause whilst still allowing flexibility for local groups to adapt to the needs of their communities.

“Starting on this journey together brought a real sense of excitement and momentum for the staff and Board,” says Andrew.

A series of workshops and an away day with Trustees and staff led by Lucent kick-started a period of exploration and discovery.

“Katherine quickly established the Board’s trust in the process. Katherine conferred some of the work on trustees to take forward and this helped to embed ownership and accountability for the future,” explains Andrew.

Connecting with values

“A really important discovery for us was that the way we had been working had hidden what really motivated us, and in particular our Christian values. Returning to these felt really freeing – it liberated us to understand the offer we could make and how that differed from other charities. We’ve now placed values at the centre of our proposition, and this has enabled us to create a new sense of excitement and momentum moving forward.”

“Working with Lucent has been fantastic. Katherine brings a balance of rigour, humour and insight to challenges facing organisations. She introduces methods and concepts as and when you need them so you trust the process.”

Lucent’s work with the Church Urban Fund was started well before the Covid-19 outbreak. Now that the country is dealing with the biggest public health crisis of a generation, having a clear focus and strategic direction means that the Church Urban Fund is well placed to help their local communities tackle the enormous challenges ahead.