Welcome to the Church Urban Fund and thank you for showing an interest in joining our governing Board as a Trustee.
We are a charity set up by the Church of England following the seminal Faith in the City report in 1985 that had such a huge impact on the government and church at the time. Over the decades since, we have changed from a grant making body to the national charity that we are today – working with Dioceses, local leaders, churches and other faith groups to address the root causes of poverty and to provide practical support.
Our vision is for a future where everyone in England can access a community of support when they need it most.
Our mission is to tackle complex challenges like poverty and exclusion across England by mobilising people, churches, and whole communities to make a positive difference.
As a Christian organisation, we are motivated by a vision of the world as God intends it to be. We are passionate about building communities where material needs are met and everyone feels connected, valued, and loved.
Last year we adopted our exciting new strategy, with its two key objectives:
- To work in partnerships that serve, inspire and enable churches, networks and other organisations to end poverty, locally and nationally
- To reveal the truth of poverty.
A key element of our strategy is the development of a National Academy to support and equip clergy working in areas of high stress, the pilot is already underway.
Revealing the truth of poverty is about listening to those with lived experience, supporting them, helping their voices to be heard and analysing and channelling this information from many very local sources to influence national policy.
Our Organisational Values are: Collaboration, Compassion, Justice and Accountability.
We are part of a family of three charities, Church Urban Fund, Near Neighbours and the Just Finance Foundation. This year, apart from delivering year one of our new strategy, we are working to simplify our governance arrangements and this will include bringing the Church Urban Fund and Near Neighbours together into one entity – with a dedicated ‘business stream’ for the vital work of Near Neighbours.
Our Board is twelve strong and we now have five Trustee vacancies. We had deferred recruiting until our strategy was approved and we were clear about the skills and experience that we required to support delivery of the strategy.
More generally, we are seeking Trustees with a strong understanding of good governance, good financial literacy (not expert) and a passion for Christ.
Specifically, we would welcome applications from people who are comfortable with our Organisational Values and with an interest in risk management and experience of managing risk at a senior level; good philanthropic/grant making Trusts network; experience and a passion for advocacy, voice and knowledge of influencing national government policy and/or an academic or educator from the theological space.
I do hope you will consider joining our very able and friendly Board of Trustees for this next stage of the CUF journey.
Sue Chalkley OBE FCIH
Chair
Sue is a retired housing association Chief Executive.
Sue is passionate about social housing, rural communities and the environment. She helped establish the Homes for Cathy group of housing associations that work to prevent and address homelessness.
Sue’s other interests include a community link with Tanzania and chairing her local Flood Group.
Sue was previously inaugural chair of the Rural Housing Alliance; co-chair of the Rural Housing Network; a Trustee of the National Flood Forum; Chair of the Association of Retirement Housing Managers and Chair of Gordon House Association (charity for compulsive gamblers).
Sue’s church is St Andrew’s, Paddock Wood, where she is lay Chair and was warden for seven years. Sue chairs the Bereko Community Partnership (church, schools and Town Council) and its parish link with Bereko, Tanzania.