CHURCH URBAN FUND

Registered charity 297483 · accounts filings on the Charity Commission register · Wikidata: Q5116721 · Wikipedia

Church Urban Fund works to catalyse social action and bring about positive change in lives and communities across England. Through a combination of community-based projects, capacity-building support and research and policy activity, we work with churches and a wide range of partners towards our goal of seeing people and communities flourish and enjoy life in all its fullness.

Objects

TO PROMOTE ANY CHARITABLE PURPOSE IN URBAN AREAS WITHIN THE PROVINCES OF CANTERBURY AND YORK WHICH ARE IN NEED OF SPIRITUAL AND MATERIAL ASSISTANCE BY REASON OF SOCIAL OR ECONOMIC CHANGES WITH A VIEW TO REINFORCING THE WORK OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND AMONG THE PEOPLE OF THOSE AREAS.

Area of benefit: PROVINCES OF CANTERBURY AND YORK

The charity’s charitable objects and area of benefit, quoted from its governing document as held on the Charity Commission register.

Causes: General Charitable Purposes · The Prevention Or Relief Of Poverty · website · Get email alerts

Registered contact address: Lambeth, London, England (from the postcode on the register)

Financial health, per its FY2025 accounts

The accounts state that unrestricted free reserves were £2,679,000 at year-end, which is well above the Trustees' stated policy target of £600,000 to £800,000. The charity reported a net deficit of £691,000 for the year, resulting in a decrease in total net assets from £4,049,000 to £3,358,000. Despite the deficit, the Trustees confirmed adequate resources to continue as a going concern.

Automated summary of the FY2025 accounts; the evidenced findings below carry the verbatim passages.

What the accounts disclose

Accounts audited by Forvis Mazars LLP. Discloses 4 of 6 completeness components.

Policies the charity declares

In its annual return the charity told the Commission that it has the policies listed below. This is self-declared: it is not verified by the Commission or by this site, and it is not evidence of how a policy works in practice.

• Bullying and harassment policy and procedures
• Complaints handling
• Complaints policy and procedures
• Conflicting interests
• Financial reserves policy and procedures
• Internal charity financial controls policy and procedures
• Internal risk management policy and procedures
• Investing charity funds policy and procedures
• Paying staff
• Risk management
• Safeguarding policy and procedures
• Safeguarding vulnerable beneficiaries
• Serious incident reporting policy and procedures
• Social media policy and procedures
• Trustee conflicts of interest policy and procedures
• Trustee expenses policy and procedures
• Volunteer management

From the charity’s annual return (Part A, self-declared)

Answers and figures the charity gave in Part A of its annual return to the Charity Commission. They are self-declared: not verified by the Commission or by this site. Only positive answers and figures are listed; items not listed are simply not shown.

Source: this charity’s annual returns on the Charity Commission register.

Corporate structure

• Registered company of the charity Companies House 02138994
• Trading subsidiary: NEAR NEIGHBOURS Companies House 07603317
• Trading subsidiary: JUST FINANCE FOUNDATION Companies House 10204667

Public fundraising profile: JustGiving — Church Urban Fund (matched by registered charity number).

Leadership, per the charity’s website

• Bishop Rob Wickham — Group Chief Executive Officer (source)
• Adam Edwards — Deputy CEO (source)
• Vinyo Aidam — Director of Finance and Governance (source)

Listed on the charity’s own website when we last crawled it; roles may have changed. Pay-band disclosures above are anonymous statutory disclosures and are not attributed to any named individual.

Company officers (Companies House)

Current officers of the charity’s own company per the Companies House register, cross-checked against the Charity Commission trustee list by name. A director not on the trustee list is usually a timing or naming difference between the two registers — check both records before drawing conclusions.

• FOSTER, Jessica Beatrice, Revd — director, appointed 13/07/2026on trustee list
• HARRIES, Richard Peter — director, appointed 06/10/2025on trustee list
• HUBBARD, Rachel Margaret — director, appointed 06/10/2025on trustee list
• MATHEW, Shemil, Reverend — director, appointed 06/10/2025on trustee list
• BARBER-ROWELL, Matthew Stephen, Dr — director, appointed 06/10/2025on trustee list
• SUEN, Louise — director, appointed 06/10/2025on trustee list
• YOUNG, Carolyn Margaret — director, appointed 06/10/2025on trustee list
• GIRT, Matthew Toby Nathan — director, appointed 01/11/2023on trustee list
• BROUGHTON, Jacqueline — director, appointed 01/11/2023on trustee list
• DISSANAYEKE, Chandru Michael — director, appointed 01/11/2023on trustee list
• CUMMINGS, Christopher James — director, appointed 08/03/2023on trustee list
• GRIEVE, Alison Esther — director, appointed 07/03/2017on trustee list
• AIDAM, Vinyo — secretary, appointed 30/09/2022

Official officers record.

Public profiles (found on the charity’s own website): facebook · instagram

Structured financials (annual return, FY ending 31/12/2025)

Reported reserves equal ~10.7 months of spending — above the median for charities its size (median 4.7 months; benchmarks).

Per its annual return, cost of raising funds: 15.3% of total income — above the median for charities its size (5.3%) (benchmarks).

Register events

• Received assets from another charity (14/11/2026) — per the register’s event history; asset transfers typically record mergers or reorganisations.
• Received assets from another charity (06/08/2018) — per the register’s event history; asset transfers typically record mergers or reorganisations.

Trustees · trustee networks

• Christopher James Cummingschair
• Alison Esther Grieve · trustee of 5 other charities
• Carolyn Margaret Young
• Chandru Michael Dissanayeke
• Dr Matthew Stephen Barber-Rowell
• Jacqueline Broughton · trustee of 1 other charity
• Louise Suen
• Matthew Toby Nathan Girt
• Rachel Margaret Hubbard
• Rev Jessica Beatrice Foster
• Rev Shemil Mathew
• Richard Peter Harries · trustee of 4 other charities

Trustee list from the Charity Commission register (current, not historical).

Operates in: Throughout England

Income and spending

Common questions

Known funders

Grants to this charity found in funders’ own accounts filings.

Grants marked “Unverified read” were flagged by automated checks as possibly misread from the funder’s filed accounts. They are listed, but left out of the totals, counts and funder relationships this site computes.

Government & lottery funding

Grants to this charity published as open data by government and lottery funders (360Giving).

Funders of similar charities

Funders whose accounts show grants to charities similar to this one (and no recorded grant to this charity) — a starting list for fundraisers.

Charities like this

Semantically similar by activities and financial character, from our analysed corpus. Compare with CITY UNITED REFORMED CHURCH CHARITY.

• CITY UNITED REFORMED CHURCH CHARITY income £36k
• The City Church income £667k
• CHRIST COMMUNITY CHURCH, LONDON income £75k
• CHURCH COMMUNITIES UK income £28.5m
• ARUN COMMUNITY CHURCH income £720k
• CHELMSFORD COMMUNITY CHURCH income £89k

Side by side with its peers

Each row is that charity’s latest analysed filing; every value is quote-backed on its own page.