Love Christmas FAQs

Bags of Kindness

  • A bag of kindness is a gift that can be given to someone who in need this Christmas. With the cost of living crisis, Love Christmas aims to bless those who may not otherwise receive a gift at Christmas.

Beneficiaries

  • A beneficiary is anyone who is receiving a bag of kindness.

  • Bags of Kindness can be given to someone in need. This could be someone your church is already supporting, school children in a deprived area, refugees and asylum seekers living in hotels, low-income households, local neighbourhoods, or simply anyone who you know may benefit from an act of kindness this Christmas.

  • You may want to signpost your beneficiaries to methods of receiving further support. For example, if you church runs a foodbank programme, you can include a leaflet about that in your Bags of Kindness. Or if you run English lessons for refugees and asylum seekers, you could signpost your beneficiaries to these methods of support.

Volunteers

  • We have a number of corporate partners who would like to volunteer their time to help out with Love Christmas. They could support you in your packing or delivery days. If you’d be interested in receiving corporate volunteers, please indicate this on the sign-up form.

Partnerships

  • We encourage you to look towards other churches in your town and city across all Christian denomiations and networks to invite into your Love Christmas activities. This can mean a variety of different things, including the following:

    GIVE You can partner with another church financially by giving to their campaign or them giving to yours

    TIME You can also share your time with another church. They could volunteer at your packing day or delivery day.

    RESOURCE Other churches can also join in by donating resources such as the contents of your Bags of Kindness, space to pack or hold Love Christmas events, vehicles to deliver BoK, etc. and this is another form of partnership.

    If you are partnering with a church in any of the above ways or by another means, this qualifies as a church partnership.

  • Partner organisations might include schools, prisons, charities, businesses, and more, and can mean a variety of different things including the following:

    GIVE You can partner with another organisation financially by having them donate to your campaign. For example, a business could make a donation to your Love Christmas activities.

    TIME You can also have an organisation volunteer their time. For example, a school could volunteer at your packing day or delivery day.

    RESOURCE The recipients of your Bags of Kindness qualify as a partnership as well. For example, if you are giving your Bags of Kindness to a prison, this qualifies as a partnership. Or, another example, is that a school could donate children’s books to put in your Bags of Kindness.

    If you are partnering with an organisation in any of the above ways or by another means, this qualifies as a partnership with an organisation.

  • We wanted to clarify that your church partner must not also be signed up and receiving a grant for Love Christmas. Your church partner can sign up themselves, but only one of the churches can receive the grant.

Grants

  • In order to receive a grant, you need to:

    • Have 3 partners including 1 church partner and 2 other partners which could be either partner organisations or church partners

    • Give out a minimum of 200 Bags of Kindness

    • Apply for a minimum of £1,000 and a maximum of £20,000

    • Be able to 100% match the grant you apply for (exceptions for area of deprivation may apply)

    NB: If you do not spend the total amount of the grant, you will need to refund the excess.

  • You can apply for a grant between £1,000 - £20,000.

  • Your grant only goes towards the cost of Bags of Kindness. Love Your Neighbour will contribute up to £5 per bag.

  • The grant cannot be spent on salaries and staff costs, overhead costs and infrastructure, or non-Love Christmas activities.

  • You need to match 100% (exceptions may apply) of the grant you receive, and this will make up the total value of your grant project. I.e., if you apply for a grant of £1,000, you will match £1,000 and therefore your Love Christmas project will have a total pot of £2,000.

    Please note that any of the grant that you do not spend, you will have to refund so please only apply for what you need.

  • By offering a match funding grant we want to increase the existing capacity which churches have for Christmas social action work. We see it as giving you the ability to meet twice as many people in need rather than halving how much you need to raise.

  • The deadline for grant applications is 30 November. However, grants are given out on a first come, first serve basis so the window may close earlier if the cap is reached.

  • The grant notification will be sent approximately 2-4 weeks after submitting all necessary documents. The grant payment will come the next payment cycle after the notification.

Impact + Finance Reporting

  • We collect impact so we can measure how, collectively across the UK, churches are working together to bless vulnerable people in our communities over the Christmas period.

    Together, we can celebrate the total number of Bags of Kindness distributed across the UK as well as number of people reached, volunteers mobilised, and church and other partnerships forged, which each individual church has played their part in contributing to.

  • We will be asking you to complete a short impact form each time you complete a Love Christmas activity throughout November & December. Rather than the longer debrief form from previous years, our goal is to ask easily qualifiable question in order to share the results with you all in January.

    At a high-level, we will ask you to report for each event (or collectively as you’d like):

    • How many bags of kindness distributed

    • How many people received the BoK?

    • How many volunteers were supporting?

  • Good news! We have heard you and are trying to simplify our finance reporting process this year.

    Upon your grant approval you will receive a Finance Report Form which has to be filled out and submitted by 10 February 2024.

    You will be asked to provide:

    • Description of the project and contents of your Bags of Kindness

    • Total project cost

    • High-level expense breakdown

    • Total number of bags distributed

    • Top 5 purchases you spent your money on