Eight Christmas fundraising ideas for faith groups and churches

Congregations are often raising funds for others, but they also need to raise funds for themselves: a roof repair, a heating bill, a warm space for the community, a Christmas meal for people who’d otherwise spend the day alone.

This applies beyond Christian churches too. A mosque running a community meal, a synagogue running a Hanukkah event, a gurdwara or temple with a building and a congregation around it, all face the same practical questions when it comes to funding a project or an event. For the basics of a Christmas campaign generally, start with Festive fundraising 101. This guide covers two things instead: working out a realistic ask for your own congregation, and finding funding partners beyond it.

Working out a realistic target for your congregation

Rather than picking a total that feels arbitrary, it’s worth working from what’s realistic to ask of the people who actually attend or support you regularly. Most faith-group projects on Crowdfunder are genuinely modest, the median across 281 verified UK places-of-worship projects is £3,380, so there’s no need to feel like a campaign only counts if it hits a six-figure target. A target built from your congregation’s real size holds up better than a round number picked because it sounds achievable.

Five real ways faith groups are fundraising this Christmas

1. Fund your own warm space or heating costs

Winter is when this ask lands best, and it works better as a specific running-cost appeal than a vague one. Baildon Methodist Church’s “Wesley’s Warm Space” raised £10,780 and hit its target doing exactly this, a straightforward heating and running-cost appeal to keep its warm space open through winter.

2. Turn part of your building into a community hub or cafe

A cafe or shared community space is one of the more common asks on Crowdfunder for a reason, it gives people a concrete, ongoing reason to back you rather than a one-off collection. Pause Community Cafe in Harpenden raised £36,947 to create a community cafe and hub, with the Aviva Community Fund’s employee giving scheme doubling donations twice over.

3. Fund a facilities project, whatever your faith

This isn’t only a Christian-church ask. Community Gym at SGGSJ Gurdwara Telford raised £31,653 to fit out a new community gym, a Sikh gurdwara, triggering a £15,000 Sport England pledge and then raising further for stretch items, a good example of a non-Christian place of worship running the same kind of facilities campaign a church would, with the same access to match funding.

4. Race against a deadline to save your building

Sometimes the ask is urgent rather than aspirational. Souad Mhani’s fundraiser for SLMCC Mosque in Harrow raised £10,510 to repay an interest-free Qardh Hasan loan the mosque had taken out, a genuinely values-led example of a congregant fundraising directly to protect their place of worship against a real deadline.

5. Restore something specific to your building

A named, physical thing to fund, rather than a general appeal, gives people something concrete to back. St James’ Church, Bramley’s bell restoration fund raised £8,845 selling sponsor-a-bell and chime-a-bell tiers, topped with a tower climb, to fund rehanging work on bells cast in 1638, a modest, replicable idea if your building has something similarly specific worth naming.

Who could you partner with beyond your own congregation

Your congregation isn’t the only source of support. Local councils, businesses and national funders often have their own pots for exactly the kind of building or community project a faith group runs, and match funding can come from partners like these as well as from Crowdfunder’s own funds.

Two real examples worth knowing: Making St Martin’s Hall complex Net Zero in Liskeard raised £51,300 refurbishing its grade II listed church centre, stacking two Cornwall Council climate and community funds on top of Aviva Community Fund match funding, a straightforward example of council and business funding landing on the same project. And Fitzherbert Community Hub in Brighton raised £120,100 equipping a rebuilt church hall as an eco community hub shared by three projects, backed by both the M&S Energy Fund and Sport England, a good example of a bigger ambition becoming realistic once more than one partner is involved.

What Crowdfunder’s own data says

A few things worth knowing before you pick a date or a format:

• Friday is the best day to launch. Christmas campaigns launched on a Friday hit target 48% of the time, against 35% for a Thursday launch, worth bearing in mind if you can pick your own date rather than defaulting to whenever the next planning meeting falls.
• Giving Tuesday is worth a dedicated push. This year it falls on Tuesday 1 December 2026, and brings around 28% more pledges and 34% more raised than a typical Tuesday. If it lands within your campaign, plan a specific ask for that day.
• Christmas Eve and Christmas Day see a distinct pledge pattern. Worth planning a specific message around, rather than assuming the campaign quietly ends once December starts.
• Message people directly. Over half of Christmas pledges come from direct or private shares. A message to your congregation’s WhatsApp groups or email list will do more than a notice in the pew sheet, or its equivalent, alone.

Layering match funding without breaking the rules

The Aviva Community Fund and the M&S Energy Fund show up repeatedly behind real faith-group heating, net zero and hall projects specifically, alongside Sport England and Sport Wales for sports and fitness facilities, so it’s worth checking current match funding before you set a target rather than assuming nothing applies to a place of worship. One rule worth knowing before you plan two things at once: a prize draw and partner match funding can’t run on the same Crowdfunder project. If your congregation wants to run a Christmas raffle and separately go for match funding on a bigger project, those need to be two different pages.

Frequently asked questions

Do we need to be a registered charity to fundraise as a faith group? No. Many congregations aren’t separately registered charities and can still fundraise and access match funding, eligibility depends on the individual fund rather than your legal structure.

Is this only for Christian churches? No. Crowdfunder’s own faith-group data spans five faiths, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Jewish and Sikh congregations, and the same approach works for mosques, synagogues, temples, gurdwaras and any other faith community with a building and a congregation.

Can we run a Christmas raffle and still apply for match funding? Not on the same project. See the match funding section above, you’ll need two separate pages if you want to do both.

We’re a small congregation with no fundraising experience, is this still worth it? Yes. The median faith-group project on Crowdfunder raises £3,380, most are modest, straightforward campaigns rather than the big headline figures, so there’s no need for six-figure ambitions for it to be worth doing.

What if we want to run a warm space but don’t have council or business contacts? Start with the collaboration examples above for inspiration, and check the match funding page, several funders actively want to hear from community and faith groups running exactly this kind of project.

Where to go next

• Back to Festive fundraising 101 for the full six-week planner
• Running a shared community project? See Christmas fundraising ideas for food banks and warm spaces
• Need help with structure or setup? See Christmas fundraising ideas for charities, CICs and nonprofits
• Start a crowdfunding page. Check match funding · Explore prize draws for charities

---