Churches in Wisconsin are now eligible for property redevelopment grants from a program organizers hope will spread to other states.
The Good Next Step Grant Program provides congregations with awards of up to $40,000 to create affordable housing or a mix of housing and community gathering spaces on existing parcels. Participants also receive expert support with architectural design, site development, zoning reviews and financial analysis.
Mark Elsdon
“This program allows churches to buy those services to keep control of their land and use that land as they feel called to use it,” said Mark Elsdon, co-founder of RootedGood, a nonprofit group that provides training and productivity resources for faith-based groups, and organizer of the grant program launched in August.
The goal is to tap congregational creativity and calling in ways that bless entire neighborhoods, said Elsdon, author of We Aren’t Broke: Uncovering Hidden Resources for Mission and Ministry. “They get to figure out what’s best for them on that land and what can be done on that land for the benefit of the wider community. How that ends up looking is also up to them and how they see it fitting into their communities.”
RootedGood partnered with a private donor to raise $1.1 million for the program that provides up to three grants a year using a “pay-it-forward” model that recycles revenues generated by successful projects to new recipients.
The program is not designed to help finance typical property renovations and repairs, he explained. “The idea is that this money is to catalyze value-creating development, so it doesn’t really work for a church wanting to replace its sanctuary, for example.”
“What you’re aiming for is a pre-development process that creates financial value and community impact on that land and that typically involves housing as part of it. There can be some other social enterprise involved, but typically the value created is greatest when some kind of affordable housing is involved.”
Before applying, churches must complete RootedGood’s Good Futures Accelerator or a similar discernment process. More than 250 congregations in 42 states completed the nine-month course before the launch of the affordable housing grant program.
“It helps churches figure out what to do with their buildings and their land.”
“It helps churches figure out what to do with their buildings and their land. And that can be anything from turning an education wing into a small business incubator for entrepreneurs, to day care, child care, coffee shops or using a kitchen as a food entrepreneur program,” he said.
Elsdon cited Common Grace, a church in Madison, Wis., formed from the 2021 merger of a Lutheran church and a Moravian congregation, with one selling its property and moving in with the other while entering the accelerator course to re-imagine how to use their shared space.
“They ended up tearing down their old building with millions of dollars in deferred maintenance and replaced it with a community center where the church is one of the anchor users along with 30-plus other community groups using that space as well. And now they are adding 26 units of workforce housing.”
Churches interested in applying to the affordable housing grant program must have a willingness to change and property available for community benefit, he said. “It could be a church that’s closing down and wants to redevelop its property as a gift to its neighborhood, or it could be a church that’s thriving and doing really well.”
Now Elsdon hopes to replicate the program in other states where creative, community-serving congregations are limited only by development and construction costs, he added. “We have been trying to figure out ways to make a pathway for churches to be able to do that work because it doesn’t do them a whole lot of good to have all these amazing ideas if they can’t move it forward with them.”
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