For many churches, generating additional income is becoming increasingly important. Buildings cost more to maintain, staffing is expensive, and congregations rarely have more to give every time costs rise.
But many churches have another significant asset sitting in front of them: their buildings, land, and place within the local community.
I've spent years working with churches to generate more income from their buildings, first from inside a church and now through my work with churches across the UK.
One thing I've learnt is that there isn't a single "best" church income stream. The right question isn't "Which idea makes the most money?" It's "What do we have, what is there demand for, and what can we realistically run well?"
A beautiful central London church with a busy weekly calendar has very different opportunities from a suburban church with a functional hall sitting empty five days a week.
So here are ten church income sources worth exploring, along with where I think each works best and what you need to consider before pursuing it.
10 church income sources worth exploring:
1. Regular lets
If you have a functional hall sitting empty for substantial parts of the working week, this is one of the first opportunities I'd investigate.
Potential regular hirers include:
- Nurseries and preschools
- After-school clubs
- Exercise and wellbeing classes
- Counsellors and therapists
- Choirs and music groups
- Charities and community organisations
- Adult education providers
The advantage is predictability. Instead of finding new customers every week, you have organisations paying regularly.
And the space doesn't necessarily need to be beautiful. For these users, practical things such as toilets, storage, accessibility and room layout can matter far more.
The trade-off is flexibility. A nursery using your hall five days a week could provide valuable recurring income, but you've also committed that space for most of the working week.
2. One-off venue hire
Depending on your building and location, churches can work particularly well for:
- Corporate receptions
- Meetings and away days
- Conferences and presentations
- Concerts and rehearsals
- Weddings and receptions
- Charity events
- Filming and photography
One-off hire gives you much more control over your calendar than a permanent tenant. You decide which dates are available and can protect worship, community activities and particularly busy seasons.
It can also generate substantially more per booking than many regular lets.
One thing to be mindful of is the admin required to run this well. Customers expect quick communication, a properly prepared building, and good service; in general, you may need to allow at least 1-2 days of admin for this when you are starting out.
3. Office space and co-working
Some church rooms aren't particularly useful for events but could make perfectly good offices. You could lease offices to charities or local businesses, offer desks to individual workers, or develop a small co-working space.
I'd look particularly closely at location and local demand here. A church close to a station, town centre or cluster of businesses may have a very different opportunity from an identical building elsewhere.
Where possible, I'd favour dependable recurring arrangements over constantly trying to sell individual desks.
4. Parking
Sometimes one of the most commercially useful parts of a church property isn't inside the building. If you have parking near a station, hospital, town centre, offices or somewhere else where parking is scarce, charging for unused spaces may be worth investigating. Compared with running events or opening a café, it could also require relatively little day-to-day management.
You also need to consider when the congregation and existing building users need those spaces. Income generation should work around the life of the church rather than gradually making the building harder for the church itself to use.
5. A café or community enterprise
I'd be more cautious about this than simply renting out a hall.
A café can generate meaningful income and become an important part of a church's presence within its community. But you're not simply monetising an existing asset. You're creating an operation.
There are staff or volunteers to manage, stock to buy, regulations to meet and customers to attract.
However, for a church that:
- has significant unused space during the week
- sits somewhere with good footfall or community demand
- wants the building to be more accessible throughout the week
- has funding available to adapt the space
- has the people needed to run it properly
A café could make considerable sense. The key is to assess the actual business model and staffing requirement before falling in love with the idea.
6. Ticketed events
Churches can also generate income by producing their own programme of events.
- Concerts
- Talks and lectures
- Film screenings
- Exhibitions
- Heritage events
- Tours
- Seasonal programming
This can work particularly well where the building itself adds something to the experience.
But there's an important distinction between hiring your church to somebody running a concert and producing the concert yourself. When somebody hires your building, they carry much of the commercial risk. When you produce an event, you're responsible for selling the tickets.
I'd only pursue this where there's a clear audience and the church has the capacity to run it well.
7. Filming and photography
If your church is visually distinctive, don't assume its only potential customers are people looking for event hire.
Historic architecture, large open spaces, crypts, staircases, gardens and unusual architectural details can all make churches attractive filming and photography locations.
The London Diocese has some useful, detailed guidance on using churches as filming locations, including practical considerations around permissions, insurance and contracts (please check details for your specific area).
8. Overnight stays
This is one of my favourite examples because it's a completely different way of looking at a church building.
Champing is essentially camping overnight in historic churches.
It was developed by the Churches Conservation Trust as a way to create memorable experiences while generating income towards the care of historic church buildings.
I'm not suggesting every parish church should immediately put camp beds in the nave. What I like is the thinking behind it. Instead of asking "What do other churches rent their halls out for?", somebody looked at what was distinctive about these buildings and created an experience around it.
Sometimes the opportunity isn't copying an established church income stream. It's recognising what you have that other places don't.
9. Telecoms and connectivity
Church towers and spires can sometimes host mobile or wireless broadband infrastructure, particularly in areas with poor connectivity.
The Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings has some useful guidance here.
There are legal, planning and practical considerations, so this isn't something to agree casually if you're approached by a provider.
But it is an interesting example of generating recurring income from the physical asset without creating another customer-facing operation.
10. Longer-term leases and partnerships
Sometimes the best answer isn't hiring a room by the hour at all. Part of your building could potentially be used more permanently by:
- A charity
- A nursery
- A medical or wellbeing service
- A community organisation
- Another Christian organisation
- A compatible local business
For a church looking for predictable income without building a large venue-hire operation, this can be well worth investigating.
Which income stream is right for your church?
If a church came to me and said, "We need to generate another £30,000 a year from our building", I wouldn't immediately recommend one of the ten ideas above. I'd want to understand:
- Which spaces are underused?
- When are they available?
- What church activities can't be compromised?
- What is the local area like?
- What is there demand for locally?
- How accessible is the building?
- What facilities already exist?
- What is distinctive or valuable about the space?
- How much can the church afford to invest?
- Who is actually going to manage it?
- What does the church want to be known for locally?
Then I'd choose the income model.
A beautiful church with a busy congregational calendar might be ideal for higher-value one-off events because the church retains control over when bookings happen.
A fairly ordinary but functional hall sitting empty Monday to Friday might be much better suited to a nursery or regular community tenant.
A church with significant unused space, a community-facing location, available investment and the right team might have the ingredients for a successful café.
Start with what you have and your capacity to use it well. Don't start with somebody else's successful idea and try to force it into your church.
Where should your church start?
These ideas are only a starting point. The right income model depends on your building, location, existing use, available investment and the capacity of your team.
If a few possibilities have jumped out at you, the next step is to work out which are actually worth pursuing.
Read How to Choose the Right Income Streams for Your Church to find out more.