Acts 435
Acts 435 is an online national charity that connects those that want to help with those that have a need, by resourcing local churches and charities throughout the UK to meet the specific needs of their community.
How are you helping to tackle child poverty in London?
Acts 435 has 116 partners within Greater London, and whilst all of them are undertaking different work, many of these churches and organisations will be utilising Acts 435 to meet the needs of children and their families. One of those partners is Lewisham Foodbank who continually support individuals, families and their children. One recent request was for Annette* who now has legal guardianship of her two grandchildren, and needed to purchase clothing for them. On receiving the money towards the clothing, Annette said, “Can you please extend my gratitude to the people who have helped me to be able to purchase school clothing, and clothing in general, for my two grandchildren. I am overwhelmed with their generosity, which has come at a time when I am most in need of assistance. Again, I thank you all from the bottom of my heart.”
Annette also told the local Acts 435 Advocate that, whilst friends and family have passed on some useful second-hand items, it meant so much to two teenage girls to be able to help choose some new clothes, and help to give them dignity in their time of need.
Tell us something you are excited about?
As a charity we’re continually excited about the fact that 100% of the requests that get posted onto our website by our partners are all met quickly, in comparison to a lot of other application processes. As we rely on individual donors going onto our website to give towards the needs, the amount of time for a request to be crowdfunded fluctuates, but generally all requests are met within a maximum of two weeks. Also, because of this funding model, we can also offer our resource to churches/charities for FREE!
Share with our members something positive about your organisation’s achievement or service?
Acts 435 was founded 14 years ago, and since then we have been able to resource over 700 churches and organisations to meet the specific needs of individuals. During that time we have helped over 52,000 individuals with over £6,000,000, which all goes directly to meet their need. We can also guarantee that 100% of every donation is given to the recipient, as all our charity’s costs are covered by GIft Aid reclaimed on applicable donations.
What can other network members learn from you or find out more about through you?
Our vision is to meet the needs of as many people as possible, all over the UK. However, we’re very aware that many cities, like London, have a huge amount of deprivation. We would love to resource more churches and charities in London with Acts 435 to be able to directly help their communities and those that they may already be supporting through our work. It would be fantastic if we could let as many churches/charities know about us as possible. If you’re not already partnered with us, you may like to attend one of our online coffee mornings to find out more: https://guestlist.co/u/acts435
What would most help you achieve your goals?
As we’re a small charity, with only four paid staff members, we don’t have a fundraising budget and can’t attend all the large events and conferences that many other charities can. Therefore, people spreading the word, and talking about our work, is the most effective way for new churches and charities to hear about us. We would love to equip more people with the knowledge about our work, so that they can then let other churches/charities know about the fantastic resource through Acts 435.
Why did you join 4in10? What do you enjoy about being part of the 4in10 network?
We are quite new to the 4in10 network, and have really appreciated the support from the team. We have also enjoyed sharing our work at a recent online meeting. We joined because we know that there must be many more churches and charities who are seeking to alleviate child poverty within London, and we want to resource them to meet the needs that they are seeing in their areas of Greater London.
If you would like to find out more about Acts 435 and how your church or organisation could get involved, please visit: acts435.org.uk/partner