Cornerstone – Free Online Learning Tool

As part of the Cornerstone process, parishes are encouraged to ask questions of themselves and their situation. From here, your Diocesan Giving Adviser will help to identify areas of giving practice that could be improved; these are chosen to meet the needs of your church or parish. You are then guided through simple steps to take appropriate action on these areas. These steps, as mentioned previously, are contained in Pathways, which are chosen by you to build on the great work you already do.

One of the main benefits of Cornerstone is that each Pathway has been designed as a series of short tasks, so that it doesn’t feel too much of a burden. Our aim is to make this as easy as possible while delivering great results. Some Pathways also provide guidance on common areas that churches find they need to work on such as ‘Measuring and communicating the impact of giving’ and ‘Encouraging giving from new congregation members’.

Other benefits of taking part in Cornerstone are:

• Dedicated time to review giving and generosity.
• Opportunity to complete Pathways which give the biggest impact for your specific church.
• A greater understanding for all church decision makers of church finances.
• Time saved on researching how to grow giving and generosity.
• Step by step guidance on how to develop less tangible areas of giving and generosity.
• Access to a free grants database with over 600 grant opportunities available.
• Access to your parish data which is visualised in easy to read graphs.

1. Invitation– Once you express your interest to your Diocesan Giving Adviser (Jan or Phil), you are invited to participate in Cornerstone.
2. Briefing – During a webinar you are briefed on what’s involved and what the expectations are.
3. Research – Invited members will complete a questionnaire to gather the parish’s data and other information.
4. Workshops – Face to face sessions take place, examining the data that was gathered during the ‘research’ stage.
5. Pathways – You will choose actions/Pathways that will make the greatest impact on giving in your parish.
6. Implementation – You will work through your chosen Pathways.

Once you have signed up to use Cornerstone, you will be asked to complete a short questionnaire. This gives an insight into the generosity culture that exists in your parish.

In addition, we will look at your parish’s financial data as part of the workshops; this is based on your Parish Return and we will also ask you to share some information that is not available through the Parish Return’s system. Using the questionnaire and financial data, we can help identify Pathways that will help foster generosity in your parish and build giving to sustain your mission and ministry.

All Pathways can be found on the online Cornerstone platform and you will be given access to these by your Diocesan Giving Adviser. Individual activities can be allocated to the person best suited within your parish to take the necessary action. As you complete your selected Pathways you can review your culture and financial data to see how things are improving and select any new Pathways to continue on your journey.

• East Riding: w/b 19th May 2025
• Cleveland: w/b 7th July 2025
• York: Thursday 23rd October 2025 (2pm and 630pm)

To express an interest, please contact generous.giving@yorkdiocese.org.