Application FAQs

We use the IMD mapping tool to help assess how deprived an area is. This tool takes into account factors such as unemployment, housing, and crime to work out the overall deprivation of an area. The Willats Trust seeks to support workers who are ministering in the most deprived areas of the country, so in order to be considered, it is essential that your area of ministry is within the highest quintile of deprived areas.

Yes. We accept part time roles where Grantees work a minimum of 21 hours and focus the majority of their time on evangelistic contact with their particular subject group.

Please get in touch as soon as you become aware of any changes that need to be made to your application. We should be able to make manual changes to your application if it is still before the application deadline.

You should apply for as much as you need for the work to go ahead, up to a maximum of £15,000.00 per annum.  Usually, some of the Grantee’s salary is covered by the church or charity. The Grantee may also be applying for or have received funding from another Trust or Foundation. We will try and meet the need and support the remainder of the salary.

There are a number of Christian and non-Christian organisations who may be able to support the work you are doing. Contact us for a list of other organisations.

Unfortunately, we do not give funding to building projects.

Unfortunately, we cannot support roles that require ordination in the job description. However, if an applicant is ordained but works in a role that does not require ordination, we can accept their application.

We cannot accept applications from church leaders, whether ordained or not. The Willats Trust supports workers in lay positions only.

We rarely support people who work solely in the church. Our primary aim is to enable individuals to share the gospel with people who aren’t already a part of church. If your role is a mixture of church work and sharing with those outside of church, we may be able to still consider your application. In these circumstances, we would usually count the hours of “evangelistic contact time” and assess the application on this.

We do not usually support people in training. However, if there is sufficient evangelistic contact time with people in a deprived area, we may be able to accept an application. Please get in touch or find out more about applying here.

As we seek to support those who are sharing the Gospel with people who aren’t already a part of church, it is important for us to understand how much of your time is spent with individuals who are not yet part of church. By counting the number of these hours, it helps us to assess how closely your work meets the aims of The Willats Trust.

For a full-time role, The Willats Trust would expect to see 35 hours being spent in evangelistic contact time with the subject group.

For a part-time role we would expect to see 20 hours per week being spent in evangelistic contact time with the subject group.

The Willats Trust owns a number of properties in the historic city of Bath. We use the profits from this and other investments to offer grants to Grantees across the UK. If you are interested in renting one of our properties, please see our property page.

Mr William Willats established the Charity in 1858 to support outreach workers ministering in deprived areas. You can find out more about him and his vision here.

We want to support a wide range of ministries across the UK, and therefore we will not ordinarily support more than one full time equivalent in the same organisation. However, we occasionally support more than one individual if there is a great need. You are welcome to apply.

We are able to support Grantees for a maximum of 3 years.

The Trustees meet twice annually to prayerfully assess applications. This usually happens in March and September.

Yes, we aim to inform you of the outcome of your application within 10 working days of the Trustees’ meeting. If you have not received the outcome of your application within these timescales, please get in touch.

We aim to inform you of the outcome of your application within 10 working days of the Trustees’ meeting. We will then process the application.  Funding will start from April or October each year, dependant on when you have submitted your full application with us.  If you have not received the outcome of your application or your funding within these timescales, please get in touch.

The yearly reports help our Trustees keep up to date with your work and determine if your funding should continue (unless your role or area of ministry has changed, it is highly likely that your funding will continue).  If your grant period started from the 1st April, you will be asked to complete and submit your yearly report before the end of March the following year.  If your grant period started from the 1st October, you will be asked to complete and submit your yearly report before the end of September the following year.