$1.1 Million to Help 30 Churches Plan: A Wisconsin Fund Pays for the First Step Toward Housing

• RootedGood’s Good Next Step Grant Program offers Wisconsin congregations up to $40,000 each.
• The $1.1 million programme will support up to 30 churches in pre-development work.
• Grants cover site analysis, zoning review, massing studies and financial modelling.
• Organisers estimate it could catalyse $450 million in community-oriented development over a decade.

Wisconsin churches that want to use their land for housing or community space now have help with the first, most uncertain step. The Presbyterian Outlook reported that RootedGood has launched the Good Next Step Grant Program.

The $1.1 million programme offers grants of up to $40,000 per congregation to support up to 30 churches in pre-development work: site analysis, zoning review, massing studies and financial modelling. It aims to enable affordable housing, sustainability projects and community gathering spaces, and organisers estimate it could catalyse $450 million in community-oriented development over the next decade.

The programme uses a pay-it-forward model, in which money from successful projects is recycled to help later congregations. It is open to churches that have already completed a visioning or planning process and are ready to explore property development.

RootedGood co-founder the Rev Mark Elsdon said: “There are so many ways that [churches] can use property… for good in our communities beyond the ways we’re using them currently.”

Many church housing ideas stall before they start because congregations cannot pay for the studies that show whether a project will work. Small early grants can unlock much larger investment later. In Jamaica, church bodies, foundations or diaspora groups could set up similar funds to pay for surveys, subdivision plans and feasibility studies on church land. A recycled fund, as in Wisconsin, can help many congregations over time rather than just one. The Wisconsin model also asks churches to finish a visioning process first, which helps make sure the congregation agrees on what it wants before money is spent on studies. Jamaican churches could adopt the same discipline: agree the vision, then fund the feasibility work, then seek partners.

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