(Photo: Getty/iStock)
There is a passage in Luke 4 where Jesus announces his purpose in the synagogue at Nazareth: to proclaim good news to the poor, to release the oppressed, to set the captive free. It is a declaration that the gospel is not only concerned with the eternal but with the material, the structural, the here and now.
Faith communities have always understood this. We have fed the hungry, housed the homeless, counselled the broken and educated the overlooked, often in the gaps left by institutions that did not reach far enough.
What we have been slower to do is claim our place in the economic conversation. Not because the conviction was absent, but because the architecture was not there. The rooms where funding decisions are made, where capital is allocated, where policy is shaped, have not always had space for us at the table. And the communities we serve have paid the price for that absence.
The evidence is clear, and it is uncomfortable
The British Business Bank’s Small Business Finance Markets 2025/26 report, published last month, tells a story that should trouble every Christian leader engaged with economic justice in this country. Ethnic minority-led businesses display higher growth ambitions than their white-led counterparts: 71% aim to grow significantly, compared with 40%. They are more willing to use finance to grow: 52% against 35%. And yet 51% anticipate difficulties securing that finance. For black entrepreneurs, that expectation of being turned away rises to 59%.
Gross SME lending reached £68 billion in 2025. The capital is there. The distribution of access to it is not equitable. And faith-based organisations, among the most trusted and deeply embedded institutions in underserved communities, face the same structural barriers in accessing grants and social investment that ethnic minority entrepreneurs face in commercial lending. They lack the formal track records institutional funders reward. They serve geographies that mainstream finance finds difficult to assess. They are, in many cases, doing the most consequential work with the least financial support.
What the Fellowship decided to do about it
The Men’s Fellowship of RCCG House of Praise has for more than two years been convening professionals, entrepreneurs and community leaders through its Quarterly Breakfast Meeting, a platform spanning business, health, leadership and personal development. In those conversations, one barrier surfaced consistently: access to funding. Not lack of ambition. Not lack of ideas. The gap between what was available in principle and what was reachable in practice.
That observation, confirmed by the national evidence, led us to build something new. On 25 April 2026, The Elevate Forum holds its inaugural edition at The Ark Pavilion in Birmingham: a cross-demographic, annual thought leadership and capacity-building platform open to entrepreneurs, professionals, charity leaders, academics, funders and community organisations, regardless of background, sector or faith. This year’s theme is Unlocking Funding Opportunities for Businesses and Charities. Future editions will address other dimensions of leadership and growth. We begin where the need is most acute.
The Forum is not a church event. It is a civic one, rooted in the conviction that faith communities have both the credibility and the responsibility to convene these conversations. We have spent decades building trust in neighbourhoods that mainstream institutions have underserved. We know the people. We understand the barriers. And we are in a position to bring those who need funding and those who provide it into the same room, on equal terms, for an honest conversation about what needs to change.
An invitation to the wider church
The Elevate Forum is free to attend. It is open to all. And it is, we believe, precisely the kind of initiative that the broader church community should know about, support and, where possible, attend. If your congregation includes entrepreneurs, charity workers, community leaders or professionals wrestling with the practical challenges of building something in an unequal system, this is a day designed for them.
The gospel has always been concerned with justice, with the practical liberation of those the system has not reached. On 25 April, in Birmingham, we are attempting to translate that conviction into action. We hope you will join us.
Temitayo Fatunmishe is President of the Men’s Fellowship RCCG House of Praise and lead organiser of The Elevate Forum.
