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For this month’s ‘Odd Socs’, we cross the Atlantic to look at the work of Partners for Sacred Places (PSP), an organisation dedicated to finding creative ways to maintain America’s historic places of worship as civic spaces.
These buildings face the same pressures as their equivalents in the UK: costing more to maintain than they receive in income, with an ever-diminishing pool of people shouldering the hard work of keeping the buildings in community use. In the USA, a further challenge is the lack of listed status for many historic places of worship; some congregations oppose designation for fear of limiting their future options. Often that means the redevelopment of a valuable city-centre site following the demolition of the historic building.
PSP has found that stressing the heritage value of the buildings is not always the most effective way to persuade philanthropists to provide grants; rather, it is the use of the building as a base for good work that opens wallets. The organisation’s research shows that there is substantial economic value in the use of sacred spaces – and not just as homes for religious life and as places of beauty and inspiration that benefit people of all faiths, but also as community centres providing services for people in need, or as shared spaces for music, theatre, and dance, or for business enterprises with a social purpose.
Such research has its UK counterpart in the House of Good report produced by the National Churches Trust. Using HM Treasury ‘Green Book’ methodologies, this shows that £55 billion of social value is enabled by UK places of worship every year, and that every £1 invested in sacred places generates more than £16 of social good.
Using this kind of data, PSP has successfully raised funding for its own primary activity: coaching people to be more effective if they do want to keep sacred places at the heart of their communities. The training courses offered by PSP encourage civic-minded congregations and religious leaders to think about options and models for sharing their space; to engage with local community groups, government, and funders; and to develop a business plan.
This kind of mentoring requires a lot of human resource, but several bodies in the UK are planning applications to the National Lottery Heritage Fund for a similar approach.
Further information: https://sacredplaces.org
Is there a society that you would like to see profiled? Write to theeditor@archaeology.co.uk
Text: Christopher Catling / Images: Rachel Marzhan; photography by James Karpen
