The Church Commissioners for England published their annual report for 2025 last week. There was an accompanying press release (copied below) which concentrated on the endowment fund’s 8% return.
Church Commissioners for England endowment fund delivers 8% return in 2025
25/05/2026
The Church Commissioners for England, which manages the Church of England’s endowment fund, delivered an 8% return in 2025, marking the seventeenth consecutive year of positive returns.
The in-perpetuity endowment fund delivers long-term financial support for the Church’s mission and ministry, contributing approximately a fifth towards the total annual running costs of the Church of England. The latest result helps meet funding commitments for the 2026-2028 triennium, agreed last year.
“We know that the support provided by the Church Commissioners’ distributions is important right across the Church of England, providing key funds that support frontline parish ministry in a wide variety of ways,” said Rosie Slater-Carr, interim Chief Executive Officer. “We are committed to providing long-term funding into the future for dioceses, Cathedrals, Bishops and much needed funding for one off areas, such as Net Zero Carbon and the National Redress Scheme. Our long-term view ensures that the Church continues to inspire the many generations to come.
“Achieving an 8% return, above our long-term target, was primarily due to strong absolute performance in public markets. At the same time, we were able to successfully manage portfolio liquidity in order to fund near term distributions,” said Poppy Allonby, Chief Investment Officer. “We achieved these results whilst maintaining a focus on responsible investment and last year we were recognised for our work on both human rights data and sustainability across our real estate portfolio.”
“Our 2025 result is testament to the skill and dedication of our investment team, who not only deliver marker-beating returns, but do so while staying true to the Church of England’s values,” said Alan Smith, First Church Estates Commissioner. “It is thanks to that responsible, long-term investment approach that we can support the mission and ministry of the Church, year in year out.”
The Church Commissioners provides funding to a range of areas that support the Church of England’s mission and ministry, particularly in areas of need. In 2025, the final year of the 2023-2025 triennium, the Church Commissioners contributed £202.8m to supporting dioceses and local churches in England, and £52.9m for supporting Bishops’ and Archbishops’ ministry. The funding supported local parishes, including advancing the Net Zero Carbon programme across church buildings and schools. It formed part of a charitable expenditure of £282.4m, which also included £17.8m for cathedrals. In addition, the Church Commissioners has provided funding to the National Redress Scheme and pre-1998 clergy pensions.
The return exceeded the long-term target return of CPIH (Consumer Prices Index including owner occupiers’ housing costs) +4% per annum; at the end of 2025, the fund was valued at £11.6bn.
The annual report is available for download here.
9 CommentsThe Church Commissioners published their annual report for 2024 last week, and a press release which is copied below.
Church Commissioners for England endowment fund delivers 10.3% return in 2024
06/06/2025
The Church Commissioners for England, which manages the Church of England’s endowment fund, delivered a 10.3% return in 2024, marking the sixteenth consecutive year of positive returns, with the fund now valued at £11.1bn at the end of 2024. (more…)
6 CommentsThe Church of England has announced its national spending plans for 2026-2028, in particular how it will use the funds made available by the Church Commissioners. The text of this morning’s press release is copied below; there is also a helpful video.
Major investment in local churches and parish clergy as £1.6bn three-year national spending plans unveiled
09/06/2025
The Church of England today unveils plans to invest more than £1.6 billion towards sharing the good news of Jesus Christ and serving local communities over the next three years – a 36 per cent rise on the national funding made available in 2022 for the current three-year period. (more…)
24 CommentsThe Church Commissioners issued their report for 2023 yesterday alongwith a press release, which is copied below.
Church Commissioners for England endowment fund delivers 4.1% return in 2023
03/06/2024
The Church Commissioners for England, which manages the Church of England’s endowment fund, delivered a 4.1% return in 2023, marking the fifteenth year of positive returns, with the fund valued at £10.4bn at the end of 2023.
“Managing the endowment fund in a way that generates sustainable funding to support the mission and ministry of the Church of England, now and for the long-term, is our core purpose – and 2023 was another successful year with that in mind,” said Alan Smith, First Church Estates Commissioner. “In 2023, in addition to paying pensions of £120.6m, we made £223m in charitable expenditure, up 19.4% from £186.8m in 2022, with more than two-thirds of that going towards supporting dioceses and, through them, local churches.”
The in-perpetuity endowment fund delivers long-term financial support for the Church’s ministry, contributing around 20% towards the total annual running costs of the Church of England.
The Church Commissioners has provided the Church with over £3.5bn in funding since 2009, with £1.2bn to be distributed during the current 2023-2025 triennium – a 30% increase on the previous triennium, thanks in large part to the excellent investment returns generated by the Commissioners’ Investment team. The fund has delivered positive returns while building a reputation as a global leader in responsible investment.
The annual report is available for download here.
0 CommentsUpdated Tuesday
The Fund for Healing, Repair and Justice describes itself this way:
A seed for growth and change
In 2023, the Church Commissioners for England published a report into its historic links to African chattel enslavement. In penitence and hope, the Church Commissioners proposed a fund to address a legacy of racialised inequality that scars the lives of billions to this day.
The Church Commissioners appointed an independent Oversight Group to make their recommendations on how the fund should be used. This group is acutely aware that the crimes against humanity rooted in enslavement have caused damage so vast it will require patient effort spanning generations to address. They believe this fund represents a start to breaking the chains of discrimination.
The Oversight Group has a bold vision for the £100m Fund for Healing, Repair and Justice which they would like to see grow to £1bn and act as a catalyst for real change.
Other recent documents about this:
Church Times: Church Commissioners look for partners to boost reparatory-justice fund to £1 billion
Updates
Guardian Harriet Sherwood ‘It’s not a lot when you consider the harm’: Why bishop is calling for £1bn in C of E reparations for slavery (Interview with the Bishop of Croydon)
Archbishop of York We need a conversation about justice (Article in the Sunday Times)
92 CommentsThe Church Commissioners have published their full report into historic links that Queen Anne’s Bounty (one of the Commissioners’ predecessors) had to transatlantic chattel slavery*. It can be found here: Church Commissioners Links to Historic Transatlantic Slavery. There is this accompanying press release
which starts
The report follows an interim announcement in June 2022, which reported for the first time, and with great dismay, that the Church Commissioners’ endowment had historic links to transatlantic chattel slavery. The endowment traces its origins partly to Queen Anne’s Bounty, a fund established in 1704.
In response to the findings, the Church Commissioners’ Board has committed itself to trying to address some of the past wrongs by investing in a better future. It will seek to do this through committing £100 million of funding, delivered over the next nine years commencing in 2023, to a programme of investment, research and engagement…
* ‘Chattel slavery’ is the enslaving and owning of human beings and their offspring as property, able to be bought, sold, and forced to work without wages. This is distinguished from other systems of forced, unpaid, or low-wage labour also considered to be slavery.
There is also a press release about a related exhibition at Lambeth Palace Library.
The report has attracted much press attention.
Church Times Church Commissioners to set aside £100 million to compensate for slave-trade links
The Guardian C of E setting up £100m fund to ‘address past wrongs’ of slave trade links
The Guardian C of E’s historic slavery fund – worth £100m but how far will it stretch across communities?
Third Sector Charity’s £100m promise to address ‘shameful’ slave trade links
BBC News Church of England announces £100m fund after slavery links
The Telegraph Justin Welby defends £100m fund to ‘address past wrongs of slavery’ as churches struggle