It is a pleasure to have a close friend and the CEO of Seed Fund, Charles Glass (biography below), as a guest writer for this short series on how start-up businesses can help support church planting by supporting individuals and families.
Introducing Seed Fund
As Apostolic Spheres in the Newfrontiers family are increasingly planting churches in the poorer and less 
accessible regions of the world the need to create businesses to support these churches and give dignity to the people in them has become more and more important. Since Seed Fund was formed 10 years ago by Martyn Dunsford (Founder and, until recently, Pastor of King’s Community Church, Southampton, UK and founder of Seed Fund and of Care and Relief for the Young [CRY]) it has been doing exactly that, helping start over 120 businesses in 12 nations.
Projects have ranged from starting 31 small-scale family chicken-rearing businesses and a tailoring business in a fledgling church plant in Laos, to supporting 7 different projects in Armenia. These included funding a photography business and a fruit and vegetable store that both generate income and also promote church activities. We have also been working in a major Middle Eastern city supporting our growing churches there through businesses as varied as a bakery, hair dressing salon and taxi service.
Seed Fund is now looking to significantly expand the number of projects and countries to support new church planting initiatives.
The projects not only empower people and communities through gaining resources and dignity, they also strengthen churches in challenging contexts across the Newfrontiers family in Eastern Europe, Africa, South East Asia and the Middle East.
Seed Fund exists to alleviate physical, social, emotional and spiritual poverty through supporting the creation of sustainable businesses in the context of church planting.
It does this through the provision of loans, training, mentoring and the creation and dissemination of best business practice across different cultures.
“He who is kind to the poor lends to the Lord” Proverbs 19 v 17
Seed Fund works to a simple and highly effective model, where projects are identified on the ground by local leaders, and then confirmed and supported by an international coordinator. As a result we avoid many of the pitfalls of microfinance; in particular we know everyone we are lending to and do not have to charge high interest rates.
We believe that fundamentally poverty-alleviation is a ministry of reconciliation, seeking to restore poor people to be whom God created them to be, fostering dignity rather than an unhealthy dependency.
In this short series we will learn about some of the ways Seed Fund has been able to further this ministry through training, coaching and business loans, and the challenges that have had to be overcome in different parts of the world.
For further details, or to support our work, go to: www.seedfund.org.uk.
About Charles Glass
Charles is a co-founder of a business and career coaching consultancy based in the City of London. He is also a director of the Newfrontiers International Trust and part of the leadership team of Trinity Church, London, a Regions Beyond church plant. For a number of years he has worked with churches and church leaders in Turkey and Africa to support business initiatives that help plant and build churches.
Patron: David Devenish
‘Supporting church based micro-enterprises in developing countries’