Executive Director Sarah Edwards reflects on 2024…
Since we relaunched as the JustMoney Movement just over two years ago we have collaborated with a wide range of allies across the UK church, with other charities (both secular and faith-based), and with a whole host of inspiring individuals. We want to see a larger, deeper and more diverse movement taking action, leading to transformation in our finance system and wider economy. Here we remember just some of the more recent highlights from the past few months. As a small organisation we can only operate by working together with likeminded allies. So thanks to all of you!
We’ve seen over 25,000 people and hundreds of churches engage with the movement just since June – for example contacting your MPs about the kind of economy we want to see, taking part in Good Money Sunday and Tax Justice Sunday, using our resources and coming to our events.
Our JustMoney Champions scheme, supporting people to take deeper action for a more just use of money, now has around 30 participants, accessing training, mentoring and peer support.
Our 2024 online supporter conference in October had a line up including Chine McDonald (Theos), Natalie Williams (Jubilee +), Sally Mann (Red Letter Christians UK), Hope for the Future, and LICC. There was training in political engagement, theological reflection, and spiritual practices to resource our activism, rooting our work in our faith. If you missed it you can watch the main sessions on our YouTube channel.
It’s important to us that we seek to work across the diversity of the UK churches, and we’ve prioritised engaging more with young adults, and people from Black-led churches. We are partnering with Just Love (student and young adult network) on their upcoming Bank Well campaign and have been supporting the Student Christian Movement with their work on ethical finance. We continue to collaborate with Pentecostal Community Bank, who spoke at one of our Greenbelt Festival sessions, and have reached new audiences among the Black Christian community through supporting Keep the Faith’s online events series.
To support churches making more ethical choices with their money, in October we launched a new version of our Greener Fairer Banking guide for churches and started to roll out some training for churches on greening their finances.
Our actions speak louder when we do them together with others so we formed the Big Bank Switch platform in collaboration with Operation Noah and Just Love, whereby hundreds of individuals have pledged to switch away from fossil fuel financing banks. Over the autumn we played a key role in coordinating over 70 churches and Christian organisations to publish a statement of concern calling on Barclays, HSBC, Santander, NatWest and Lloyds to end their financing of new fossil fuels. The full statement remains open and the list of signatories can be found here.
Hundreds of you have also taken action with our Church Action for Tax Justice campaign, calling for wealth taxes and reforms to existing taxes on wealth, including writing to your MP about the proposed global standard on wealth taxes at the G20 in November and the forthcoming UN Tax Convention negotiations. We also campaigned towards the Joint Ministerial Council of British Overseas Territories on the need for greater transparency to tackle tax havens and the tax abuse they facilitate.
Alongside this grassroots work, we’ve hosted conversations with church leaders about our economic model and what our faith can teach us about alternatives. Our ‘Money, race and climate’ theology event at St Paul’s Cathedral Chapter House was very successful and we have published the film and a discussion guide for individuals and groups to use themselves. We plan to hold some similar events at theological institutes in 2025 in partnership with USPG. We presented at a roundtable on the theology of money in Malaysia at the start of October, organised by the Council for World Mission and the World Communion of Reformed Churches. We have also developed a strategy to engage with the new Parliament and have started to build relationships with parliamentarians who might be supportive of our campaigns.
None of this would be possible without the wider movement that we seek to serve. As we look to the year ahead we will be continuing to hold banks to account for the impact of their financing on people and planet and the need for them to tackle financial exclusion. We’ll be carrying on campaigning for a fairer tax system to tackle inequality and raise revenue both domestically and globally; and we’ll be seeking to resource more and more churches and individuals to align their money with their faith through our Money Makes Change resources and our theological reflection.
We hope we can continue to work with an even broader range of allies – do get in touch if there is any particular way in which you can see us collaborating.