The congregation at Camphor Memorial United Methodist Church honors its history, hosts Saturday youth programming, and provides social services to the surrounding neighborhood. Katrina Erb Photography
Each church had to demonstrate fundraising capacity to raise 50 cents for every grant dollar received, as well as the ability to complete their projects. Preservation Alliance’ s Jennifer Robinson says,“ A key support provided to the cohort congregations is identifying additional grant funding opportunities to sustain and expand their important work in our neighborhoods. Many of these churches provide services beyond worship: operating food pantries, literacy programs, youth mentorship, and other initiatives that address critical neighborhood needs.” PFBSP’ s grant empowered these congregations to access support for project development and management that had been historically limited.
Working with the PFBSP cohort gives Partners the opportunity to adapt its highly regarded preservation programs— including fundraising, community engagement, and space-sharing tools— for Black-led churches. Because of their existing preservation work with Black houses of worship over the years, Partners and the Alliance understood the great need for capital assistance, which
Partners has offered through its competitive National Fund for Sacred Places program.
The PFBSP congregations’ aging buildings need repair, renovation, and restoration, but the historical nature of the churches is also an asset. Congregations have made their homes in neo-Gothic and Romanesque structures built in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but most were established decades after construction, when the Great Migration of African Americans from the South shifted Philadelphia’ s racial composition in the 20th century. PFBSP director Rev. Betsy Ivey says,“ For a Black church to be able to relocate into one of these architecturally beautiful structures at that time was not only a show of their financial stability, but of having‘ made it’ in the wider American culture.”
Black-led churches are also subject to the impact of decreasing membership on their ability to contribute to their communities, so more creative means of church management and funding are needed. More congregations, white and Black, are coming to organizations such as Partners for guidance and support on how
16 SACRED PLACES • SUMMER 2025