Friends Meeting House Fund

60 years of Friends Helping Friends

Is your Meeting in need of expansion, repairs or energy efficiency? The Friends Meeting House Fund (FMHF) helps meetings renovate, build and purchase meeting houses through loans and grants. It makes loans for large and small projects and offers grants for energy-saving improvements.

FMHF Board members are Quakers who possess expertise in a variety of real estate disciplines and can provide your meeting with direct assistance on projects.

Or are you interested in:Contributing to Friends Meeting House Fund Projects?

Donating to the Friends Meeting House Fund?

Helping Meetings grow and become stronger through the visible presence a Meetinghouse can provide?

Then contact us about supporting the work of the Friends Meeting House Fund.

Are you Interested in:Renovating?

Buying?

Building a Meetinghouse?

Receiving a grant for your Meeting?

Greening your Meeting?

Then apply to the Friends Meeting House Fund!

How Does the Fund Work?The Friends Meeting House Fund operates as a mortgage pool. Friends and Meetings can lend money to the FMHF, thereby creating a pool of money for major projects.

That money in turn can be loaned to Quaker Meetings for renovating, constructing or purchasing a Meeting-house.

Funds can also be loaned for adding on to other structures on Meeting-house property, including conserving, protecting, restoring, or enhancing the immediate environment of those structures.

Tampa Monthly Meeting

Friends Meeting House Fund Chestnut Hill Friends Meeting

Loans are secured by mortgages held by the FMHF at a competi-tive rate for a commercial loan.

(215)-561-1700 or www.FGCquaker.org/FMHF

Why Do We Need the Fund?Friends need a home. A Meetinghouse is a place to gather, to nurture the spirit and to grow the community.

The future and growth of the Religious Soci-ety of Friends depends upon a visible pres-ence. A Meetinghouse is a clear example of this commitment to the future.

The Friends Meeting House Fund can help Friends fulfill that commitment.

Money is tight for many Meetings. Nearly one in five Meetings have work to do but don’t have the means or funds to do the work. The Fund can help bridge the divide between Meetings that have historic fund-ing reserves and those that do not. Lack of funds is particularly challenging for Meet-ings in the Midwest, South, and West.

Traditionally, financing is a “Family Affair” for most Meetings. Two-thirds of the Meet-ings surveyed paid for their last project with Meeting assets and member donations. That trend is growing as external funding has become more restrictive.

The Friends Meeting House Fund is a re-source that helps Friends look forward to the future. But only one in five Meetings are familiar with FMHF and its resources. Many Meetings would benefit from project support and funding that FMHF can provide.Consider using the Friends Meeting House Fund when financing your next project.

Survey ResultsIn 2014-2015, a nationwide survey was sent to Friends General Conference Meetings with 236 respondents. The survey was conducted by Shapiro+RAJ consultants in cooperation with FMHF Board members.

High importance on Meeting “wishlists”:

• Energy efficiency• Accessibility upgrades• Roofs• Remodeling• Building additions• Mechanical systems

What else we learned:• On average, Meetinghouses are

76 years old• 2 in 5 Meetinghouses are over

100 years old • 32% have done major work in

the past 3 years • 9% have done major renovation

in the past year.

To view our survey results in greater detail, go the Friends Meeting House Fund website www.FGCquaker.org/FMHF-Survey

In 2014, the Friends Meeting House Fund Board reached out for assistance in getting a “sense of the Meetings” regarding aware-ness, familiarity and use/potential use of the Friends Meeting House Fund resource.

Specifically, in an effort to encourage use of the fund, the board conducted a survey to better understand the issues Meetings across the country are facing in terms of repairs, upkeep, major renovation and new construc-tion and how FMHF could better serve their needs.

In addition, the goal was to identify how Meetings currently make decisions regard-ing funding efforts, both internally and externally, to finance major projects and to assess how FMHF can encourage Meetings to consider the fund for support.

Northampton Friends Meeting

Friends Meeting House Fund

Contacting Meetings about the Fund

Friends Meeting House Fund is a pro-gram of Friends General Conference