Clergy

You are eligible to apply to the Welfare Fund if you are an Anglican clergyperson residing in Aotearoa New Zealand or a country within the Diocese of Polynesia who:

• holds a Bishop’s licence or permission to officiate;

OR

• has retired from stipendiary ministry, is receiving a pension from the Pension Fund, and either holds a Bishop’s licence or permission to officiate or held one at the time of your retirement.

Clergy widows and widowers

You are eligible to apply to the Welfare Fund if you are the surviving spouse of a deceased Anglican clergyperson, and you are residing in Aotearoa New Zealand or a country within the Diocese of Polynesia.

If you want to seek assistance from the Welfare Fund, you need to complete an application form.

You will be required to provide personal information about yourself. This will include household income and expenditure, and what assets and debts you have. All information supplied to us is held in the strictest confidence and is not disclosed to anyone else.

You will also need to advise what it is you are seeking help with (reason and amount) and provide proof of the cost (e.g. receipt, invoice).

Send the completed form to us, along with supporting documents.

This is no fixed list of categories you can claim under. With a few exceptions (see “What can’t I get help with”), we will consider any reason for seeking financial help.

The most common reasons are to provide help with medical, dental and optometry costs, funeral costs, house maintenance costs and debt consolidation.

There are a few costs that the Welfare Fund can’t help with. These are:

• Ministry related costs. The Welfare Fund can only help with personal or family-related costs;
• Costs relating to or resulting from unethical behaviour;
• Costs incurred while overseas. We strongly recommend taking out travel insurance if you are travelling overseas.

Financial help is available to you by either a non-repayable grant or a loan (or a mixture of both).

If we offer you a loan, we will discuss the terms of the loan with you. Things we consider are whether to charge interest or not, what, if any, assets are available to secure the loan, and a suitable repayment plan.

Once we have received your completed application and supporting documents, we usually make a decision within three working days.

The main reason for a decision taking longer is if we have to gather further information from you (e.g. the form is missing information or the costs you are wanting help with are not clear to us).

Before putting in an application we are happy for you to contact us about making a claim.

The Welfare Fund is primarily funded from the income of a charitable trust called the Widows and Orphans Endowment.