We research how churches are impacting their communities.
We love to share the wonderful work that churches are doing through stories and statistics. To do this, we conduct in-depth research into the many and varied ways that churches are helping to address key social issues.
Research is really powerful in demonstrating the impact of churches and build confidence in their work. As a result, it opens up fresh opportunities for funding and partnership with all sorts of businesses and organisations such as police, health authorities and local councils.
Church Engagement After Covid19 (2022)
The Church in the UK faced significant issues in the wake of Covid19.
Cinnamon’s senior leadership team therefore decided to commission a Church Engagement report in 2021-22 to understand the challenges faced by churches and church leaders at this time.
The research took three phases:
• A desk-based research phase examining relevant literature relating to the question. Afterwards, any further relevant literature might be incorporated.
• A focus group phase, where focus groups comprising of charity leaders, church leaders and activists would be asked specific questions.
• An online questionnaire, to be made publicly available through the Cinnamon Connect platform.
Health Research (2018)
We looked into the impact that a broad range of church-led initiatives had in health care. The research assessed the effectiveness of a range of church-led strategies, from those that look to improve diet and exercise in the community to those that work in A&E departments.
We then used the results to put forward recommendations to help churches work more effectively with health authorities. We are really grateful to our partners at Benefact Trust who supported this research.
Police Research (2016 & 2017)
We took a look at the effectiveness of various police and church partnerships that are currently in place. This included those working to address challenges in the night-time economy and those that support police forces who are stepping in to provide social support. The research was officially endorsed by the National Police Chief’s Council and College of Policing.
“Cinnamon Network is making an important contribution to the collaborative work between churches and police forces. These partnerships are a great example of community policing and it is encouraging to see the extent of the work and the plans to grow it.”
