Appendix 2 - Working with Referrals

Our preference is that organisations send the actual people in need to your church or charity so that you can meet with them, assess their need and see if you can help via Acts 435. This works best where there is high Advocate availability (eg. the Advocate also works at the church Monday to Friday, or has trained someone at the church to meet with potential applicants and take necessary details).

However, we accept that this is not always possible or appropriate. An alternative option would be to act as a “middle man” between the referral and Acts 435. In such situations you would rely on the fact that the referring case worker has the relationship with the Applicant and they would simply pass the necessary information to you in order to post an Acts 435 request. You would therefore not meet the Applicant until the funds are received, or indeed once you have received funds you could arrange to send them straight to the referring organisation for them to manage the spend and ask them to send in a signed form or receipt to you.

You may want to put a limit on the number of referrals, especially if you are concerned you will be flooded with requests. 5 or 10 a month is a good guide.

You need to look at what works best for the referring organisation without adding unnecessary layers of bureaucracy to Acts 435. We want the money to get quickly to those in need (within 2 weeks of it being sent to the church). If they can’t facilitate that then they should instead simply let the person in need know your church contact details so that they can come to you directly for help.