Thank you for considering becoming a Hope into Action Franchise Friend.

Hope into Action enables churches to house the homeless. We began in Peterborough in 2010 and then moved into Cambridge, Norwich and Nottingham. We have now helped hundreds or homeless men and women out of poverty and won various awards for the quality of our approach along the way.

Since those first four towns, every other home we’ve opened has been through a franchised approach.

Sometimes this has been a passionate individual who has set up a new charity, specifically to replicate our model; sometimes it has been an existing Christian charity who has taken on our project to complement their other work and sometimes it has been a church who have wanted to run one, or maybe two, houses for the homeless. We now have ‘Franchise Friends’ in more than thirty towns and cities across the country.

This Webpage briefly outlines our different Franchise models and some of the roles and responsibilities within a Hope into Action Franchise. At Hope into Action we are so blessed to enable the church to welcome tenants of any label (or none). We see God stir authentic faith into action, every day, all over the country. If your faith is stirred to holistically love those who have experienced homelessness, and you think your church would like to take action, partner with us!

• Our Core Ethos
• Where we are currently operating
• What you receive as a Franchise Friend
• Our Area Franchise Model
• Our Church Franchise Model
• Franchise Fees
• Roles - The Empowerment Worker
• Roles - The Friendship and Support Group
• Want to know more?

Download a PDF containing an overview of this page here: DOWNLOAD

Click below to see our Values

The risk for any organisation choosing to franchise their model is a drop in the quality of the work. So, before we ever launched our first franchise, we worked out nine things which must never change and must be found wherever we operate. To work under the Hope into Action banner in any capacity you will need to be fully committed to everything written there.

Here, then, is our Core Ethos – the things we will never change:

	Ethos	Comment
1	Every house must be opened in partnership with a church.	Close partnership with local churches is at the heart of Hope into Action’s model. The relational support offered by the church is critical.
2	You must share our view and understanding on what ‘holistic outreach’ means.	In supporting a tenant, we take the following into account: Their immediate need and the poverty that affects them The underlying factors which hold them captive or oppress them: this may be trauma, regrets over poor decisions, their upbringing, their moral code, their addiction, their education or other factors Their spiritual needs so that their life may be enriched All of this is encapsulated in Jesus’ words in Luke 4:18-19. “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.”
3	All tenant-facing staff and volunteers must share in the Christian faith and have a passion for the local church.	Everyone working directly with tenants will be a follower of Jesus and be actively committed to the local church.  Whilst we maintain this requirement for staff and volunteers, we serve tenants from all backgrounds, from all faiths and none. We will never force or coerce Christian beliefs on anyone or make it a condition for their tenancy. We also collaborate with individuals, groups and other organisations who do not share our faith.
4	You must share our view on rents.	We believe that in order to best serve our tenants, rents must be affordable. The reason for this is that we want to encourage tenants, where appropriate, to find work. Too often, supported housing has such high rents that it prevents tenants getting jobs. Therefore, financial objectives obstruct charitable objectives. We set affordable rents and operate a bursary scheme to help tenants in work.
5	You must share our view on quality of homes.	We believe in the dignity of all our tenants, that they have worth, and that God wants to bless them. We believe Christ came that they may have life and have it in abundance. We want to demonstrate this in the quality of care and homes we give our tenants. If we show our tenants respect they are much more likely to care for and look after their homes. We have a specification that all Hope into Action properties need to meet. Once this is met, the partner Church adds furnishing and finishing touches which make our houses into beautiful, welcoming homes.
6	You must share our view on treating people equally without discrimination.	We believe that God’s actions, through the life, death and resurrection of Christ, are for all people. We treat people equally in line with the protected characteristics enshrined in UK law (currently the Equality Act 2010). We will never discriminate on the basis of these protected characteristics.
7	You must have a desire to honour God through the excellence of your work.	Whatever we do for Hope into Action we will do to the best of our ability, believing that this honours God and is one way in which we demonstrate our love for Him. We want our spiritual passion to fire professional excellence.
8	You must respect our Basis of Faith.	We work with churches from a wide range of different traditions, theological perspectives and stances on contemporary issues. Our goal is to foster Christian unity amid this diversity. However, we expect our church partners to respect the foundational beliefs which started Hope into Action, which are articulated by the Evangelical Alliance basis of faith (see https://www.eauk.org/about-us/how-we-work/basis-of-faith).
9	On each working day, a time of daily team prayer is an essential element of the life of Hope into Action.	At Hope into Action, deliberate and thankful prayer is fundamental to our identity. We therefore prioritise prayer across the Hope into Action network, often in small teams and occasionally one person praying alone. We see this as essential to what we do.

Where we are currently operating

You can see where we currently have franchises here: Where we work | Hope into Action UK

If you would like to be part of this growing network, and have a heart for the church and the homeless, then we would love to talk to you!

A note about our line-managed locations - Peterborough, Cambridge, Norwich and Nottingham: These four cities are the first we expanded into. We now have over 55 homes in these cities alone (about 50% of our work). It is through our work here that we develop best practice which is then rolled out to our Franchise Friends. We will not open any more line-managed locations. However we will, in our conversations with you, try and enable you to understand and work out which of our franchise models is most appropriate for you.

• An advisor

• Bespoke training and expertise: We provide in-person and online induction for all franchises where training is given on property management, tenant support and empowerment, fundraising and governance to name a few areas.

• A calendar of training events from safeguarding to support to housing

• Quality checking and auditing: all our franchises are visited and checked for quality at least once a year. We also conduct an annual online audit.

• Use of our branding*

• Advice on managing investors and finding investment**

• Invitations to our annual retreat

Our Franchise Models

Area Franchise