How We Use Our Profits

November 19, 2018

SPCK has been publishing Christian books for over three hundred years – in fact, it’s the third oldest publishing house still operating in the UK! So it won’t be too surprising if you’ve come across our books before, or only know us as a publisher.

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What you might not know is that we do a lot more than just publishing. SPCK runs a number of different charity programmes that help improve people’s lives and better understand Christian faith and values. All our profits go towards these programmes, so when you buy one of our books, you’re helping to support the following:

1. Diffusion Books

Did you know that half of all prisoners are functionally illiterate?

Diffusion works to change this by providing free, easy-to-read books for prisoners. With stories that emphasize the importance of making good choices and positive relationships, these are books that prisoners and ex-offenders can relate to and will help them improve their reading skills and inspire self-reflection.

These books really do transform lives – improving prisoners’ literacy makes them more employable and better equipped to interact with society. Just think about all the things reading and writing skills are needed for: housing forms, job applications, letters from the bank. It even helps while prisoners are still serving their sentences, as some cannot even read the rules of the prisons they’re in!

Reading is vital, and the books provided by Diffusion aid prisoners in their rehabilitation and greatly reduce the changes of reoffending.

2. Assemblies

The law requires schools in England and Wales to provide a time of spiritual reflection or collective worship for children – and often these assemblies are the only time in an otherwise jam-packed day when children get the chance to think about how they connect to other people and the wider world.

Coming up with new, creative and engaging assemblies week in and week out, however, is a difficult and often intimidating task for teachers that are already stretched to the limit.
That where Assemblies.org.uk comes in. Created in 1999, it is a one-stop resource for high-quality assemblies for both primary and secondary school. It has an archive of over 1,500 easy to follow scripts written by professional teachers and writers, with more added on a regular basis.

The assemblies cover the entirety of the school year as well as everything from tie-ins to international days and children’s character development. Also featured are rapid response assemblies on breaking news stories, often available 24 after a news events. Some of our assemblies have been downloaded over 10,000 times, reaching over a million children across the UK.

We now also have a several hundred Welsh assemblies for use in Welsh speaking schools, available here. 

3. African Theological Network Press

Did you know that there are twice as many Christians in Nigeria as there are in the UK?

Christianity has grown exponentially throughout the African continent – but at the moment theological publishing in Africa is either too dependent on Christian publishers in the Global North or too localised, often staying within only one African country.

The African Theological Network Press (ATNP) aims to change this.

By building multiple centres so that books can be printed and distributed across Africa, it will empower African theologians to publish books for African people and break through the obstacles that currently restrict African theological institutions from accessing African Christian thought.

4. Prayers on the Move

According to a 2015 YouGov survey commissioned by SPCK just over 40% of the UK say they pray, yet only 10% pray each day.

Prayers on the Move was founded to help those who forget to pray to find the time during their busy days, and to give those who want to pray but aren’t really sure how to start an easy, accessible way to give prayer a go.

Featuring a simple app and a booklet with a month’s worth of daily prayers, Prayers on the Move tends to the often neglected spiritual needs of both busy Christian commuters and people on the fringes of faith who need a helping hand getting started on the journey to God.

We also ran a series of ads on the London Underground and on buses in Birmingham and Newcastle, each of which features one of the simple daily prayers and reached millions of people – and hope we may able to run more in future!

5. Upcoming Programmes

We know there are far more needs out there than our current programmes fill – so we have several exciting new programmes in development to do our part as a Christian organisation and make people lives better.

These new programs include Equip, a series of online webinars for training lay leaders, created in association with Church Army, and Why on Earth?, a series of interactive resources tackling the big questions for people who are exploring, but still uncertain about, faith.

We’ll be sharing more details about these programmes as we work on them, so keep an eye out!

All these programmes exist because we’re able to support them through our publishing efforts. So this Christmas, when you buy one of our books, you’re also giving a gift to thousands of people in the UK and throughout the world.
From the bottom of our hearts, we thank you for supporting us and making our work possible.