Congregations open up their buildings to serve children, the hungry, the homeless and others in need. Sacred places stabilize neighborhoods, strengthen commercial districts and significantly add to the economic health of our communities. All of this is endangered, however, when congregations can no longer afford to maintain these aging buildings. Partners has developed a family of highly-acclaimed resources to help congregations connect better to their communities, raise capital funds in new ways and preserve their historic building for future generations. We are the nation's only non-sectarian, nonprofit organization dedicated the sound stewardship and active community use of America's older religious properties.




Religion and Ethics Newsweekly on PBS aired a television segment entitled Endangered Churches on June 20th, 2014, in which our own Bob Jaeger, Co-Founder and President of Partners for Sacred Places, was interviewed! Long-term, space-sharing arrangements are discussed, including the partnership brokered by Partners between South Philadelphia’s Shiloh Baptist Church and dance-theater company, Brian Sanders’ JUNK. These long-term partnerships present a way to help ensure the future of endangered historic sacred spaces by ensuring much-needed, additional income streams to congregations, while providing much-needed, affordable, and appropriate spaces for arts and other community organizations. As Jaeger explains in the interview, “Unless [struggling congregations] do something creative and bold, many of them will close or merge in the next ten, twenty years.” The PBS segment also highlights interesting, yet controversial, ways of repurposing historic sacred buildings, such as developer Alon Barzilay’s renovation of the former Greater St. Matthew Baptist Church in South Philadelphia into a residential building called Sanctuary Lofts, and looks at the larger issues at stake in doing so in Philadelphia and nationwide. Watch the video about Endangered Churches to learn more.