Church survey body launches emergency appeal as ad-agency goes under

Church leaders have launched an emergency appeal to save a cross-denominational body established to provide relevant statistical information about the state of the Church in England. Churches Information for Mission is at risk following the collapse of an advertising agency, which owes it thousands of pounds in unpaid fees.

Senior churchmen have launched an emergency appeal to save the cross-denominational body established to provide accurate statistical information about the Church in England. Churches Information for Mission (CIM) is owned by the Christian denominations in England and major Christian agencies. It has been left with a significant cash deficit after the advertising agency Silver Fish Creative Marketing Ltd collapsed, owing thousands of pounds in unpaid fees.

The agency had been retained by CIM to sell advertising space on the wrap-around of some 500,000 survey forms. The forms were handed out to churchgoers on April 29th as part of the Church Life Profile - one of the largest surveys ever undertaken in England. They sold between 60,000 and 100,000 worth of adverts, of which they were due to hand over 40,000 to CIM to cover print bills. But CIM has now been told that Silver Fish Creative Marketing Ltd cannot meet this obligation and is insolvent.

Alison Gelder, chief executive of CIM, said: "Our printers are being very understanding and have agreed to delay their bill until the end of this month. However, CIM is a non-profit making organisation and does not have cash reserves. If we pay the printers we cannot afford to scan the survey forms which we need to do before we can start working with the data. The advertising sheet was a crucial element in our budgeting for the Church Life Profile and we feel very disappointed that a company can take in that amount of advertising revenue and then claim it cannot meet its liabilities."

An appeal letter to churches which took part in the Church Life Profile has been signed by CIM's chair, Rev Baroness Richardson of Callow; and CIM's patrons - the Archbishop of York, the Most Rev David Hope; the general director of the Evangelical Alliance, Rev Joel Edwards; and the Rev Professor Leslie Francis, of the University of Wales.

Details of the appeal and its progress will be made available on CIM's website - www.cim.org.uk