When Matt Parfitt set up Grace Enterprises in 2017, his vision was clear: to create businesses that would give people on the margins of society the chance to flourish.
In 2025, a loan requested by one of our Donor Advised Fund (DAF) donors helped Grace Enterprises secure the premises they need to grow the business and offer employment opportunities to even more people.
A vision for life-changing jobs
Grace Enterprises began with a radical conviction to build businesses that change lives. For Founder Matt it was never about chasing profits or building a brand; it was about becoming, as he puts it, ’a godly employer’ by creating jobs for people who had been homeless, in prison, battling addiction or starting over as refugees.
“Success for us,” Matt said “is when people leave and get another job. That doesn’t sound like any normal company, but that’s what we do.
“Churches should always be good at relief work, of course they should. But how can we as Christians demonstrate love for people beyond this – regardless of whether they believe in Jesus?
“We didn’t think it was enough to invite people to church, pray for them and say ‘Hope you get a job. See you next week!’ Grace Enterprises wanted to be the employer that could offer them that first job, support them to thrive in it and then find work elsewhere.”
Radiant Cleaners: where it all began
The first step in that journey was Radiant Cleaners, a Nottingham-based commercial cleaning company. At first glance, it looked like just another small business. But Matt explained the heart behind it: “We try to operate as if Jesus were running the cleaning company. With that mindset, you just can’t cut corners. You do things properly.”
From the start, Radiant Cleaners paid the Real Living Wage and offered proper sick and holiday pay, putting people before profit. Radiant Cleaners soon won contracts with local organisations and began to transform lives. People who had come to church for food parcels discovered more than they’d hoped for: community, faith and employment.
Growing beyond cleaning
As the cleaning business went from strength to strength, Grace Enterprise diversified their work. With support from a philanthropist, a marquee hire business called Jubilee Events was launched to offer work opportunities to people who would value outdoor physical work and team spirit.
Next up was a biscuit business called Half the Story, launched in partnership with homeless charity Green Pastures, that quickly captured national attention.
“Everyone likes biscuits and the great thing is that biscuits can travel far beyond Nottingham!” Matt explained, pointing to the potential for replication and growth.
When Heather came to Half the Story, she had struggled to find work:
“I was homeless for a while. To look for a job while you're homeless is not easy. Now, when I pick my son from school and he asks ‘Mommy what have you been doing?’ then I just explain it to him with a smile that this is what I did today.”
A pivotal moment
By 2024, the biscuit business had outgrown its beginnings in Grace Church Nottingham’s church kitchen and by 2025, the business outgrew its warehouse allocation. But securing additional space came with hefty financial hurdles: three months of rent up-front plus a £50,000 deposit locked away for five years. Without urgent support, the 20 existing jobs were at risk and the ambition to double that number would be lost.
At this pivotal moment, a conversation with a Stewardship DAF account holder at a Faith in Business event opened new opportunities. The donor explains:
“Hearing Matt describe what Grace Enterprises has achieved is truly inspiring. Not only that, but it is clear that Grace Enterprises is professionally run and sustainable. So, when we heard about a need to ensure that they could continue to expand, we could see that we could remove a worry and stumbling block.”
An interest-free loan met the needs of the five-year deposit account guarantee perfectly, while an additional amount was loaned at below-market interest rates to refinance existing loans and cover three months of the bakery’s rental obligations.
Lending from their DAF account was new to this donor.
“Before this, we didn’t have any idea how, or even if, charitable funds could be loaned rather than simply given."
"The assistance from Stewardship has been essential to understand and achieve what we wanted, ensuring that our fund can give and keep on giving. Being able to talk to professionals who not only understand charitable giving but also Christian stewardship, made the conversations so much easier to navigate.”
Seven, the perfect number
As of October 2025, bakery equipment funded by other institutional donors has been delivered and installed into a space that’s seven times bigger than before. The bakery is operational and recruitment is under way for new employees to meet increasing demand for the biscuits.
Grace Enterprises’ original vision was to build seven businesses, each one a platform for new beginnings, dignity and life in all its fullness. Watch this space – with the help of the philanthropic community, Grace Enterprises is showing no signs of slowing down!
GIVE
PRAY
Dear God
We pray for the people who are currently trapped in impossible situations – perhaps homeless, in prison or struggling with addiction – who will become future employees of Grace Enterprises. Please prepare the route to begin their employment and lead them into that fulness of life that Jesus offers.
Amen
ACT
Are you connected to a café, conference centre, hotel or transport company that could serve Half The Story biscuits?
Please point them towards www.halfthestory.uk to help them catch the vision and use their procurement to demonstrate their values.
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James Bishop
James is our Digital Marketing Manager and works within our Purpose team to connect Christians to the causes they care about and to inspire them to live out the freedom that active generosity offers. He works on website content and email newsletters, advertising on social media and making sure people using search engines can find us. James also contributes to campaigns such as 40acts and the Generosity Report.
Before joining Stewardship in 2025, James worked in marketing departments of all sizes, from a biotech startup to a large civil engineering consultancy and most recently a learning disability charity.
James lives in Surrey and serves in a local church as a director of their non-profit community café and on their AV team. James is reluctantly making a middle-age transition from football to golf and loves making homemade pizza and good coffee.
