ABSTRACT
A Charitable Trust or Foundation is a body set up privately to make grants for charitable purposes. There are about 10,000 Charitable Trusts and Foundations in the UK and they give in the region of £2 billion in grants each year, which makes them as important an income source as local authorities or central government departments. Data suggests that grant-making trusts are responsible for supplying approximately 13 per cent of an ‘average’ UK charity’s income. In the UK, grant-making Trusts and Foundations are regulated under the same laws as other charities, being required to register with the Charity Commission in England and Wales (the law is slightly different in Scotland and Northern Ireland) and to publish an annual report and accounts giving information about their grants. They are thus required to be transparent, though as independent bodies they are not publicly accountable. UK grant-making Trusts have been classified (Clay 1999) into the following groups:
1 Institutional – Set up with a number of trustees. Institutional Trusts tend to make grants according to detailed procedures, have established criteria and guidelines on which to base their decision-making, and employ professional staff.
