We’re one of London’s largest independent funders, with an endowment of around £300 million. The income we generate from this endowment funds work tackling poverty and inequality across the capital.
On this page you can learn about our finances – where our money comes from, how we invest it, and how we decide how much to give out.
Where our money comes from
If you walk around the City of London, you’ll notice that even though it's a small area (about a square mile), there are lots of churches. And there used to be even more of them.
In the past, each church served a different parish, and members of the community often left money or property to their parish to support local people in need.
Over hundreds of years, these gifts built up into several small pots of money. But by the late 19th century, the City had become a centre of business, with far fewer people living there. Most of London’s poor lived outside its boundaries.
To make sure this money was used where it was most needed, in 1878 the government set up a Royal Commission. This brought all the parish funds together into one combined pot. A new charitable organisation called the City Parochial Foundation was created to oversee this money.
A simplified visualisation of where our money comes from
Image description: A graphic of several pots if money, each with an arrow pointing in a different direction. Below, it says "Then: Lots of small pots of money, each managed and invested by a parish." To the right is a single, larger pot of money, which says: "Now: One big pot of money, invested and managed by Trust for London. The income is split between Trust for London (to tackle poverty) and the City Church Fund (managed by the Church of England)."
This pot is the origin of our endowment, today overseen by Trust for London (formerly known as the City Parochial Foundation).
The endowment is invested and income from the returns on the investments becomes the grant money we give out. This income is split into two parts: one to support the Church of England in London, overseen by the Church Commissioners, and the other for people experiencing poverty in London, managed by Trust for London.
A simplified illustration of how this works
Image description: A comic book style image, with six panels:
1. Our endowment is invested in things like property and equities.
- We earn income from these investments
- We split that income in two parts
- One part is given out to the churches in London, this is managed by the Church of England.
- The other part is used to tackle poverty in London, managed by us.
- The original endowment stays at about the same value.
How we make our money
The money we give out to charities comes from the income we make by investing this endowment. As a charitable permanent endowment, we have a legal duty to protect the value of the endowment
The endowment is invested in different things – like property, global shares and bonds – and we’re committed to responsible investing.
We invest our endowment to achieve long term, steady growth. The more money the investments make, the more we can give out to organisations tackling poverty.
But we also know that the way we invest matters, and our investments have power. We aim to avoid harm to people and the planet, supporting fair pay and decent work, promoting diversity and working towards net-zero emissions across our investments by 2050.
You can read more about this in our investment policy.
How we decide how much money to give out
Each year, we have to decide how much funding to distribute by balancing the needs of today with those of future generations. We’re legally required to maintain the real value of our endowment – keeping it steady in line with inflation.
Our goal is to generate returns of inflation plus 4%. In theory, this means we can distribute around 4% of our endowment each year. In practice, that figure depends on how our investments perform, which can change with global economic trends.
You can read more about how we make these decisions in our director of finance Heather Taylor’s blog.
Our independence
We’re an independent grantmaking organisation. This means that we are not funded by the taxpayer, or the UK government. We have a permanent endowment, and do not fundraise or receive donations from individuals.
And although our money originates from parish churches, Trust for London is independent from the Church of England.
Governance
Our trustee board members have final decision making responsibility at the Trust. Trustees are nominated for five-year terms. Making sure we have a wide range of experience and backgrounds represented is an important part of their selection. Find out more about our trustees here.
Our policies and annual reports
11 December 2023