How we work

Our founder, Edward Harkness, gave the Pilgrim Trust a broad remit. He wanted his endowment used for some of the UK’s “more urgent needs”. He hoped that the gift would help in “tiding over the present time of difficulty” and “in promoting her future wellbeing”. This has given our Trustees the freedom to respond to the urgent needs of the day and to be flexible as they change. From the outset, our focus has been on social change and preservation and conservation.

Did you know?

We give around £3 million in grants each year to charities and other public bodies that focus on preserving the UK’s heritage or bringing about social change.

Our approach

Our founding Trustees embraced the Trust’s independence and the idea that philanthropy should be experimental. Over the years, we’ve used our standing, experience, connections and voice, as well as our monetary resources to both provide practical help in response to today’s needs, while also looking to the future, and creating a longer term impact.

The approach of the early Trustees still characterises the way we work today:

  • We’re flexible, unbureaucratic, collaborative and pioneering.
  • We work across the UK and encourage applications from regions where less funding is available or regions where we receive fewer applications in general.  
  • When there are insufficient funds to support all the strong applications under consideration, Trustees will take into account the geographical distribution of its funding.
  • Our grants often act as catalysts, bringing more support and funding to under-resourced areas.
  • We showcase best practice and policy and advocate for systemic change.
  • We’re open and transparent, sharing our grants data on 360Giving and listing our awards on our website.
  • We continually work to make our grant application process simple. We give feedback and advice to unsuccessful and successful applicants.
  • We are proud to have signed a pledge to open and trusting grant-making, a campaign coordinated by the Institute for Voluntary Action Research (IVAR).
Green logo with two hands surrounding the text Open & Trusting with IVAR

Our financial strategy

The Pilgrim Trust was set up in 1930 with an endowment of £2m from our founder, Edward Harkness. Our original Trust Deed empowered the Trustees to use the fund at their absolute discretion, within the law relating to charitable purposes for some of Great Britain’s more urgent needs, so that gift would assist not only in tiding over the difficulties of the time, but also promote the country’s future well-being. Today, our financial strategy is as follows:

  • Trustees have adopted a total return approach. This means that both income from the portfolio and the underlying capital can be used in support of the Trust’s activities.
  • Our investment strategy is one of long-term growth and the endowment’s time horizon is in perpetuity.
  • The Trustees’ policy regarding the endowment is to maintain its value in real terms over the long term based on the portfolio valuation as at the end of December 2010.
  • The endowment is mainly invested in passive funds and we are steadily increasing the ESG focus of those passive funds but in seeking to ensure that we adopt a positive approach and increase our exposure to companies that are top performers in ESG (environmental, social and governance) we are also investing in experienced ESG active managers.

To find out more about our financial objectives, take a look at our Annual Report.

Our Finance Audit and Risk Committee

  • Matthew Ridley (Committee Chair, Trustee)
  • Alice La Trobe Weston (Trustee)
  • Atul Patel (Lead non-executive Trustee)
  • James Sassoon (Chair of Trustees)
  • Eirian Jones (independent member)

Stanhope Capital are the Trust’s investment advisers.

Portrait in black and white of Edward Harkness -an old white gentleman sitting in a suit.

“We aim to be flexible, unbureaucratic, collaborative and pioneering.”

Sue Bowers, Director, Pilgrim Trust