The Prince of Wales's Charitable Fund


The Prince of Wales's Charitable Fund is one of the largest independent foundations in the UK. It was founded by the Prince of Wales in 1979.

Overview

The work of the Charitable Foundation is two-fold:
Inspired by HRH The Prince of Wales's values of harmony and sustainability, the Charitable Foundation aims through its grant making and other charitable activities to transform lives and build sustainable communities. This is achieved locally through supporting causes such as community projects, nationally through grants to charities such as Plantlife International, The Prince's Trust, Soil Association and the Rare Breeds Survival Trust and globally through the Charitable Foundation's International Sustainability Unit.

The Prince's International Sustainability Unit

The International Sustainability Unit is an initiative of The Prince of Wales's Charitable Foundation. The ISU works to facilitate consensus on how to resolve some of the key environmental challenges facing the world, specifically those to do with food security, ecosystems resilience and the depletion of natural capital. To achieve this, the ISU brings together partners from across government, private and NGO sectors to pilot practical programmes in marine and sustainable agriculture. The impact of the work of the ISU is evident in Ghana, Indonesia, Liberia and Brazil where it has pioneered projects to slow deforestation. The ISU has also published two key pieces of research on the economic opportunity of sustainably managed fisheries and sustainable food production.

The Prince's Accounting for Sustainability (A4S) Project

The Prince's Accounting for Sustainability Project is part of The Prince of Wales's Charitable Foundation. The A4S project and its affiliate organisation the International Integrated Reporting Council, encourages the responsible business community to recognize the benefits of considering the environment and wider society as part of their day-to-day business decisions; and establish a global framework for integrated corporate reporting.

The Place Strategy

The Prince of Wales's Charitable Foundation supports The Prince's Charities to work collaboratively in communities such as Burnley, Tottenham, Redcar, Burslem, East Ayrshire and Llandovery. In the last decade, The Prince of Wales has been determined to encourage his charities to work collaboratively and make more impact in disadvantaged communities. The Prince of Wales's Charitable Foundation supports this work, which goes under the banner of "The Place Strategy".
In 2007, His Royal Highness consulted local community leaders in Burnley as to whether The Prince's Charities – working in partnership - could support the regeneration of the town. With the encouragement of public, private and voluntary sector leaders a five-year programme began involving twelve of The Prince's Charities working across the built environment, young people and education, business and enterprise support, and community and arts engagement. The Prince of Wales has visited Burnley to see progress three times over the five years and convened a regeneration summit in May 2012 in the presence of Her Majesty The Queen.
An independent evaluation undertaken by Cass Business School in 2011 concluded that no other organisation or group of charities could have played the same role, or achieved as much, as The Prince's Charities working together. In particular, the convening power of His Royal Highness ensured a greater buy-in from stakeholders, supported by project co-ordinators from within The Prince's Charities who provided a strong focus. Through the Place Strategy, The Prince's Charities aim to transform lives and build sustainable communities.
Transforming lives - The combined resources of The Prince's Charities can be best seen in its work in education where Burnley schools have benefited from Business Class, XL Clubs, The Prince's Foundation for Children and the Arts' primary school programme and Development Programmes for Heads of Department run by The Prince's Teaching Institute.
Building sustainable communities - The Prince's Foundation for Building Community has helped create focused partnerships with local stakeholders to build sustainable communities. Heritage regeneration projects in East Ayrshire, Burnley and Burslem provide a focus for involving the resources and capabilities of other Prince's Charities, particularly The Prince's Regeneration Trust, START and The Prince's School for Traditional Arts.

Dumfries House

The Foundation was one of a group of organisations and individuals involved in the purchase of Dumfries House in 2007. The Art Fund acted as the formal legal purchaser of the house and its contents, which were then passed on in November 2007 to the newly formed charity, The Great Steward of Scotland's Dumfries House Trust.
The Foundation borrowed a considerable proportion of the £45 million total cost, and fundraising is continuing in order to repay this loan. The Foundation also acquired for development some land in the Cumnock area. The redevelopment of this land will be planned by the Prince's Foundation for the Built Environment, and it is hoped that this development will also help to repay the loan.

Subsidiaries

The Foundation has three subsidiary companies, PCF Social Enterprises Ltd - a holding company for A. G. Carrick Ltd and Duchy Originals Ltd, Prince's Charities Events Ltd, and Golden Jubilee Events Ltd.

Duchy Originals Ltd

Duchy Originals Ltd is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Foundation. It was set up as a company by the Prince of Wales in 1990, and since then Duchy Originals and Duchy Selections have become well known food brands manufactured and sold by many different companies. The Duchy Originals company is paid royalties by the sellers of Duchy Original and Duchy Selections foods.
The turnover of the company, which is the royalty income notified to the company, and which is also the gross profit, came to £4.86 million in 2006/7. Administrative expenses came to £3.31 million giving an operating profit of £1.53 million. Out of this profit a charitable donation of £743,000 was given to the Foundation. One director of the company was paid a salary of £185,000 and also received a pension contribution of £19,000, and the company directors in total received salary and pension contributions of £400,000.

A. G. Carrick Ltd

A. G. Carrick Ltd exploits intellectual property rights generated by The Prince of Wales and donated to the company as well as running a shop at Highgrove. The company covenants all of its taxable profits to the Foundation.
In 2006/7 A. G. Carrick Ltd had a turnover of £1.1 million but costs of £608,590, which meant that there were profits of just £97,386, which were given to the Foundation as a donation.