Purpose
The Charitable Foundation exists to advance the Trust’s charitable purpose: communities where older people flourish, through connection, contribution and choice.
The Foundation enables the Trust to reach beyond its villages and care homes, supporting older people across the region as well as its current and future residents.
Vision
Over the next three to five years, the Charitable Foundation aims to be recognised as a thoughtful and effective funder that uses the Trust’s endowment to deliver meaningful outcomes for older people. This includes backing work that makes a real difference to older people, strengthens communities, and helps shape better practice.
Scope
The Charitable Foundation Committee oversees all charitable activity across three areas:
Charitable Giving
- Grants to older people facing financial hardship
- Funding for voluntary, community and social enterprise (VCSE) organisations, partnerships, networks and alliances that improve outcomes for older people
Innovation
- Investment in the design, testing and adoption of new models of housing, care and community support
- Innovation within the Trust’s villages and care homes
- Approaches that can be shared, adopted or scaled across the sector
Research and evaluation
- Research, evaluation and thought leadership
- Generation of evidence and learning to inform future decision‑making and influence practice
Together, these areas cover immediate hardship support for individuals, community‑level impact and longer‑term systems change.
Our history
The original Deed Poll for the management of the St Monica Trust was created in 1922.
Under the title “Monica Wills Annuities” the charity committed to provide “Annuities or Gifts of money to persons of good character who are in need and who are suffering from chronic or incurable illness or handicap.”
All applicants to live in “The St Monica Home” or receive financial assistance were recorded in the Applicant’s Register. Dated 24 April, 1924 the very first applicant for financial assistance was Annie Butcher who had worked in India as a nurse. A spinster, living at 13 St John’s Road, Clifton, she was suffering from “progressive muscular atrophy, arthritis and ‘contraction of the right hand’.”
All applications for accommodation or financial assistance were discussed at the regular ‘Selection Committee Meetings’, which included Dame Monica Wills herself, and were recorded in the St Monica Trust Minute Book. On 16 June 1924 it was recommended by the Selection Committee that “subject to the reports of Miss Baillie and the medical men”, Annie Butcher “should receive financial assistance at the rate of £50 per annum.” Annie’s application was duly approved and the first of her quarterly payment was made on 16 July, 1924, increasing to £52 per annum from 29 September, 1924.
Timeline of our charitable giving
Read more about the history of St Monica Trust’s charitable giving
Our trustees
To learn more about the trustees of the St Monica Trust Charitable Foundation, please visit our Trustees page. There, you will find detailed profiles of each trustee, including their backgrounds, areas of expertise, and their roles in driving our mission to enhance the lives of older people.
