31 JANUARY 2018

THE EDITH MAUD ELLIS 1985 CHARITABLE TRUST

INVESTMENT POLICY

  1. The Designated Capital Fund of the Edith Maud Ellis 1985 Charitable Trust is invested to provide income to cover the Trust’s charitable grant disbursements and its running costs. The Trustees’ policy is to invest in broad portfolios with a mixture of equities, fixed-interest securities, bonds and other stocks chosen so as to secure, overall,
  • low to medium risk exposure
  • real terms capital growth
  • rates of return through dividends and interest income sufficient to cover the Trust’s planned grant disbursements and running costs (see also the Trustees’ Reserves Policy).
  1. Within that framework, the choice of particular investment vehicles is guided by the Trustees’ ethical investment policy which was modelled on that of Britain Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers in Britain). In summary, the ethical investment policy
  • favours investment in socially and environmentally beneficial areas (compatible with the Trust’s grant-giving criteria– see below - drawn from its objects and Edith Ellis’s known interests), such as education, health promotion, food provision, affordable housing, certain financial services, utilities, renewable energy, sustainable transport, community development, and environmental protection
  • avoids investment in socially and environmentally harmful activities such as armaments, alcohol, tobacco, aggressive wealth creation and accumulation, and fossil fuel extraction.

The Trustees have decided that up to 10% of the Designated Capital Fund may be invested through the Ethex mechanism in mainly unquoted social enterprises engaged in socially and environmentally beneficial activities as above.

  1. There are three main portfolios of investments. Two of these are conventional portfolios respectively managed day-to-day by the Trust’s discretionary fund managers (King &Shaxson and Rathbone Greenbank). The third portfolio (Ethex) is much smaller, invested in a few social enterprises chosen by the Trustees collectively, and does not require frequent trading changes: it is not therefore managed externally on a day-to-day basis, but a Trustee has a watching brief. All the portfolios are reviewed annually by the Trustees in the light of reports from the fund managers and with the help of the Trust’s investment adviser (John Ditchfield of Castlefield/Barchester Green).
  1. The Trust’s grant-giving criteria (which also inform the investment policy) favour projects delivering

(a)Quaker work and witness

(b)peacebuilding and conflict resolution

(c)interfaith and ecumenical understanding

(d)community development work in the UK and overseas

(e)work with asylum seekers and refugees, including internally displaced people

(f)sustainable development.

  1. The Trustees review the investment policy annually.

[Reviewed and re-adopted by the Trustees on 31 January 2018]