A summary of the Annual Report and Audited Accounts for 2007/2008

Annual Report

The Foundation provides grants under a number of specific headings. The amounts paid under each heading can be summarised as follows:

Grant were paid to thirty six individual churches to help them meet the cost of essential repairs and improvements. The largest grant paid was for £5,000. Three such grants were paid to Monmouth Baptist Church, Conwy Road Methodist Church, Cardiff and the Wesley Methodist Church, Canton, Cardiff. Trustees continue to give priority to those projects which involve the sharing of resources between denominations and where there is a clear focus on community outreach.

Two grants were paid from the Special Projects Fund to help meet the costs of employing youth workers in two ecumenical project areas – Pwllheli and North Carmarthenshire.

Grants were also paid to thirty-three postgraduate students to meet the cost of tuition fees up to a maximum of £5,000 in each case. In two of these cases maintenance grants were also paid.

Audited Accounts

The total incoming resources of the Foundation for 2007/2008 were £463,063 (2006/2007 - £461,801). Direct charitable expenditure amounted to £399,888 (2006/2007 - £412,696) and the administration costs were £3,320 (2006/2007 - £3,643).

The income of the Foundation is derived from an actively managed endowment fund which is made up of a mixture of equity, bond, property and cash holdings. This is permanent endowment and is not available for allocation to grant recipients. The value of the endowment fund at the end of 2007/2008 was £9,377,711 (2006/2007 - £10,011,554). This decrease reflected a general decline in global equity and property markets in the second half of 2007/2008.

The ability of the Foundation to continue to provide grants and to make such grants meaningful in terms of matching inflation depends very much on growth in the value of the underlying investments. Accordingly the investment strategy is one which seeks to secure growth in the level of annual income. From time to time this strategy has been assisted by the receipt of bequests and gifts, some of which have come from former grant recipients. The Foundation continues to welcome such gifts. All such bequests and gifts are duly recorded and invested to provide a growing stream of income to benefit individuals and organisations in Wales.

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If you would like to receive a copy of the Foundation’s Annual Report and/or Audited Accounts please contact the Foundation Office. The contact details can be found on the website’s home page.