History

Founded in February 1965 as the Phyllis Trust, the charity was later renamed in 2004 as Andrews Charitable Trust. It is the principal shareholder of the Andrews & Partners estate agency business whose profits continue to make up the majority of ACT’s funding to this day. In fact, Andrews & Partners is 100% owned by charity; ACT being the majority shareholder but the remainder of the shares being owned by its sister charities Christian Initiative Trust (CIT) and The Christian Book Promotion Trust .   

Andrews Charitable Trust (ACT) is thus the product of an innovative partnership between business and philanthropy that traces its origins to our founder – Cecil Jackson-Cole.   

Born in 1901 ‘CJC’ had by the middle years of the century developed a network of companies whose profits he put towards fulfilling his deeply felt vocation to relieve human suffering around the world. ‘CJC’ wanted to promote a working relationship between business and charities and to aid the latter in their development and sustainability with use of business sector techniques and approaches.   

our heritage from archives of Oxfam

 Among Jackson-Cole’s earliest initiatives was helping turn the Oxford Committee for Famine Relief into Oxfam – which grew rapidly with his professional and innovative guidance. CJC did this by seconding one of his business managers to be the founding Secretary General of Oxfam and meeting the costs of the early, developing organisation. Numerous other examples exist of CJC creating the model of support which ACT has followed for nearly fifty years. It is the mixture of financial and management support for new and growing organisations (what is now referred to as ‘highly engaged grant making’) which has delivered such success. Those charities funded were supported to grow dramatically from fledgling organisations to independent, powerful agents of social transformation.  

Business activity was centred around the estate agency firm of Andrews & Partners, set up in 1946 and included, just as it does today, senior staff becoming involved with and supportive of a range of charities in receipt of support. The business still provides pro bono support to the work of the Trust, providing back office functions (in finance, IT, marketing, administration and human resources) and contributing up to four working Directors as trustees who, along with another 6-8 independent trustees, donate up to ten days a year to the work of ACT and the charities it supports.  

By the 1950′s, Andrews had formed Voluntary & Christian Service (VCS), a charitable trust funded, like Andrews Charitable Trust today, from the estate agency, letting and management and land/property development profits. In quick succession VCS, the Phyllis Trust and then Andrews Charitable Trust spawned a number of charities that are amongst the UK’s most dynamic and important. In addition to Oxfam, he also co-founded Action Aid, Help The Aged and, through them, what’s now known as Anchor Housing Association. He also had a major role in a number of other charitable start-ups – World of Property Housing Trust better known now as Sanctuary Housing Association.  

During the 1990′s we established Opportunity Trust (later known as Opportunity International UK), which brings affordable and accessible micro-banking services to some of the world’s poorest people. In 2000, ACT were one of the founding funders of BasicNeeds, the first international charity to institute a community approach that would support people with mental health problems in countries where mental health services are minimal.  

This unique tradition of effective investment in new and growing charitable ventures continues today. Our current investment in Excellent typifies the sort of innovative ventures which we support today, where our early investment has intended to support their organisational development through to becoming a sustainable and successful charity. In 2006, when our partnership began they were still working out of the Founder’s kitchen but by 2008, they had been chosen as Charity of the Year! Excellent continue to grow both its work in Africa and its supporter base here in the UK.  

Cecil Jackson-Cole died in 1979. His unique spirit and vocation still inform the work of Andrews Charitable Trust today.