To relieve need, in two parishes, in small specific sums, paid quickly to the people who need them.

Theory of change, in three steps

Most charities our size publish a theory of change that runs to several pages. Ours fits in three boxes.

What we believe, in five small convictions

These five convictions guide every decision we make. They have been written down only recently — in 2014 — but they describe how the trustees have operated for several generations.

1. A small sum, on the right day, is a different thing from a large sum, late. The Trustees meet monthly so that a household waiting on a winter fuel grant is not waiting on us. Where time is of the essence, the Chair has standing authority to release up to £300 between meetings.
2. We do not advertise. We are introduced. Almost every case reaches us through a parish priest, a school welfare officer, a CAB caseworker, or a neighbour who has heard of us from another. This is not modesty; it is method.
3. We say no carefully, and we say why. In 2024–25 we declined twenty-eight applications. Each was answered with a letter the trustees signed personally, and where we could, a referral elsewhere.
4. Trinity Hospital first. Our 1701 governing scheme names Trinity Hospital, Salisbury — founded in 1379 — as a continuing recipient. We honour that bequest before any other call on our funds.
5. We do not exceed our means, and we never have. We are a small endowment. We grant from income, very rarely from capital, and we are honest with applicants about what we can and cannot do.

'The whole purpose of this trust, from the day John Fricker laid it down, is that someone in St Martin's or St Edmund's who has fallen on a hard month should know there is a door they can knock on without shame. That is the only test we apply.'
— Richard Allen, Chair, in conversation with the Trustees' Clerk, 2024

Honestly: what we cannot do

We want every donor to know this paragraph before they decide to support us. It is the one we are most often asked to add to, in conversation with people who imagine the Charity is larger than it is.

We are a £21,000-a-year endowment serving two parishes of central Salisbury. We cannot pay rent arrears in their entirety. We cannot fund a course of private therapy. We cannot offer ongoing support that runs to thousands of pounds a year. We cannot help households outside our two named parishes, however acute their need. And — this is the one we find hardest — we cannot help every household within them. In 2024–25 we declined twenty-eight applications. Eight of those were declined because we had run out of fund for that quarter, not because the case was weak.

We tried, in 2019, to extend our area of benefit to the neighbouring parishes of St Thomas's and St Paul's. The application to the Charity Commission was withdrawn after eighteen months of correspondence, during which it became clear that we did not have the trustee capacity or the income to do it well. We learned from that. We did not try again. Where households outside our two parishes write to us, we forward their case, with their consent, to Wiltshire Community Foundation or the Citizens Advice grants team at Salisbury, who may be able to help.

If your gift would make a meaningful difference, we would rather you knew this honestly. A larger charity may be a better fit for what you have in mind. If a quietly run, parish-rooted, three-centuries-old endowment is what you want to support, you have come to the right place.

What success looks like, for us

Success, for us, looks like:

• A grant paid within ten working days of an application reaching the Clerk.
• An applicant told either yes or no, in writing, in plain English, with our reasoning.
• Where we say no, a referral to a charity or council scheme that may say yes.
• Trinity Hospital's quarterly stipend paid on the first working day of January, April, July and October — never late.
• The annual report and accounts filed with the Charity Commission on time.
• The minute book, kept in fountain pen, complete and signed.

These are small standards. They are the ones we measure ourselves by.