The Carnegie United Kingdom Trust is an independent, endowed charitable trust based in Scotland that operates throughout Great Britain and Ireland. Originally established with an endowment from

Andrew Carnegie Andrew Carnegie (, ; November 25, 1835August 11, 1919) was a Scottish-American industrialist and philanthropist. Carnegie led the expansion of the American steel industry in the late 19th century and became one of the richest Americans in ...

in his birthplace of

Dunfermline Dunfermline (; sco, Dunfaurlin, gd, Dùn Phàrlain) is a city, parish and former Royal Burgh, in Fife, Scotland, on high ground from the northern shore of the Firth of Forth. The city currently has an estimated population of 58,508. Acco ...

, it is incorporated by a

royal charter A royal charter is a formal grant issued by a monarch under royal prerogative as letters patent. Historically, they have been used to promulgate public laws, the most famous example being the English Magna Carta (great charter) of 1215, b ...

and shares purpose-built premises with the

Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland The Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland is a charitable trust established by Andrew Carnegie in 1901 for the benefit of the universities of Scotland, their students and their staff. The incorporation of the Trust was by royal cha ...

, the Carnegie Dunfermline Trust, and the Carnegie Hero Fund Trust.

History

The Carnegie United Kingdom Trust was founded in 1913 with a $10 million endowment from Andrew Carnegie. In creating the trust, Carnegie defined its purpose as: The trust's endowment provided it with a yearly budget of £100,000, a very significant amount of money at the time, causing one commentator to observe that ‘how they spent this money was a matter of national importance’. While the trust had to spend some of its money on libraries and church organs already promised to several groups by the

Carnegie Corporation of New York The Carnegie Corporation of New York is a philanthropic fund established by Andrew Carnegie in 1911 to support education programs across the United States, and later the world. Carnegie Corporation has endowed or otherwise helped to establis ...

or Carnegie himself, the trust was largely free to choose which charitable causes it would give to. In the 1910s and 1920s, the trust focused on fulfilling Carnegie's commitment to building libraries, as Carnegie himself had already done across the United States. The trust also funded the construction of several universities, including Carnegie College in

Leeds Leeds () is a city and the administrative centre of the City of Leeds district in West Yorkshire, England. It is built around the River Aire and is in the eastern foothills of the Pennines. It is also the third-largest settlement (by popul ...

, Newbattle Abbey College in Newbattle, and College Harlec in Harlech. Other contributions to the education field during this time period included funding the

Workers Educational Association The Workers' Educational Association (WEA), founded in 1903, is the UK's largest voluntary sector provider of adult education and one of Britain's biggest charities. The WEA is a democratic and voluntary adult education movement. It delivers lea ...

, supporting the first

pre-school playgroup A pre-school playgroup, or in everyday usage just a playgroup, is an organised group providing care and socialisation for children under five. The term is widely used in the United Kingdom. Playgroups are less formal than the preschool education ...

s, and training social workers and librarians. In the 1930s it shifted its focus to social welfare, including the Land Settlement programme, which aimed to help unemployed men to make a living from the land. It also advocated for the creation of National Parks, subsequently introduced by the

Attlee ministry Clement Attlee was invited by King George VI to form the Attlee ministry in the United Kingdom in July 1945, succeeding Winston Churchill as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. The Labour Party had won a landslide victory at the 1945 gen ...

after World War II. The Trust also supported the arts during this time, including the restoration of the

Book of Kells The Book of Kells ( la, Codex Cenannensis; ga, Leabhar Cheanannais; Dublin, Trinity College Library, MS A. I. 8 sometimes known as the Book of Columba) is an illuminated manuscript Gospel book in Latin, containing the four Gospels of the ...

in Ireland, the publication of ten volumes of Tudor church music, and the publication of contemporary British musical compositions as the

Carnegie Collection of British Music __NOTOC__ The Carnegie Collection of British Music was founded in 1917 by the Carnegie United Kingdom Trust, Carnegie Trust to encourage the publication of large scale British musical works. Composers were asked to submit their manuscripts to an a ...

. After World War II, the Trust expanded its social welfare programs and released reports about health and nutrition in the United Kingdom. In 1996, the Trust launched The Carnegie Young People Initiative (CYPI), a youth programme designed to encourage young people to participate more positively in society. To support the goals of the CYPI, the Trust funded research, conferences, demonstration projects, training, networking, publications, and online initiatives. The Trust also advocated for issues affecting young people, such as giving 16-year-olds the right to vote. Trust staff members also acted as advisors to government departments, local authorities, the NHS, schools, and the voluntary sector. By the end of the program in 2007, CYPI provided £1.78 million of direct funding to 130 projects across the British Isles. Later that year, the Trust helped to secure £4m to create Participation Works, the national centre for youth empowerment in the United Kingdom. The Trust also co-funded the Carnegie Medal for Children's literature and organised a centenary festival for the first Carnegie library in 2007. In 2008, the Trust created the UK's first university based research centres for philanthropy and charitable giving in partnership with the UK and Scottish Governments and the Economic and Social Research Council. Soon after, the Trust's Royal Charter was changed to enable it to collaborate with foundations across the European Union. It became an active member of the European Foundations Centre and jointly funded youth empowerment and rural community development work as part of the Network of European Foundations. It also began to collaborate more closely with the Carnegie foundations in the United States and Europe.

Current activities

The remit of the Trust has been the same since it began in 1913, although the approach has changed over time. There was an increasing concern that the Trust's model of short-term funding, prevalent across the foundation world, had not been an effective way of addressing changing issues and needs. In 2004, Trustees decided to end the Trust's grant funding and to operate at a more strategic level in order to influence public policies and practice in more sustainable ways. One of the main reasons for this was the Trust's concern that the model of short-term, generally modest grant giving provided little evidence of sustainable change or impact upon deeper structural concerns in society. In relative terms the value of the endowment has also reduced significantly while the role of the state has increased, prompting a rethink of the role of the Trust. The Strategic Plan for 2016-2020 reconfirms that decision, outlining the role of the organisation as an operating Trust that makes proactive decisions about its projects and activities. The Trust no longer takes unsolicited grant applications, but seeks to build partnerships with other organisations for specific pieces of work. In August 2021, Carnegie UK released their new Strategy for Change - Learning how to live well together.