City backs Prince's charity with first Invest & Give Fund

Twelve of the best known brands from the UK's fund management industry have partnered with a charity to create a new way to give to charity without the donor feeling like they have made a financial sacrifice.

The first of its kind, Invest & Give is a partnership between twelve of the UK's leading fund management companies and The Prince's Trust, a leading British youth charity, to create the opportunity for people to both Invest (for themselves) & Give (to others) without feeling like they are sacrificing any of their investment returns.

So how does it work? The Invest & Give Fund offers the potential to grow your savings by investing in a range of investment funds. The annual cost of investment in the fund is 2.25% (this is in line with the average annual TER for this type of investment fund); 0.6% of this annual cost is the donation to The Prince's Trust charity. This is unlike any present philanthropic investment scheme.

What makes Invest & Give unique is that donations through investments made by UK tax payers will, for the first time, have the added benefit of Gift Aid. This equates to an additional 28p for every £1 that The Prince's Trust receives from investors in the fund So, using simple mathematics, if the fund is £100m in size, the percentage of the cost of investment for that year that is donated to The Prince's Trust is 0.6% which equates to £600,000. With Gift Aid this would increase to £768,000.

The Prince's Trust is a leading UK youth charity, giving 600,000 young people the skills and qualifications to find a job since its launch in 1976. Martina Milburn, chief executive of The Prince's Trust, said; "In times of economic crisis, young people from the most disadvantaged backgrounds are hit first, are hit the hardest and will continue to struggle long after the green shoots of recovery are well established. It is therefore not only very timely, but hugely inspiring that the fund management industry has united in such a positive way to change young lives."

Former Conservative cabinet minister The RT Hon the Lord Young of Graffham, President of The Prince's Trust Patrons Network and Chairman of the Invest & Give Advisory Committee comments; "For the very first time Invest & Give will align the interests of the City, individual investors and the community in an endeavour that will produce, over and above the usual returns because it will help young people back to work through the work of The Prince's Trust. Invest & Give is setting a challenge to the financial community by creating a socially responsible investment and I hope that this will be but the first of many such funds in the years to come."

Invest & Give is a multimanager fund and the portfolio manager is John Husselbee, a respected fund manager with more than 20 years experience of running portfolios. The fund will invest across asset classes, regions and investment funds, seeking to achieve long term capital growth on behalf of investors. The annual cost for investors in the fund is 2.25%, which is in line with the industry average and 0.6% of this cost is donated directly to The Prince's Trust.

Campbell Fleming was one of the key co-ordinators of the Invest & Give Fund initiative. A key aim, of the project, was to find a new way for investors to support the long-term future of the UK, by investing in the long-term future of young people in partnership with The Prince's Trust. The project is supported by a number of the UK's leading asset management companies.

Campbell Fleming comments on the Invest & Give Fund;

"In 2007 Lord Young asked if the City and Financial Services were ‘putting enough back?' It was a remarkably prescient question and prompted myself and others within the Industry to develop the Invest & Give Fund.

"The industry is not short of bright and engaged people who want to do a little more in their communities. Invest & Give reflects that and two years of hard work. The fund evolved thanks to an unprecedented amount of cross industry effort and co-operation. Together we have developed a simple, competitive product for investors with a pricing structure that enables them to give without noticing and to utilise Gift Aid, an elegant, excellent philanthropic ‘booster' mechanism. Everyone who has been involved in bringing this product to the market firmly believes that Invest & Give will do enormous good through its support of The Prince's Trust and we have many exciting plans for the future of the Invest & Give concept and the continuation of the co-operative effort that brought it to fruition."

There will be an initial offer period for the Fund running from the 10th July to the 17th August. The initial charge will be discounted to 1% and unit price will be £1 for his period.

Details on how to invest can be found on investandgive.co.uk