New £10m memorial grant builds on transformative giving to the charity during Julia’s lifetime
The Julia Rausing Trust has awarded £10 million to the Prince’s Trust to support its work with young people, including funding for its Women Supporting Women initiative. The grant will provide three-year funding for programmes in London and the South West that help young people aged 11-30 to build confidence, get a job or start a business.
Women Supporting Women was established at The Prince’s Trust in 2018 to help young women who face disadvantage and adversity to transform their lives. The initiative accelerates goals for gender parity and improves targeted support, ensuring more young women gain from the Trust’s programmes helping young people into jobs, self-employment, education or training.
The grant builds on Julia’s legacy of supporting young people through the Prince’s Trust. This donation marks almost £40 million of support for the Trust since 2016, with previous donations being given via the Julia and Hans Rausing Trust.
This support has enabled some of the Prince’s Trust’s most ambitious projects to support young people and helped lift thousands of young people out of hardship and set them on the path to more stable and fulfilling lives. Most memorably, her support enabled The Trust to open its impressive South London Centre in 2019, which has become a busy and vibrant space for young people to take their first steps into education, training, employment and enterprise.
A major grant to the Trust in Julia’s memory is especially fitting given that last year she worked closely on delivering a transformational donation of £10 million to The Prince’s Trust Endowment Fund as a Founding Benefactor (together with Hans Rausing). The Endowment Fund will ensure that The Prince’s Trust is able to serve young people long into the future, by helping to build a reliable and sustainable source of support for young people who face disadvantage and adversity in the UK.
The Prince’s Trust Chair, John Booth, said,
“The Prince’s Trust remembers and celebrates Julia with great fondness, as a philanthropic leader who inspired others and cared deeply about making a difference to the lives of others. She always loved visiting the projects she supported, meeting young people and their families, and hearing about the lives and experiences of those she helped.
It has been a pleasure and a privilege to work with Hans and Julia as key supporters of The Prince’s Trust over many years. Julia was a person of immense warmth and humanity, and we are delighted to be able to commemorate Julia’s passion for our work and her commitment to helping young people to flourish and overcome adversity.”
The Prince’s Trust CEO, Jonathan Townsend, said:
“All of us here at The Trust are immensely grateful for Julia’s remarkable kindness and generosity. She leaves an inspiring legacy of hope for all young people, no matter what adversities they face.
“Julia was a visionary philanthropist, displaying exceptional generosity to the communities that mattered to her most. Her impact lives on even after her passing, and I know she would have been enormously proud that her funding will change the prospects of thousands of young people who need our help. Crucially, it will allow us to expand our support for young women by further removing barriers, accelerating the presence of young women on tech and digital programmes, as well as improving our targeted support.
“Julia always shared our belief that when young people succeed, all of society benefits, and we are committed to giving them the opportunities and support they need to realise their potential. Without a doubt, this donation will have a substantial impact on young people’s lives, both now and into the future.”