start-up businesses since 1983, with 56% of Trustsupported businesses trading into their third year. The
Trust offers assistance in putting together a business
plan, matches participants with a business mentor for
two years, and offers start-up support for three years,
including test-marketing grants, and start-up grants
and loans. The sectors of business benefiting from the
Trust are diverse, representing service, media, arts and
entertainment, maintenance and building, fashion and
technology.
The Prince raises funds through, among other things,
exciting rock concerts; often, performers and bands
started through the Trust play alongside established
pop stars. Traditionally, the British government has at
times matched funds raised by the Prince, and individual
donors have made large commitments.
The thrust of the Prince's Trust is to cultivate autonomy,
financial and professional, in disadvantaged individuals
who might otherwise have none. One thinks, not so
much of charity, as of mitzvah, the act of kindness in
Jewish tradition, which endows a needy person with
self-sufficiency rather than a handout. As Dickens said
in Hard Times, "Do the wise thing and the kind thing
too, and make the best of us and not the worst." H
The Prince's Trust
www.princes-trust.org.uk
HYLAND
