About the Tolkien Trust

The Tolkien Trust is a UK registered charity and was established in 1977 by the four children of the author, J R R Tolkien, to enable the Tolkien family to give to its chosen charitable causes on a regular basis.

The Trust is wholly discretionary, which means that its constitution does not impose any limitations on the charities it may benefit; the trustees are therefore free to select those causes of interest to them. 

The Trust does not publish any guidelines concerning the charities of interest to them but their filed accounts give an indication of the nature and number of causes benefited in recent years. Many of the chosen charities are benefited on an annual basis, and a large number have received support  from the Trust for many years.

The Trust has traditionally supported a wide spectrum of charitable causes throughout the world including:

• emergency and disaster relief
• overseas aid and development
• the homeless and refugees
• healthcare charities, especially those focusing on illnesses of childhood and old age, the needs of disadvantaged communities and medical research
• religious causes promoting peace and reconciliation and work with impoverished communities
• environmental causes
• education and the arts

The Trust makes its decisions about donations once a year at the end of March/ beginning of April.

The Trust does not invite applications from charities in need of financial support.  In the vast majority of cases, the trustees make their decisions about whom to benefit on the basis of their own knowledge of charities operating in areas of interest to them, and their own research into activities of those charities.

The trustees do, however, consider the uninvited applications they receive from charitable organisations. See Applications to The Tolkien Trust for further information.


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