The Cinquefoil Trust

Registered charity 1182006 · since 2019mi5.gov.uk/about-us/partnerships/cinquefoil-trust·England, Wales·Updated 29 October 2026

Overview

The Cinquefoil Trust is a charity registered with the Charity Commission for England and Wales (charity number 1182006).

The Cinquefoil Trust is a charity registered with the Charity Commission for England and Wales (charity number 1182006), and it exists to provide support to its beneficiaries when they need it, whatever the cause. It supports current and former MI5 staff, their dependants and people in a qualifying family relationship who face challenging circumstances. Its help includes grants and interest-free loans for personal hardship, and it has introduced capped schemes for home-schooling costs during the Covid pandemic, for counselling, and for accommodation costs for new or recent joiners. The Trust also makes grants to registered charities, and it made two such grants in the period covered by the annual report.

What they fund

Priority Areas

The Trust supports current and former MI5 staff, their dependants and people in a qualifying family relationship who face challenging circumstances. Its objects encompass relief of need linked to health, disability, age, financial hardship or disadvantage, and support to enhance morale and wellbeing. The annual report describes grants and interest-free loans for personal hardship, typically where a significant adverse change has affected the beneficiary’s finances; assistance has also helped with necessary costs such as utilities and domestic repairs. The report describes schemes addressing counselling, home-schooling costs and accommodation for new or recent joiners relocating for employment. Its objects also include grants to registered charities, and it has made grants to such charities.

Themes

Financial hardship
Health and disability
Morale and wellbeing

How to apply

The Trust’s objects include grants to registered charities. For support to eligible staff, former staff and qualifying family members, applicants may write to the Trust at PO Box 3255, London, SW1P 1AE, including simply to ask whether it may be able to help.

Who can apply:

All staff and former staff, and their dependants and those in a family relationship with them, are eligible to apply for assistance, irrespective of length of service or grade.

Where they fund

Registered area of operation (Charity Commission)

Similar funders

Funders supporting work similar to The Cinquefoil Trust.

Equitable Charity TrustNo public processGave £214k The Robin Macleod Charitable TrustNo public processGave £431k The Hosking Charitable TrustInvitation onlyGave £360k The Tula TrustRollingGave £400k The John Macleod Charitable TrustNo public processGave £290k The White Oak Charitable TrustNo public processGave £67,000 The Wyfold Charitable TrustRollingGave £315k Kropifko Charitable TrustNo public processGave £23,000 The Millennium Oak TrustRollingGave £355k Cecil Pilkington Charitable TrustRollingGave £484k

Five years of accounts

Financial year	Income	Expenditure	Grants paid	Accounts document
year to 31 March 2021	£131,226	£202,789	—	Accounts for year to 31 March 2021
year to 31 March 2022	£212,751	£320,162	—	Accounts for year to 31 March 2022
year to 31 March 2023	£516,204	£380,487	—	Accounts for year to 31 March 2023
year to 31 March 2024	£538,007	£374,838	—	Accounts for year to 31 March 2024
year to 31 March 2025	£579,170	£380,635	—	Accounts for year to 31 March 2025

— No grants figure for that year.

Figures from the charity’s filed accounts and its register entry. The document icon links to the charity’s entry on the Charity Commission register, where its filed accounts can be found.