Operational records at the Cadbury Trusts
Early charitable giving by the Barrow and Geraldine S. Cadbury Trust, Barrow Cadbury Fund and Paul S. Cadbury Trust is recorded in the administrative records (minutes, accounts and subscription lists) of each organisation (see MS 1579/1). The amount of detail provided is usually limited to the name of the recipient and the sum donated. Prior to the 1970s and the introduction of purpose generated grant files the majority of giving by the trusts and Fund took the form of subscriptions, donations and annuities.
Only a small amount of paperwork relating to charitable activities survives from the first thirty years of the Cadbury Trusts. While a complete series of core governance and accounting records are present for all three organisations it is uncertain how much supplemental correspondence was generated during this period. Though it is likely that some of this material was discarded by Barrow or Paul it may also be the case that the administration of annual subscriptions and donations simply did not generate a great quantity of records. This process typically involved writing a cheque (most frequently on an annual basis) and then making a record of the transaction. Scrupulous oversight was not generally required.
The administration of annuities (effectively supplemental pensions) to Friends, former Cadbury household staff or others in need by the Barrow Cadbury Fund appears to be the exception. Correspondence with annuitants dating from as early as 1940 was consistently retained and later compiled into grant files. The personal ties felt by the Cadbury family toward many of these individuals may account for the high survivability rate of annuitants' records.
The pattern of giving begun by Barrow and Geraldine in the 1920s carried on well into the 1970s. However Paul Cadbury had a vision of what the trusts and Fund could accomplish that went well beyond supporting traditional Quaker causes. Paul desired that the Cadbury Trusts become involved in innovative projects to tackle social and economic problems. He reasoned that a successful project demonstrating a new model of best practice would in turn be adopted and implemented by local or central government on a larger scale. In an effort to increase the impact of the Cadbury Trusts Paul decided to recruit professional staff to assist him in running the organisations. By the mid-1970s two full time administrators, Anthony Wilson and Eric Adams were overseeing the administrative and charitable work of the Cadbury Trusts with the support of a small cadre of clerical staff.
It was during the late 1960s and early 1970s that the Cadbury Trusts began the transition from their traditional pattern of giving to grant making. This transition was later characterised by the phrase 'fewer and larger'. On the one hand fewer and larger meant proactively searching for new projects and areas of research that might demonstrate novel ways of tackling social and economic problems. It also meant a greater financial commitment to specific projects rather than providing core funding to grantees. On the other hand fewer and larger led to the pruning of subscriptions, annuities and small donations, usually on favourable terms to recipients.
The phrase fewer and larger does not take into account the marked increase in the value of Cadbury Trusts investments (almost entirely accounted for in Cadbury chocolate shares) during the 1960s and 1970s. With more money available to invest in the trusts and professional staff to supervise grant making the number of major grants ballooned during this period. The need to document the relationship between the Cadbury Trusts and grantees naturally led to the introduction of the grant file as a new class of records. It is during the 1970s that operational records move into a distinct category separate from the trusts' administrative records.
From the late 1960s onwards the Cadbury Trusts kept meticulous records of relations with grantees in order to track the success or failure of their work and to retain this information for future reference. This process led to the rapid accrual of grant files and later highlighted the need to transfer closed or inactive records to a regional collecting repository, Birmingham Archives.
The professional administrators of the Cadbury Trusts (using the titles 'Secretary' or 'Assistant Secretary') kept their own records with the support of dedicated clerical staff. Grant applications or enquiries were normally received by post and directed to a particular member of staff who was either known to the applicant or responsible for a particular portfolio, for example: race relations or employment. The application would usually be allocated a grant category subject reference at this stage, for example employment or education. Applications were initially assigned to one of three headings. Unexpected applications were termed 'out of the blues' and referred to as such in the Cadbury Trusts' own internal monthly review papers (see MS 1579/1/1/4). These applications were set aside and usually discarded. The second category, termed 'ARs' were applications received. These applications were generally expected but required additional information in order to arrive at a judgement. Lists of ARs and 'out of the blues' were included in the monthly review for Trustees and Directors' reference. Queries by Trustees or Directors could be raised at this time, usually in relation to ARs. Occasionally an 'out of the blue' application might be resurrected at this stage if a Trustee or Director expressed an interest. The third application category consisted of likely grants which were then assigned to the respective secretary and formally brought before Trustees or Directors for approval. This procedure remained relatively consistent throughout the tenures of Anthony Wilson and Eric Adams.
By 2002 the Trust was requesting paper or electronic expressions of interest in the form of a one hundred word project summary followed by a short project proposal outlining the aims of the organisation, background, budget, timetable and projected outcomes. Proposals falling outside of the Trust's grants criteria would immediately be discarded. Promising submissions would prompt a follow-up discussion and perhaps be selected for referral to Trustees or Directors at one of the termly meetings held during the year.
The level of staff supervision required for grants varied enormously based on the needs of the grantee and their relationship with the Cadbury Trusts. It is evident that a great deal of time was dedicated to monitoring early race relations grants made in Handsworth and Lozells. While project monitoring, liaison with grantees and financial accountability formed key elements of the secretary and assistant secretary's role, the Cadbury Trusts were keen not to place an undue reporting burden on small, busy community organisations. A site visit and discussion might, for instance, take the place of a formal report from the grantee. Trusts' staff adopted a mixed mobile and office based approach to grants administration.
The use of block grants for Northern Ireland projects and overseas student aid achieved remarkable success in increasing accountability by transferring routine oversight responsibilities from the Cadbury Trusts to organisations or institutions working directly in a given field. For instance, instead of directly administering two dozen separate applications for aid by overseas students, the trusts came to agreements with a number of Birmingham universities admissions' departments to transfer an annual lump sum to each organisation for the purpose of supporting students according to a given set of criteria. Work with the Fermanagh Trust on rural community development projects in Northern Ireland developed along similar lines.
To improve flexibility in grant making the Cadbury Trusts created a series of small grants schemes during the 1980s under the direction of a small group of Trustees/Directors and the daily administration of a specified member of staff. Small grants could be approved outside of formal quarterly meetings with the support of relevant trustees. The Minority Arts Programme provided the first successful test case and a model for future schemes.
Grants do not constitute the only form of charitable giving by the Cadbury Trusts from the 1960s onwards. While annuities and subscriptions have been mentioned already the use of loans has not. Paul Cadbury made a series of substantial loans to South Shields Corporation from 1959 onwards at a modest rate of interest. Loans to local government were broadly viewed as investments in communities and a means of achieving social and economic good. In this sense the Cadbury Trusts became pioneers in the field of social investment.
The use of financial investment as a charitable channel is now well-established at the Barrow Cadbury Trust. This means of giving is routinely utilised alongside traditional forms of grant making. As of 2014 social investments are divided between promoting the strategic aims of the charity in the areas of criminal justice, gender justice, racial justice and economic justice and developing the wider social investment market. Trust social investments seek to achieve a social return as well as a financial return to support grant making activities.
Grant organisation, categories and filing references
For record keeping purposes the Cadbury Trusts have traditionally organised their grant making activities into subjects or themes. This practice was introduced by Paul Cadbury in 1932 and first appears in the earliest accounts of his trust. The Barrow and Geraldine S. Cadbury Trust and the Barrow Cadbury funds did not adopt this filing convention until 1958 when Barrow Cadbury died and the leadership of the Barrow and Geraldine S. Cadbury Trust and Fund passed to Paul. Prior to 1958 Barrow and Geraldine's trust and the allied funds listed their donations and subscriptions based on geographic region: local (Birmingham), regional or national.
Grant headings were adopted as a convenient means of organising the trusts' grant records. The use of subject headings provided a readily comprehensible filing method and allowed annual reports to be broken down by areas of work. The names and functions of grant categories were subject to periodic revision, expansion and deletion in accordance with Cadbury Trusts' policies at a given time. While some categories were used for a sustained period (most notably criminal justice) others reflect more recent developments (for example, migration).
It is essential to regard grant categories as an administrative tool and not as isolated pieces of work carried out in a particular field for a fixed period of time. To consider categories separately divorces their specific reasoning from the Quaker values of social justice, peace and equality that underpin all of the work carried out by the Cadbury Trusts.
In his 1971 publication 'An Account of Three Charitable Trusts and a Benevolent Company' Paul Cadbury wrote:
…[T]he special interests of the present Trustees and the Directors of the Fund in 1970 represent in many cases a development of the concerns of the founders. Their children and their grandchildren grew up knowing about these concerns and their own interests have developed on similar, if not identical lines.
In summary, though the areas of work of the Cadbury Trusts have changed over time to meet the needs of the day, the underlying Quaker ethos remains unchanged.
Grant files do not appear in the records of the Cadbury Trusts until the late 1960s. Up to this period the administration of the trusts and Fund had largely been the responsibility of Barrow, Paul and their private secretaries at Cadburys. Organisational decisions and activities were reflected in a limited number of records, particularly meeting minutes, account books and annual financial summaries contained in the administrative records component of the catalogue (see MS 1579/1). Paul's desire to put the trusts and Fund on a more professional footing led to the recruitment of the Cadbury Trusts' first professional staff. There is a direct correlation between the appointment of Kenneth Nicholson in 1968, and his successor Anthony Wilson in 1969, and the dramatic increase in the number of records generated by the trusts and Fund, most notably grant files. Though the contents of some grant files may predate the professionalization of the Cadbury Trusts the vast majority of correspondence with grantees postdates 1968.
Grant files were used by the Barrow and Geraldine S. Cadbury Trust, the Paul S. Cadbury Trust, the Barrow Cadbury Fund Ltd., the Southfield Trust and the Barrow Cadbury Trust. It is common to find multiple organisations represented in the same grant file. The simplest way to determine what organisations were involved in a grant and how is to check the minutes included in each file.
The contents of a contemporary grant file differ remarkably little from those created in the late 1960s. The majority of files contain a relatively complete series of correspondence between grantees and Cadbury Trusts' staff, copy minutes or agendas referencing decisions about the grant and some form of progress report and financial accounting from the grantee. In addition to these record types many files contain grantee annual reports, publications, project proposals, newspaper cuttings and photographs.
Over time the Cadbury Trusts developed and used a series of standardised forms to capture key grant information in each file. These forms usually appear printed on blue paper and stapled to the interior of the grant file or as the first page in a file's contents. Blue forms were originally introduced in 1981 to allow the collation of individual grant details for use in annual reports. Certain types of information can be found in all incarnations of the blue form. These include, the name and contact details of the grant applicant, the organisation or project title, the source of funding (i.e. Barrow Cadbury Fund Ltd., Paul S. Cadbury Trust etc.) the grant category or theme (i.e. race relations, community organising etc.), a payment schedule and the date the grant was agreed with the relevant minute number.
Early variations of the blue form used from 1981 up to the early 1990s were computer printed and filled out by hand. These forms include sections to complete for the grant category, geographic focus of the grant and the grant's file reference number. Later variations of the blue form were computer generated with the fields populated from information contained in the Cadbury Trusts' electronic grants database. These forms adopt a different page layout and provide a comparatively streamlined summary of the grant application. An added feature is a field to record charity registration numbers. This can be used to cross-reference organisations with the Charity Commission.
Frequently grant files, particularly from applicants of long association with the Cadbury Trusts, will contain several blue form variations within the same file. Older form types would be retained as newer forms were generated and added to keep the file up to date. Blue forms were often left incomplete in both handwritten and computer populated variations. Handwritten annotations are common, referring perhaps to the transfer of payments from the Fund to the Trust or an alteration in the payment schedule. Grant overview 'blue forms' are particularly useful in providing a snapshot of a grant application and how the Cadbury Trusts administered it.
Minutes contained in grant files up to the late 1990s generally appear on gold or yellow paper, with agendas printed on green paper and excerpts from monthly reviews on pink paper. Following the merger of the trusts in 1994 programme minutes were printed on blue paper. This basic colour coding allows key organisational papers to be readily identified in each grant file. A general overview of colours follows:
Cadbury Trusts' minutes: gold, khaki
Agendas: green
Office meeting minutes and agendas: white
Monthly reviews: pink
Grant overviews: blue
Pre-1994 programme minutes: gold
Post-1994 programme minutes: blue, rarely in pink
It is anticipated that the majority of grant files deposited by the Trust after 2014 will be born digital records or a hybrid of paper and digital files. While the use of digital formats has implications for viewing the material at Birmingham Archives the contents of a digital grant file are similar, if not identical, to those found in a paper file.
The size and scope of each grant file varies considerably in relation to the amount and duration of the grant. As a rule of thumb, single small budget grants tend to result in smaller grant files while larger grants, particularly involving well-established grantees, often generate multiple, comprehensively documented files. For example, a grant made during 1986 of up to £500 to assist in the publication of an annotated catalogue of the works of Pogus Caesar did not result in an extensively documented grant file. However, the long-term collaboration between the Cadbury Trusts and anti-racist campaigning group All Faiths For One Race involved various projects and sustained core funding over twenty years resulting in eleven major grant files.
Grant files may relate to a single grantee or a variety of grantees depending on how the file was originally compiled. Files containing multiple grantees are usually organised under a common heading or budget, for instance 'Justice and Peace Small Grants' or 'Black churches'. Each file is labelled roughly according to its contents (grantee name, budget title or heading) though the Trust does not appear to have applied consistent naming conventions for its files. A closer inspection of many grant files reveals that some of the paper files used to store grants were reused over time and contain crossed out references to prior grantees.
The appointment of Anthony Wilson as the Cadbury Trusts' first full time administrator in 1969 led to not only to the introduction of purpose generated grant files but also a numerical classification system for grants based on their subject or category. Anthony had already used a similar system to good effect to organise civil service record keeping in Malawi. By the early 1970s the Cadbury Trusts' listed eight different grant categories in its annual reports:
1 - Society of Friends and other churches
2 - Peace and international relations
3 - Race relations
4 - Education
5 - Penal affairs
6 - Social Service
7 - Housing and planning
8 - Health and handicap
This list of grant categories (and their numerical references) remained relatively consistent until the merger of the Barrow and Geraldine S. Cadbury Trust with the Paul S. Cadbury Trust in 1994. Two exceptions are the employment category which emerged out of housing and planning in 1982/1983 and minority arts which was added as a new category in 1980/1981. While employment shared the reference number '7' with housing and planning, minority arts was assigned the next available number, '9'. Periodic alterations were also made to grant category titles prior to 1994 though these did not reflect a shift in the core function of each category. Personal grants made through the Barrow Cadbury Fund were not assigned a unique reference number.
A complete grant file reference code includes four pieces of information: the initials of the member of staff administering the grant, the grant category number, the number assigned to each grantee and the sequence number of each file associated with a particular grantee. For instance, the code 'AW/3/8/2' denotes Anthony Wilson/Race relations/West Indian Federation/file two. In practice this system was subject to considerable variation depending on who administered a file and when. For example, the initials of the administrator and the individual file number are often omitted.
Anthony Wilson and Assistant Secretary (later Director) Eric Adams were responsible for creating the preponderance of the grant files held in the Cadbury Trusts' archive collection. These files are relatively consistent in their use of Anthony's referencing system. However, grants from the mid-1980s and early 1990s administered by Secretaries Joe Montgomery and Dipali Chandra were filed differently, using a combination of administrator initials, letter of the alphabet (reflecting the grantee's name) and a unique number associated with each grantee. For example, the reference 'JM/I/1' denotes Joe Montgomery/the letter 'I'/the first of Montgomery's files from an organisation with a name beginning with 'I', the Independent Media Training Trust. This form of file referencing becomes dominant by the late 1980s and continues until the early 2000s. Grants created from 2000 onward are usually labelled with the name of the grantee only.
The merger of the trusts in 1994 resulted in a major reorganisation of grant categories. Of the previous categories only penal affairs remained in use. The list of categories from 1998/1999 is broadly representative and consists of the following:
Asylum, immigration and resettlement
Penal affairs
Community organising
Justice and peace
Disability
Gender
Racial justice
Other grants
Personal (Barrow Cadbury Fund Ltd.)
Further category reorganisation occurred during the early 2000s again reducing the total number of grant categories. By 2013/2014 three primary categories were in use: migration, criminal justice and resources and resilience. It is safe to anticipate that further revisions, deletions and additions to Trust grant categories will occur in future.
The cataloguing structure of operational records
Grant categories form the basis for the organisational structure of grant files in this catalogue. As of 2014 twenty-three distinct categories are represented in the catalogue structure. Arriving at this figure of twenty-three was the result of a varied programme of research focusing on, 1) the evolution of grant categories over time, 2) tracking longstanding grantees through the evolution of grant categories, 3) the study of annual reports and accounts and 4) interviews with current and former Cadbury Trusts' staff including Anthony Wilson, Eric Adams, Pamela Baker and Dipali Chandra.
In the catalogue structure, grants fall under the umbrella of operational records (see MS 1579/2). The term 'operational records' is used instead of 'grant records' to include other operational activities not articulated as grants. These records, not on deposit as of 2014, would likely include support for external organisations made through social investments and other activities falling intellectually between traditional grant making and Cadbury Trusts' internal financial management.
Below the operational records heading are the twenty-three grant categories. These are organised according to the order they appeared within Anthony Wilson's original grant classification scheme. Categories introduced later are included in a roughly chronological order.
Within each grant category files are further organised by the date they were deposited with Birmingham Archives, for instance: Operational records/Race relations/Grant files archived in 1999. This level of organisation allows for future deposits of grant files to be readily added to the catalogue structure under the next date of deposit. The semi-annual deposit of grant files and administrative records from the Cadbury Trusts began in 1989 and continues to the present day (2014).
Below the date of deposit individual grant files are organised alphabetically by the title of each file. As noted earlier researchers will encounter a degree of variation in naming conventions. Though file names most frequently refer to the name of the grantee some titles refer to the relevant Cadbury Trusts budget or the subject of the grants. An earlier incarnation of the catalogue structure for operational records envisaged a system with each grant thematic or subject containing a complete alphabetical list of grantees. However this structure would be unable to accommodate any future grant deposits without the extensive reorganisation of each alphabetical sequence.
The division of grants by category, and further by date of deposit, means that the records of some grantees may appear in different parts of the catalogue. This may be the result of an organisation's grants being transferred over the course of several deposits or because the grantee organisation carried out work in a number of different subject or theme areas. To facilitate searching the paper catalogue an alphabetical index of grantees and corresponding reference numbers accompanies the catalogue. More complex searches can be carried out through the online archives catalogue.
The archivist has attempted to reflect the original grant filing structure used by the Cadbury Trusts with minimal interventions. However a degree of rationalisation was required to convert this system into a functional archival catalogue. Categories that change name but retain their function and grantees remain grouped together as a single category. Categories with a distinct lineage that were later amalgamated by the trusts (health, education and social service) have been returned to their original classifications. The category 'current issues/other grants' has been artificially merged by the archivist from two separate catch all categories used by the trusts. Further details relating to the evolution each category can be found at the respective series level.
A series of minor interventions were also required when assigning grant files to a particular category. Many grant files cover a substantial date range that may overlap changes in the categories used by the trusts. This occurred most dramatically during the transitional period of the early 1990s when the Barrow Cadbury Trust was created from the merger of the Barrow and Geraldine S. Cadbury Trust and the Paul S. Cadbury Trust. Most grant files spanning this period begin in one pre-merger category and end up in a new post-merger category. Only penal affairs grants were immune to this wholesale reclassification. Where more than one category appears in a grant file it has been assigned to the earliest classification. Similarly, if a series of files from the same grantee arrives as part of a single deposit and the date range of these files covers multiple grant categories all of these files are assigned to the earliest category.
Some grant files never passed beyond the application stage and therefore cannot be considered as 'true' grant files. Since no grant was made the file may never have been associated with a category. In this case the archivist has assigned the file to the most appropriate subject category in use at the time of application.
Many files in the Cadbury Trusts collection relate to collaborative or strategic work with other trusts and foundations. While the preponderance of these files have been placed under the administrative records component of the catalogue (see MS 1579/1/1/9) some occupy a grey are between collaborative work and grant making due to the trusts' acting in part as a funder. In these circumstances the decision to assign the file to a particular sub-collection was taken based on an evaluation of each file. In the case of Citizens UK (formerly Community Organising Foundation) it was appropriate to include purely collaborative material under the administrative heading while files relating to project funding were classed as operational records.
The sheer quantity of operational records generated by the Cadbury Trusts suggests that the structure considered here will contain errors and inconsistencies. However it is hoped that the vast majority of grant files have been faithfully placed in their correct administrative context.
Key elements of a grant file in the archival catalogue
Grant files in the Cadbury Trusts collection contain a range of basic information including a the file title, date range, a description of contents, notes on access conditions (if any), a list of copyright holders, the extent and observations on physical condition.
Each entry contains six core pieces of information (where available) situated in the file's description field. Collectively this information provides a summary of the contents of the file and its function.
I: Record types contained
The first item of description provides a summary of the record types contained in the file. Typical components might include annual reports, minutes, agendas, correspondence, newspaper cuttings, project proposals, photographs, leaflets and various grant overview forms prepared by the Cadbury Trusts.
II: Organisations involved
The second item of description states which organisation(s) were involved in making and/or administering the grant(s). It is common for the Fund to have provided a channel for grants in addition to the trusts. Additionally, penal affairs grant files will often contain minutes recommending grants from the Southfield Trust. The Worgan Trust and Chapmans Hill School Farm Ltd. were not involved in grant making.
III: Applicant overview
The third item of description provides a brief overview of the applicant(s) and/or their project proposal(s). The amount of information included varies based on the contents of each file. Grant files relating to general subjects or programme budgets may only contain a list of applicants and not an explanation of their function or projects.
IV: Nature of support
The fourth item of description lists the nature of support for the grantee, usually including the total of the grant, the year it was approved, its duration and purpose. While some grant files refer to a single grant only, many deal with multiple grants made over a period of years.
V: Minute numbers
The fifth item of description provides a list of relevant Cadbury Trusts' minute numbers included in the file. These may pertain to organisations within the Cadbury Trusts or trusts' programmes. Copy minutes relevant to a grant were often included in the file for reference purposes. The following prefixes are used for referencing minute numbers:
Organisations
Barrow and Geraldine S. Cadbury Trust: B&GSCT (for example 'B&GSCT 6440' denotes Trust minute 6440)
Paul S. Cadbury Trust: PSCT (for example 'PSCT 443' denotes for Trust minute 443)
Southfield Trust: ST (for example 'ST 25/76' denotes Trust minute 25 from 1976)
Barrow Cadbury Trust (up to 2004): BCT (for example 'BCT 1327' denotes Trust minute 1327)
Barrow Cadbury Fund Ltd. (up to approximately 2004): BCF (for example 'BCF 2504' denotes Fund minute 2504).
Barrow Cadbury Trust (from 2004): T (for example 'T05/06-47' denotes Trust minute 47 from the financial year 2005/2006).
Barrow Cadbury Fund Ltd. (from approximately 2004): F (for example 'F05/06-31' denotes Fund minute 31 for the financial year 2005/2006)
Joint Trust and Fund business (from 2004): TM (for example 'TM05/06-88' denotes joint business minute 88 for the financial year 2005/2006)
Programmes
Minority Arts Programme: MAP (for example 'MAP 70/83' denotes programme minute 70 from 1983)
Racial Justice Programme: RJP (for example 'RJP 15/99' denotes programme minute 15 from 1999)
Community Organising Programme: COP (for example 'COP 6/96' denotes programme minute 6 from 1996)
Disability Programme: DP (for example 'DP 7/98' denotes programme minute 7 from 1998)
Reconciliation Programme: RP (for example 'RP 1/95' denotes minute 1 from 1995)
Justice and Peace Programme: JPP (for example 'JPP 10/95' denotes programme minute 10 from 1995)
Gender Programme: GP (for example 'GP 4/97' denotes programme minute 4 from 1997)
Civil Rights Programme: CRP (for example 'CRP 8/98' denotes programme minute 8 from 1998)
Asylum, Immigration and Resettlement Programme: AIRP (for example 'AIRP 3/00' denotes programme minute 3 from 2000)
Penal Affairs Programme: PAP (for example 'PAP 5/99' denotes programme minute 5 from 1999)
Organisational minute numbers and those from the Minority Arts Programme can be used as search terms for the Birmingham Archives online catalogue.
VI: Notes
The final item of description allows for the addition of any pertinent information not included elsewhere. This section is routinely used to describe if the date range of the file runs from newest to oldest or from oldest to newest and if the file contains multiple copies or components. Beyond this informati