Building A Sustainable Charity For Lasting Trust

The Swedish Benevolent Trust's story and evolution demonstrates a flexible, caring and engaging approach, with  compassion to meeting the needs of the members of the Swedish community throughout the UK.

Executive Summary

With a wide history spanning over three hundred years, the support provided by The Swedish Benevolent Trust (SBT) today continues to evolve and strengthen. We think the key difference is that we listen to the people we're here to serve.

From a small congregation-based welfare initiative in the early 18^th century to a registered charitable trust in 2023, we have navigated a number of changes to continue the long tradition of social and welfare support. It demonstrates how organisations rooted in cultural values of compassion, 'lagom' and collective care can create intergenerational difference.

We achieve this by building trust through our consistent presence during both an individual's time of personal vulnerability, alongside the broader challenges that affected UK society.

The Foundation: Where Community Need Meets Cultural Heritage

Imagine London's docklands in 1726 as Swedish migrants arrived in Wapping - many disoriented by their arrival in a foreign land, as they faced language barriers, economic uncertainty and isolation from everything familiar. The newly formed local Swedish Congregation recognised what every vulnerable immigrant needs most: not just material assistance but connection, dignity and a sense of home.

Our founders established our first permanent presence right where the newly arrived felt most lost - by the many docks where people disembarked the ships that carried their many hopes and dreams of building a new life in a foreign country.

Our roots were anchored around lagom - the Swedish principle of balance and sufficiency - translated into community action and the idea that mutual support should stem from a shared identity and goal, rather than an obligation to contribute.  The need and sense of shared responsibility and belonging continue to guide us, navigating social, economic, regulatory and political transformation.

Maintaining A Relevant Perspective

By the 1800s, the Swedish Congregation faced a pivotal challenge that would define its future: welfare demands had grown beyond what a religious organisation could manage alongside its spiritual mission.

• Families needed housing support.

• Workers required emergency funds during illness.

• The elderly sought community in their final years.

The Swedish congregation's original model, while effective for its time, couldn't scale to meet expanding needs. This pattern would repeat throughout history - each era presenting new challenges that demanded strategic adaptation.

In the late 1880’s, the main question arose in terms of how to preserve the essence of the Swedish community care while adapting to serve the people more effectively? Which is how the Scandinavian Benevolent Society was formed.

Our name and structure have changed and evolved. Some Swedish community formations and activities have a great heritage, dating back from the early 1900s; including The Swedish School and the Christmas Fair. Other organisations and activities weren't able to stand the test of time, such as the closure of the Margareta Home in 1982, when the Swedish government could no longer contribute funding.

Eventually, the sales proceeds from the retirement home evolved into The Swedish Benevolent Trust with a mission to continue the long tradition of social and welfare support for Swedes in the UK.

Some of the essential questions we continue ask are;

• How do we maintain the personal, community support while building systems robust enough to survive economic shifts, policy changes and evolving social needs?

• How do we stay true and relevant to the legacy of our origin and embrace modern governance and financial practices?

• How do we continue to expand our inclusivity, to cover the whole of the UK and continuing to evolve beyond 2023, as a non-religious charity?

We believe the true measure of the success of community-centered support isn't found in annual reports - it's discovered in the moments when someone in crisis knows where to turn.

When a Swedish family in the UK faces unexpected hardship, when an elderly community member needs support, when young people seek cultural connection and to understand their roots, SBT is an organisation that has been meeting those needs and much more, since before their great-great-great-grandparents were born.

The impact and legacy is challenging to measure - Families who received support in one generation become donors and volunteers in the next, not from obligation but from lived experience of what community care means and its felt impact.  Perhaps most significantly, the evolution from congregation-based mutual aid to modern registered charity preserved what matters most: the principle that support should empower rather than create dependency, that dignity matters as much as material assistance, and that cultural connection provides resilience during difficult times.

Recipients of Trust support don't experience charity as something done to them by outsiders—they experience it as community care, as folkhemmet in action, as what happens when people look after their own.

Looking Forward

The 2023 transition to a limited charitable trust with member oversight represented the most recent adaptation: creating modern governance structures with appointments from the Swedish Ambassador, the Swedish UK Chamber of Commerce and the Swedish Church, ensuring accountability while maintaining connection to community institutions.

We are now positioned and excited about our next chapter, with clear accountability mechanisms and strong connections to key community institutions. Our stable financial base enables strategic thinking beyond year-to-year survival, allowing Trustees to address emerging needs proactively rather than reactively.