2016–2026 · Ten years of giving

Impact giving,lasting change

We back people, ideas and places that help children and families across the UK thrive: through adoption and fostering support, critical and terminal illness, and business education.

A children's nurse helping a young patient with her schoolwork at her hospital bed, her mother beside them on a bright children's ward

Teenagers in a community learning centre: one writing on a whiteboard, two laughing over laptops, one talking with a mentor by the window

An adoptive father building a tower of wooden blocks with his young daughter on the living room floor, her mother reading on the sofa behind them

How we help

Three areas of support

Adoption & fostering

Support for parents, carers and children as families find stability and a place to belong.

Partners
Adoption Matters · Adoption UK

Critical & terminal illness

Grant funding for charitable work supporting children facing serious illness and their families.

Partner
Edinburgh Children's Hospital Charity

Business education

Helping young people develop practical business knowledge, confidence and possibility. Alongside this UK work, the Trust funded The Welch Learning Centre in Bali, providing computer facilities and library resources to local school children.

Partners
The King's Trust · Bali Children's Project (international initiative)

The Welch Trust presenting a £140,000 cheque to Edinburgh Children's Hospital Charity at the Royal Hospital for Children and Young People

The Welch Trust's £140,000 gift to Edinburgh Children's Hospital Charity.

Trust grant · Healthcare

A new treatment. A life transformed.

Working with Edinburgh Children’s Hospital Charity and NHS Lothian, the Trust helped bring MRI-guided laser surgery for epilepsy to Scotland. For teenager Angus Bain, the treatment brought freedom from the weekly seizures he had lived with for thirteen years.

Read Angus’s story

Cover of Edinburgh Children's Hospital Charity's LITT Impact Report 2026 for The Welch Trust

ECHC LITT Impact Report 2026

Five years on, the gift is still changing lives.

In 2026, four more children underwent LITT surgery in Edinburgh, each with fewer seizures afterwards and several now seizure-free. Edinburgh Children's Hospital Charity's report to the Trustees tells of a four-year-old back at nursery, a ten-year-old back on the football pitch, and a two-year-old whose personality is developing free from daily seizures for the first time in her life.

Read the full report

Edinburgh Children's Hospital Charity, report to the Trustees, September 2026.

Trust initiative · Adoption

Free training for the people who care for adopted children.

The Trust helped shape and fund a series of online training videos with Adoption Matters' Centre for Fostering and Adoption Support. Freely available to adoptive families, foster carers, children and the professionals who work with them, they pass on the knowledge of an experienced therapeutic team to anyone who needs it.

Watch the training videos

"The filming of our online training videos were generously funded by The Welch Trust." Adoption Matters

Explore Adoption Matters

Michael Welch OBE

Why the Trust exists

A personal understanding of what stability can make possible.

Fostering and adoption

Michael was fostered from birth and later adopted by the family who raised him. He knows first-hand what a stable, loving home can make possible, which is why adoption and fostering sit at the heart of the Trust, and why he now serves as a Trustee of the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption.

A £500 start from The King’s Trust

He left school at sixteen. At seventeen, a £500 grant from The Prince’s Trust (now The King’s Trust) backed his first business. That early belief led to a career in enterprise, and today he sits on the Advisory Board of The King’s Trust USA.

Learning differently

Michael has spoken openly about growing up with dyslexia and dyscalculia, and about how school did not suit the way he learned. It is part of why the Trust believes in practical, hands-on routes into education and enterprise for young people.

In 2016 he was appointed OBE for services to business and voluntary service to adoption and fostering.

Supported by the Trust

Bravely Being Me: brilliant stories of adopted people.

The Welch Trust sponsored the creation of this children’s book, published with Adoption UK. It brings together real-life stories of adopted people from all walks of life, showing how they found strength, hope and self-belief, and did incredible things.

Michael is one of the people featured, sharing his own adoption story and his journey from tyre fitter to entrepreneur.

“In your life there are few things more special than people who care about you. If you’re lucky enough to be one of those who is cared about, don’t forget to pass it on.”

Edited by Sam Langley-Swain · Illustrated by Nicci Martin · With Adoption UK

Explore Adoption UK

Mike Welch's pages in Bravely Being Me: his illustrated portrait, the story of his businesses and his adoption story — Mike's pages in Bravely Being Me.

Beyond the Trust

Leadership, patronage and advisory roles.

Michael's commitment to the causes the Trust supports extends beyond his own foundation. These roles are held by Michael personally rather than by the Trust: as a trustee, a patron and a donor, including with organisations based outside the UK.

Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption: Trustee of the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption, which works across the United States to find permanent homes for children waiting in foster care.
The King's Trust: At seventeen, Michael's first business was backed by a £500 grant from The Prince's Trust. He has since returned that belief many times over as a long-term donor and Patron of the Trust, a meeting room at the charity bears The Welch Trust's name, and he now sits on the Advisory Board of The King's Trust USA.

Impact coverage

The story, independently told.

Reporting and partner accounts offer an outside view of what thoughtful funding can unlock for children, families and the organisations beside them.

BBC NewsDecember 2023

Pioneering laser surgery brings new hope to children living with epilepsy

BBC Scotland reports on the first young person to receive the Trust-supported MRI-guided treatment in Scotland.

Edinburgh Children’s Hospital CharityImpact story

Angus is seizure-free after life-changing surgery

The hospital charity’s account of the partnership, the treatment and what the outcome meant for one family.

OSCRThe official record

The Welch Trust on Scotland’s charity register

The Trust’s independent regulatory listing, charitable purposes and published reporting record.

Our founder in the news

From a £500 grant to the gala stage.

Michael on The King’s Trust and the grant that started it all.

A King's Trust event stage, with a large portrait of Michael Welch and his first name projected on screen behind the speakers — Michael recognised on stage at The King’s Trust USA gala.

Speaking at a Prince’s Trust gala.

Michael Welch reading from a programme in a spotlight on stage at The King's Trust gala, the audience in silhouette — Addressing guests at The King’s Trust 50th anniversary gala, New York.

The Associated PressMay 2026

Could the Trust support your work?

Awards support charitable purposes across the UK within the Trust's three focus areas. Apply online below. It takes around 20 minutes, and you can attach your supporting documents as you go.

Apply for funding Email the Trust