Our Lead Executive is supported by a team of three part-time staff:
Innovation and Special Projects Lead
Assistant Trust Executive
Trust Assistant
The Indigo Trust is a UK based grant-making trust, established by Fran Perrin OBE in 1999, and registered with the Charity Commission for England and Wales, charity number 1075920.
It is one of 16 independent grant-making trusts established by three generations of the Sainsbury family, known jointly as the Sainsbury Family Charitable Trusts (SFCT). You can learn more about SFCT values and policies here.
The Indigo Trust is governed by a Board of Trustees who meet formally twice a year with occasional ad hoc meetings as required. All Indigo trustees are decision makers on all grants and the Trust does not operate any sub-committees. The Register of Interests is reviewed twice a year.
Investment Approach
At Indigo Trust, we are committed to responsible and transparent investment practices that align with our values and charitable objectives. We draw on the Charity Investment Governance Principles (CIGP) – a voluntary guide that offers practical support to charity trustees in making informed investment decisions. These principles complement the Charity Commission’s guidance CC14 and help bring to life the legal framework established through the Butler-Sloss case. Together, they form the foundation of our approach to investment governance.
Our Investment Committee, in close collaboration with trustees, our staff team and colleagues across SFCT – particularly in finance and impact investing – works to ensure that Indigo adopts best practice and meets all regulatory requirements.
A Sustainable Investment Strategy
In 2025, our trustees made the decision to transition our managed portfolio to a Sustainable Multi-Asset Fund. This move reflects our long-term commitment to sustainability and our belief that investments should support a more equitable and environmentally responsible future.
Ongoing Review and Transparency
Summary of Indigo's Investment Policy. We work closely with our Investment Committee to ensure the highest level of scrutiny and due diligence. Trustees review our Investment Policy annually.
In the course or our work, it is unlikely that the Trust's staff or trustees will have direct, unsupervised contact with a child or adult at risk, but we recognise our responsibility for promoting best practice with regards to safeguarding. All staff and trustees will have a Disclosure and Barring Service check every two years.
If you have a safeguarding concern about an organisation we fund, you may report this to us at: indigo@sfct.org.uk
If you have a safeguarding concern about a member of staff or trustee, you may report this at: safeguarding@sfct.org.uk
Fran Perrin OBE
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William Perrin OBE
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Sonia Sodha
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Dominic Flynn
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Thrisha Haldar
Lead Executive
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Our Lead Executive is supported by a team of three part-time staff:
Innovation and Special Projects Lead
Assistant Trust Executive
Trust Assistant
We value diversity and know that, as a grant maker, we need to include a range of experiences and perspectives to be effective. We also expect everyone who works for us to treat all people, regardless of their background, with dignity and respect.
For external scrutiny and accountability, the Trust has become a partner in the Foundation Practice Rating initiative, which rates a sample of Grant Makers on their transparency, diversity and accountability on an annual basis. Results of the rating revealed that Indigo Trust could be more robust in addressing Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI). In response, the Trust has started to collect DEI data and is developing a strategy with measurable targets and regular reviews on progress.
The Indigo Trust is one of the Sainsbury Family Charitable Trusts (SFCT). SFCT operates recruitment and employment practices that encourage diversity, equity and inclusion in its workforce. You can learn more about SFCT's approach here.
SFCT is an accredited Living Wage Employer and a Disability Confident Employer (level 1) including all externally contracted workers. You can read SFCT's DEI policy here.
Indigo Trust collects data on its staff and trustees to inform its approach to DEI. More details below:
Staff Team*
Trustees
*Indigo Trust has a core team of three people. Two other members of the Sainsbury Family Charitable Trusts’ central team provide support services for the Trust. All members of the team work on a part-time basis.
In 2025/26 Indigo will track its grant-giving against the DEI data standard.
We will continue to monitor the gender, disability, sexual orientation, ethnicity and socio-economic background of our staff team and trustees.
Staff who work for The Indigo Trust will be part of a wider gender and ethnicity pay gap analysis across the Sainsbury Family Charitable Trusts (SFCT).
We will be transparent in our internal and external communications by making our online and printed materials accessible in format and compliant to the international standards (WCAG 2.1 AA).
We will publish updates on progress on the above on this website.
In creating this website we have taken care to make the site as accessible as possible and are always striving to improve the accessibility of the websites that SFCT have control of. This site is a work in progress, however, there are some features that we hope will improve the accessibility of this site:
You should be able to change the size of the text in your web browser menu, or alternatively if your mouse has a scroll wheel you can hold down the CTRL key whilst moving the scroll wheel forwards (text gets larger) or backwards (text gets smaller)
Images have alternative text descriptions where needed
Most links will open in your existing browser window, enabling you to use your browser back to navigate
However, we appreciate there is always more that can be done and we welcome any comments on how easy, or not, this site is to use and any suggestions on how it may be improved. If you have any comments regarding accessibility please email us at indigo@sfct.org.uk or see our Contact information for other ways to get in touch.
Copyright © 2025 The Indigo Trust
