New UK private client wealth manager Spencer-Churchill Miller Private is setting up a fundraising grant-making foundation that will enable its team to give something back by using their “connections and resources” for charitable purposes.

SCM Philanthropy will make grants to charities that are not “household names” as well as projects and individuals, in the UK and beyond. The foundation aims to keep operational and administrative costs at a maximum of 15% of total funds. Charity Market Monitor 2009 says non-grant-making expenditure for the top 300 trusts and foundations, a closest comparable figure, is on average 17%.

Chair of SCM Philanthropy Gina Miller said, “We are lucky to be in the social position where we are able to marshal our connections and resources to raise a considerable amount for charitable causes."

SCM Philanthropy will hold two main fundraising dinners per year which have been secured with the help of luxury art dealers The Halycon Gallery, who this month helped the Royal Parks launch the ISIS sculpture in Hyde Park. From next year the ‘ISIS Dinners’ will be held in April and September.

“We decided we could achieve more by fundraising than by making individual and company donations to the foundation,” Miller says.

Forty per cent of grants will go to environmental causes and the remainder will go to charities with limited access to fundraising, business or administration resources.

Trustees will include Alexander Spencer-Churchill, who will act as chief fundraiser while continuing to introduce high-net-worth individuals to SCM Private, and Lady Emily Compton, who will also fundraise. The other trustees are Alan Miller and Rebecca Cheetham.

The trustees will hold donated funds in a savings account to minimise risk.