About the Waterloo Foundation

The Waterloo Foundation (TWF) is an independent grant-making Foundation created in 2007, and based in Cardiff, Wales. We give grants to organisations in both the UK and world-wide.

We want to help both the global community and the local community here in Wales

We are most interested in projects that help globally particularly in the areas of the disparity of opportunities and wealth and the unsustainable use of the world’s natural resources.
We are a registered charity with the Charity Commission for England and Wales (charity number 1117535).

Grant Making

We hope to make annual grants of around £15 million for charitable purposes in our core programme areas of:

World Development

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The Environment

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Child Development

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Wales

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Our History

Students in Mpika ZAMBIA photo by Cat Cardwell

The Waterloo Foundation (TWF) was established by our founding Trustees, Heather and David Stevens, in 2007.

Heather and David Stevens were part of the small team which launched the insurance group Admiral in 1993 in Cardiff. Since its launch Admiral has grown to become one of the largest private sector employers in Wales. In 2004 Admiral Group plc was floated on the London Stock Exchange.

TWF was formally registered with the England and Wales Charity Commission in early 2007, when Janet Alexander and Caroline Oakes joined Heather and David as Trustees of the Foundation. Heather and David made a donation of Admiral Group plc shares to a (then) value of £99 million to establish the Foundation’s endowment fund. In April 2007 the Foundation established and launched its own website, and we began operating from our Cardiff-based offices in October that year.

In 2025, we celebrating our 18th year. To date we are delighted to have made over 4,200 discrete grants, and to have awarded over £160 million of funding in support of our charitable objectives. For examples of some of the brilliant organisations we have been able to support over the years, please see our various grant programme pages.

Trustees

The Waterloo Foundation has four Trustees:

Heather Stevens (Chair of Trustees)
David Stevens
Caroline Oakes
Luke Stevens

In 2020 the Foundations sadly recorded the loss of our Trustee and friend, Captain Janet Alexander. Janet was a loyal Trustee of the Waterloo Foundation since its inception in 2007. Janet was an exceptionally hardworking Trustee, attending an extraordinary number of meetings (76 out of 79!) whilst working full time, with all the attendant reading and workload that entailed. Her intelligent scrutiny of our work raised many important issues and improved the work that we have been able to do.

On top of this, she also went on fact-finding missions for the Foundation to Ghana, Rwanda and Ethiopia, and attended numerous events including the launch of our Size of Wales rainforest campaign, as well as a wonderful evening onboard Greenpeace’s Rainbow Warrior where she was allowed to sit in the captain’s seat, a change of transport mode from her own aviation captaincy. She was a formidable woman, strong of principle and opinion, yet with the warmest and most generous of hearts. She was much loved by us all and she will be much missed.

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