In 1994, the newly established Ministry of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology responded to an invitation from Nedcor Bank and Sun International to set up a body for arts and culture, similar to the Sports and Green Trusts, which were established earlier. In this way, the first three Founding Trustees came together to secure financial and other resources for arts and culture, and to project the needs and role of the sector into the public domain. Each of the Founding Trustees contributed one million rand, which was invested in a Trust Fund, to ensure sustainability and to minimise dependence on annual grants. The interest accrued from capital investments was to be used to fund cultural projects in all the disciplines, across the country. At the same time, a Board of Trustees, made up of leading art practitioners and administrators, was established. Its task was to implement the funding policies, to evaluate projects and to decide on funding allocations. Former President Nelson Mandela endorsed the initiative and agreed to serve as the Patron-in-Chief of ACT. In this way, it came to be called the Arts and Culture Trust of the President during his term of office. During the first five years, two further Founding Trustees - the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands and Vodacom - joined ACT and contributed to the trust endowment. Thus, the partnership between the private sector, government and local cultural community was extended to include international cooperation.