The A T Ariyaratne Charitable Trust was established on 24t December 1994 by Dr A T Ariyaratne, Founder of the Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement of Sri Lanka by donating the entirety of the prize monies he received from the Niwano Peace Prize from Japan awarded to him for demonstrating the practice of compassion and nonviolence based on a spirit of religion.
From the very inception of the Centre Dr Ariyaratne’s intention was to make the Centre self-reliant and not to depend on external funding sources. The proceeds of the Gandhi Peace Prize became the corpus of the capital of the Trust and in terms of the Trust Deed the capital shall not be utilized and only 75% of the interest shall be utilized for the realization of the objectives and 25% of the interest shall be credited to the capital. In 2007 the Trust Fund Capital was enhanced by a donation made by Mr Steve Nations a longstanding friend of Dr A T Ariyaratne in memory of his late wife Mrs Jan Nations who was a great admirer of Dr A T Ariyaratne and his work.