The Church of England (CofE) has formed an advisory group to oversee its £100 million ($127 million) fund created to address the church’s historic links to the transatlantic slave trade.

The fund was established in January as a response to a report (25 pages, PDF) by the Church Commissioners for England—the charity organization that manages the CofE’s £10.3 billion ($13.1 billion) investment fund—detailing the church’s involvement in the slave trade through investments related to the South Sea Company, which transported tens of thousands of slaves in the 1700s. Those investments and related bonds and annuities have a potential value of more than £2.2 billion ($2.8 billion) today.

The Oversight Group, appointed by the Church Commissioners, will distribute the funds over nine years across a range of impact investments and grants focused on improving opportunities for communities adversely impacted by historic slavery.

The 14-member Oversight Group will be led by the bishop of Croydon Rosemarie Mallett, who will serve as chair, and WHO Foundation chief impact investment officer Geetha Tharmaratnam, who will be vice chair. Other members include Ford Foundation director of mission investments Roy Swan; Chemonics UK director of impacting investing and sustainable finance Tara Sabre Collier; Ten Years’ Time CEO Derek Bardowell; Heirs of Slavery Group co-founder Alex Renton; Financial Times columnist Jonathan Guthrie; activists Esther Stanford-Xosei, Priscellia Robinson, and Patrick Vernon; academics Christienna Fryar and Richard Drayton; and theologians Anderson Jeremiah of Lancaster University and Michael Clarke, a principal of Codrington College in Barbados.

“It is important for the Church Commissioners to understand and be transparent about our past so we can best support the mission and ministry of the Church of England, today and in the future,” said David Walker, bishop of Manchester and deputy chair of the Church Commissioners. “We will seek to address past wrongs by investing in a better future, which we plan to do with the response plan…including the £100 million funding commitment we are making. We hope this will create a lasting positive legacy, serving and enabling communities impacted by slavery.”

(Photo credit: Getty Images/A Tom)