Investors have an option to donate half or full dividend from this fund to the Indian Cancer Society, a non-profit organisation which provides financial support to needy cancer patients

Want to mix some charity with growing your wealth? Look at HDFC Cancer Fund. HDFC Mutual Fund filed its draft offer document with the regulator for its three year close-ended income fund called 'HDFC Cancer Fund' (HCCF), a first of its kind initiative by a fund house, on 23 June 2010. The scheme will be launched in association with the Indian Cancer Society.

The scheme aims to protect capital and seeks to generate income by investing in debt and money market instruments and government securities. The scheme will invest 60% in debt and 40% in government securities. The units of the scheme will be listed on the National Stock Exchange (NSE).

The dividend proceeds will be donated to the Indian Cancer Society (ICS). Investors have an option to either donate 50% or the entire dividend (100%) to ICS subject to any tax at source. The investors are eligible for tax deduction under Section 80 G of the Income-Tax Act, 1961. The scheme comes with only dividend option. The dividends will be declared on a half-yearly basis. The fund does not carry an exit load.

The proceeds will be utilised by ICS to fund treatment of underprivileged cancer patients and to provide food and nutritional support. HDFC and ICS have jointly set up a governing advisory council (GAC), which will be entrusted with overseeing and directing the proceeds towards this cause. The members will consist of experts from the medical fraternity like Nihal Kaviratne, Keki Dadiseth, Homi Khusrokhan, Ajit Nimbalkar, MK Sharma, Dr Rustom Soonawala, Dr Rajendra Badwe, Dr Anita Borges, and Milind Barve. Besides, Dr Arun Kurkure and Smita Agarwal will also be permanent invitees to this group. This committee will approve utilisation and distribution of funds and appoint auditors for auditing and supervision of funds. 

Rating agency CRISIL has assigned 'AAA' rating to this fund which is benchmarked against the CRISIL Short-term Bond Fund Index.
HDFC Mutual Fund has a corpus of Rs1,01,863 crore of average assets under management (AUM) as on May 2010.

ICS was set up in 1951 by Dr DJ Jussawala and Naval Tata, and is the national anti-cancer association of India. ICS is a member of the World Health Organisation's International Expert Committee on cancer and represents India in the general assembly of the International Cancer Union. ICS helps needy cancer patients by offering food, medicine, transport, prostheses, colostomy bags, counselling, social welfare and job-placement services.

ICS presently has an all-India expense budget of Rs4.5 crore annually, of which Rs2 crore is funded through donations. Medical relief for the poor accounts for only Rs15 lakh due to budget constraints.