The Prince of Wales has become the patron of World Jewish Relief, the charity has announced.

It is the first time the royal has been patron of a Jewish organisation working outside of the UK.

Nigel Layton, WJR life vice-president, said the charity was delighted.

"Prince Charles loves the Jewish aspect of our work, but also that we help non-Jews as well," he said. "Our disasters work - he really likes the fact that, after the [2004] tsunami, we helped Indonesia, Sri Lanka - countries Jewish people wouldn't normally help."

WJR runs projects tackling poverty within the Jewish world and responds to international disasters. Its current appeal for victims of the Nepal earthquake has raised over £500,000.

The prince has been a supporter of the charity for 12 years. WJR asked his office if he would like to become patron.

"They wrote to us a few months ago and said 'Yes, he'd be delighted'," said Mr Layton. "We'll involve him generally, but the areas we'd most like to take forward with him are helping Holocaust survivors and also our core work, helping vulnerable Jewish people."

He added: "Prince Charles came to us initially in 2002 and asked us to help Holocaust survivors in Krakow after he went out there. We agreed with him that we would raise the money and build a brand new Jewish community centre in Krakow, which we did over the next six or seven years, and then he came with us to open the centre with the Duchess of Cornwall in 2008.

"He’s been fantastic to us and has always shown real interest, involvement and passion. He has also re-instigated a reception at Clarence House for the Kindertransport survivors. He also hosted a reception for our young supporters as well.

"Initially, he was a patron of one project. When that ended, we went to him with livelihood development programme, and asked him to be a patron of that project. After a number of years, I approached his office with James Lisbon and Paul Anticoni and said we’d really like to give him the honour of being our patron after all he has done for the charity. They looked at it and did all their due diligence, and then wrote to us a few months ago and said “yes, he’d be delighted.”

"This is the culmination of both us being delighted with what he has done, but also a ringing endorsement of the work we do.

"Going forward, there are lots of opportunities to engage him in our livelihood development programmes. Why that captured his interest is because of the Prince’s Trust – getting people back to work. What we do is get people back to work, train them. And they’re also earning money, so come off welfare lists.

"We’ll involve him generally, but the areas we’d most like to take forward with him are helping the remaining Holocaust survivors and also our core work, helping vulnerable Jewish people; and maybe some of the disasters and the extension of the Livelihood Development programme. Those are probably the areas where we will look to him for support.

"Having the future King as our patron really endorses our work and reinforces all we have been doing over the last 10 years to build the standing and reputation of the charity. I think the charity will benefit hugely – just having his stamp of approval, which isn’t easy to get, just adds credibility to our work. If people think twice about supporting us, they will see who the patron is and think twice.

"We couldn’t have asked for more. It’s fantastic for us. And also, it’s not only great for WJR but the whole Jewish community, because he will get a flavour of what we’re doing and will be more involved. He has always been a fantastic supporter of the community and this will just strengthen our links with the royals."