An unprecedented boom in giving has seen more than £1.2 billion pledged or donated in the past year by the leading 30 philanthropists in Britain. This year’s Sunday Times Giving List is dominated by several donations that run into eight-figure or even nine-figure sums as Britain’s donors confront some of the leading issues facing the planet. Aids, global warming, helping Africa feed itself, Third World education and worldwide humanitarian relief are among the global causes embraced.

Combining the reformist fervour of philanthropists from the Victorian age with the business acumen and toughness of the 21st century world of commerce, these latterday Carnegies are seeking to make lasting change. Tony Rogers, acting chief executive of the Charities Aid Foundation (CAF), says: “We are seeing a new wave of philanthropic giving driven by people who want to be innovative, who are explorative by nature. They see their actions as social investment rather than straightforward charity; there is little linkage with the traditional not-for-profit charitable sector. They are creating almost a new voluntary sector for themselves.”

Typical of this trend is the £510m pledge from Anil Agarwal, a London-based Indian businessman, to build the Vedanta University in Orissa, India. The benefaction also demonstrates a long-term commitment, the money being spent progressively as the “Harvard of India” is constructed. “What is money for if not to be made and given back to society?” Agarwal said after making his gift last July.

Other giving in the past year will endow charitable trusts and foundations that make a continuing contribution to society. David and Heather Stevens, two of the founding managers of the Cardiff-based Admiral insurance business, have donated half their shareholding in the company to the Waterloo Foundation, which the couple set up this year. The amount given is equivalent to 87% of the couple’s remaining £115m wealth, earning them the highest Giving Index score in the past six years.

The Stevens’ approach to giving, which leaves the money pledged to charity within their core business activity, taps into another trend in British philanthropy. The foundation’s money will grow (or, indeed, shrink) according to the market. So, Admiral shares, which were worth £100.3m at the time the endowment was announced on March 6, were worth £116.3m little more than one month later – a gain on paper at least of £16m in the charity’s assets.

Modesty leads the couple to dismiss finishing top of the 2007 Giving List as “an artefact of the mathematics behind the table’s construction”, but the shares gifted should allow charitable spending of £3m to £4m a year in perpetuity on issues ranging from climate change to adult mental health.

Heather Stevens, who chairs the Waterloo Foundation, says: “The objectives we have chosen reflect our belief in the global nature of the most important issues facing the world today.”

The Stevens’ are happy for their foundation to do the talking, not wishing for any public profile themselves. Others have taken a more personal approach to the issues they have set out to tackle, regardless of the risks involved.

Rogers says: “There’s a fine line between really wanting to make a difference and somebody else interpreting that as someone trying to suit their own political or economic purposes. Our new philanthropists are ambitious by nature and set ambitious goals for themselves, including very specific goals for how they give their money away.”

None more so than Sir Tom Hunter who, in partnership with former US president Bill Clinton, is tackling some of Africa’s most intractable problems. He says: “Some might say I’ve got a big mouth and a big cheque book but sometimes you get your head shot at when you stick it above the parapet.”

Hunter, ranked 22nd in this year’s Giving List, helped define venture philanthropy in the UK, ring-fencing £100m three years ago within his business empire for philanthropic purposes. Last year, he put up another £55m for the Clinton-Hunter Development Initiative (CHDI), which is working on a number of fronts – initially in Rwanda and Malawi – including agriculture, healthcare and education.

In the past year, Hunter has used CHDI money to underwrite the cost of a huge fertiliser order for Rwanda, guaranteeing the supplier would be paid in return for a 30% cut in the price.

And ultimately the fertiliser cost the CHDI nothing as farmers were able to afford the lower prices, recompensing the CHDI for the money used to underwrite the order. Hunter insists: “We are working with local people and trying to get them to help themselves. Something for nothing is not valued.”

Clinton says: “Tom and I believe in projects that use markets to ensure they can succeed without relying on donors to make them viable, that keep overhead costs down and measure results. We both started in modest circumstances and took very different career paths, but wound up in the same place: wanting to give more people the same chance we’ve had to develop their potential, support their families and follow their dreams.”

Nevertheless, Hunter is conscious of the need to tread carefully on the global stage. “We are aware we are guests in these countries and we are very, very conscious that we are not playing the white guys who have turned up to solve all their problems.” Accusations of colonialism of a different hue are dogging Johan Eliasch, who runs the Head sports equipment company and has donated a further £20m this year to saving the equatorial rainforest. Eliasch purchased a piece of the rainforest the size of Greater London last year in an attempt to stop illegal logging and slow the rate of global warming.

Yet he found himself accused of “green” colonialism and criticised for the closure of a sawmill as the result of reduced logging, which has put 1,000 people out of work. “You either keep the forest standing, which takes jobs away from indigenous people who need to feed themselves, or you cut down the trees, which affects the climate,” says Eliasch. “In the long term you have to protect the forest.”

He says he has created more than the 1,000 jobs lost through giving people access to his land to harvest nuts and fruits and by employing security guards to stop illegal logging: just four trees were logged illegally in the past year.

With 3,000 people registered and big business also interested in his Cool Earth project to lease chunks of the rainforest and remove it from the risk of logging, Eliasch is unfazed by criticism. He prefers to focus on the bigger picture.

And there is no picture bigger at present than the one where the western world and the developing world reach agreement over carbon emissions. “The rainforest has to be made more valuable standing up than being logged,” says Eliasch, “and the mechanism for achieving that is carbon credits.”

Sir Elton John is another philanthropist not frightened to put his name to the projects he supports. His commitment to his Aids foundations in Britain and America extends beyond the £21.6m spent or poured into them last year through a string of charity concerts.

“He is incredibly involved. He calls two or three times a week, asks for updates on issues, and has been to see our programmes in various parts of the world where he has a tremendous personal effect,” says Anne Aslett, international development director for the UK-based Elton John Aids Foundation, now in its 14th year.

With only five full-time and two part-time members of staff, the foundation, which specialises in the delivery of care to Aids sufferers and their families, works closely with other organisations, such as the Clinton Foundation and Christopher Hohn’s Children’s Investment Fund Foundation, to deliver services.

“We punch above our weight,” says Aslett. “Because of Elton’s name and our longevity, we can partner other organisations who come in with even more money.”

With 120 live projects and an estimated 8m people in families and communities touched by Aids assisted by the UK foundation, John is making a difference. And when it comes to giving, it is this – rather than the financial minutae our philanthropists are more used to working with – that counts as the real bottom line.

NOTABLE DONATIONS

Recent individual acts of philanthropy

Anil Agarwal Vedanta University, Orissa, India £510.6m

David and Heather Stevens The Waterloo Foundation £100.3m

Christopher Hohn Children's Investment Fund Foundation £50.4m

Jack Petchey Jack Petchey Foundation £29.1m

Sir Tom Hunter The Hunter Foundation/Clinton-Hunter Development Initiative £28.7m

Dr Dennis Gillings University of North Carolina £25.6m

Sir Elton John Elton John Aids foundations £21.6m and headlining charity concerts £25.4m

Johan Eliasch Amazon rainforest £20m

Sir James Dyson The Dyson School of Design Innovation £12.5m

Sigrid Rausing The Sigrid Rausing Trust £14.5m

Michael Hintze Victoria and Albert and Vatican museums £3.5m

Peter Sutherland University College Dublin £2.7m