The public, too, has shown no hesitation in giving. This year’s Comic Relief
raised £57.8m on the night, smashing its £40.5m record.
Two celebrities who contributed to the fundraising rank in our top 100 givers.
The Girls Aloud singer Cheryl Cole, who climbed Kilimanjaro with eight other
stars, ranks 50th for her share of the £3.3m raised by the climb. Sir Tom
Jones enters the Giving List top 100 (see timesonline.co.uk/richlist from
2pm on Tuesday, April 28) for the £1m raised by the Comic Relief No 1 single
Islands in the Stream.
Low says: “History suggests the recession will not be a disaster for
charities. In the 1930s, giving was stronger at the end of the depression
than at the beginning. People value charity more in a severe downturn.”
Mark Evans, the head of philanthropy at Coutts & Co, concurs: “I have been
bullish about the state of philanthropy through the recession. People might
be worth less now than before, but they still want to give.”
For the second successive year the Giving List is topped by Christopher
Cooper-Hohn, with £462m — more than five times his personal fortune — going
to the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF) from the profits and
investments of his hedge fund.
The foundation, managed by his wife, Jamie, benefits from the success of the
Children’s Investment Fund hedge fund, set up by Cooper-Hohn. Indeed, £767m
of CIFF’s £800m assets in the last accounts, to August 2007, have been
reinvested in the hedge fund. Subsequent falls in the value of the fund are
likely to have eaten into CIFF’s asset base, however.
Gerry Elias, a trustee of CIFF, says the couple are closely involved: “For
Jamie, this is a full-time job times two. She has built an incredibly
high-calibre team. She is very clear about what she wants and drives it
through the organisation. Chris is an engaged board member of CIFF as well
as a partner in the Children’s Investment Fund. While the hedge fund is
clearly his day job, CIFF is a tremendous motivation for him.”
Although CIFF’s outgoings in the most recent accounts are modest, at £11.6m,
relative to the £450.9m income, the scale of expenditure is set to rise,
with $50m committed to Gain, a project partnered with the Gates Foundation
that aims to alleviate malnutrition.
“We will be ramping up the levels of giving,” says Elias. “We like to work
with partners to enhance our ability to scale programmes beyond individual
countries to a multinational or global level, where we can share expertise,
resources and skill sets.”
Evans, who in his role at Coutts helps the wealthy to develop their
philanthropy, says the Cooper-Hohns’ approach is not unusual, even if the
amounts involved are. “Increasingly, people want to be giving while they are
living. They realise that they can get engaged and give intellectual as well
as financial capital.”
Ann Gloag, whose £473m fortune (with her brother, Brian Souter) is derived
from the Stagecoach transport empire, is typical of the modern
philanthropist. Willing to become actively involved, she has travelled to
Africa with Mercy Ships, to which she gave almost £800,000 last year, to see
its work first-hand. The charity provides medical facilities by hospital
ship and outreach work in areas where such help is hard to find. Gloag gave
away more than £4m in the past year, including more than £900,000 to
Edinburgh Napier University and £660,000 to children’s homes in Kenya.
Ranking just above her, at 38th in the Giving List, is Joanne Rowling, creator
of Harry Potter. We calculate she has given about £20m to charity in the
past year, including nearly £15m to the Volant Charitable Trust, to fund
research into multiple sclerosis (which claimed her mother’s life) and
projects that tackle social deprivation. In all, the charity has had £47m
income in the past four years.
Second in our list is Lord Ashcroft, who has pledged 80% of his wealth to
endow a charitable fund upon his death. At our current valuation of his
fortune, this would amount to £880m.
The Giving List includes “facilitators” of charity as well as those who give
exclusively their own money, so the funds raised by Absolute Return for
Kids, the largely City-funded charity, are ascribed to its chairman and
driving force, Arpad Busson.
Michael Spencer, head of the City broker Icap, ranks 31st after donating all
his firm’s revenues from a day’s trading in December. The £11m brought to
£53m the total donated by Icap from its annual charity days.
Diverting money to charity that might otherwise boost personal wealth is an
approach embraced by Sir Elton John, who last year raised £15.6m for his UK
Aids Foundation alone, mostly through his own performances and functions
such as the annual White Tie and Tiara Ball.
All of those who make this year’s Sunday Times Giving List are big performers,
whether on-stage or off. What’s clear is that the charity sector is
depending on them all for an encore.
Transform your giving
You don’t have to top the Rich List to make a difference to the causes that
matter to you, such as medical research, eradicating poverty and conserving
wildlife. From a one-off credit card donation to giving from a family
charitable trust worth millions of pounds, CAF (the Charities Aid
Foundation) will ensure it makes the biggest possible impact. CAF’s aim is
simple: to make charity donations go further. It offers products and
services that make it easier for donors to give and for charities to manage
their money. To find out how you can make your donation, contact its
customer service team on 01732 520 055 or visit www.cafonline.org
