Top 30 UK philanthropists gave £1.2 billion last year
Howard Lake | 28 April 2007 | News
The Sunday Times Rich List 2007, published today, reports that the top 30 philanthropists in the UK have pledged or donated £1.2 billion to charities in the past year. According to the publication’s Giving Index, some have given eight- or nine-figure sums.
Like the last two annual Rich Lists, this year’s Rich List report, published in The Sunday Times, leads with the Giving Index, an analysis of how much the wealthiest people in the UK donate to charities.
The Index calculates the proportion of total wealth donated to charity in the most recent 12 months for which personal, trust, company or foundation reports are available.
Advertisement
Top of the 2007 Giving Index are David and Heather Stevens who donated half of their shareholding, equivalent to £100.3 million or 87% of their £115 million wealth generated from founding the Cardiff-based Admiral insurance business. They donated it to the Waterloo Foundation which they set up this year. This should result in an annual grantmaking total of around £3-4 million, according to the Rich List.
Sheila Hooper, Executive Director of Individual Giving at CAF, welcomed these examples of major gifts, saying: “While the motives may differ, what can’t be ignored is the massive impact these people are having not just on individual communities but globally. Their sense of social responsibility and huge personal commitment to their chosen causes sets the benchmark on philanthropy and is something that the UK should be celebrating.”
This year’s Rich List, compiled by Philip Beresford, reports that the number of UK billionaires has risen by 14 to 68 and the wealthiest 1,000 have increased their total fortune by 20% to almost £360 billion.
The printed version includes extensive analysis and useful tables, including the year’s biggest risers, the 20 faster growing fortunes, and newcomers with £135 million or more.
There are also lists by sector such as the millionaires in telecoms, online, football, hotels/restaurants, hedge funds, music, wine selling, fashion, and film/TV.
You can also find a list of the top donors and lenders to political parties.
Goldman Sachs has produced so many millionaires that the top 10 are listed in their own table.
The 100 wealthiest women are listed, as are the four women who have netted the most from divorces in the past year.
Prospect researchers will also no doubt find the analysis of wealth by region particularly useful. The Rich List features the wealthiest 10 people in seven regions of the UK. Not surprisingly, 411 of the top 1,000 were born, live, or are based in or around London. Wales has 25, East Anglia 26, and the North East 16 of the top 1,000.
A searchable version of the Rich List 2007 is available online from 10am tomorrow. It includes material not featured in the printed Rich List, including the world’s weathiest 100 people and a list of the richest Asians in Britain.
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.