The rich are not so different
May 2009
Long before Stanley Fink qualified for his invitation to address the Charities Aid Foundation's breakfast seminar delegates...
...who had gathered to celebrate high level philanthropy in the UK, his attitude to giving was shaped by his parents as a small boy.
‘They always had the philosophy that if they were approached by a cause they knew something about or by someone they knew personally, the issue was not yes or no but “how much”’ explained Number Seventeen (£70m given away last year) on Alistair McCall’s Sunday Times Giving List.
In his welcome, CAF CEO Dr Jon Low commented that in today’s turbulent times, philanthropists are sticking with their values. McCall’s research confirmed this: ‘Despite a 37 per cent fall in the wealth of the leading 1000 this year, the top 100 philanthropists have put £216m more into charity than last, bringing their spend to a record £2.817bn, up 8 per cent on last year’.
Part of the reason may lie in the wish of philanthropists to ‘give with a warm hand rather than a cold one’. Not that one would want to precipitate any decline in legacy income to the sector, you can understand why they would prefer to be around and actively involved in the causes they support than rely on trustees do it for them when they can’t answer back...
It was the improvements made by the academy school Fink supports that he seemed particularly proud of – GSCE pass rates had doubled and Ofsted reports were all heading in the right direction. He explained that philanthropists like him were much more likely to support charities they had a particular affinity with.
The Giving List has been going since 2002 and is sponsored by the Charities Aid Foundation. A letter is sent to the 1,000 people who made it onto Philip Beresford’s Sunday Times Rich List the previous year asking them to share details about their giving. Alistair McCall then compiles the Giving List, from this and other research.
Author: Clarissa Dann
Clarissa Dann was the editor of Caritas as well as an HR and management online service,he People Bulletin until July 2011.
She is now the editor of the specialist trade finance magazine, Trade and Forfaiting Review which can be viewed at www.tfreview.com but does write on charity finance and investment from time to time.
Clarissa has a background in legal and professional publishing, as well as business journalism and holds an MBA from Cass Business School. She has been one of the judges for the non-profit category of the Chartered Institute of Marketing's Excellence in Marketing Awards for the second year running.
She has also acted as clerk to the trustees of a small almshouses charity and as a member nominated trustee to a pension scheme of a multinational publishing company.
Click here for other articles written by Clarissa Dann
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