Phi Newsletter: June 2013

Welcome to the June 2013 issue of the Factary Phi Newsletter.

Major Giving News

Sex abuse charity receives £1m donation

Search engine giant Google have donated £1m to the Internet Watch Foundation in order to boost its work in removing online child abuse.

The sum is almost equivalent to a whole year’s running costs for the charity, and will be used to more than double the internet content analysts employed by the charity.

Voicing her gratitude over the donation pledge, the foundation’s CEO Susie Hargreaves said that: ‘This is an incredibly generous donation and Google is demonstrating moral leadership in the field. This contribution will significantly boost our work to meet our vision eliminating online child sexual abuse content. We are experts at doing this and like any organisation we can do more, with more resources’.

She went on to say: ‘The IWF’s work isn’t just about removing the content. Over the past two years we have helped identify and aid the rescue of 12 children from their abusers by working with the police in the UK and internationally.’

Speaking on the donation, Scott Rubin, Director of Communications and Public Affairs at Google said: “We have a zero-tolerance policy on child sexual abuse content. The IWF are essential partners in our fight to rid the Internet of this illegal material by providing us with lists of web pages that we block from search results. Our donation should help them do their work more quickly and efficiently. This grant is part of a broader package of measures we are putting in place with other international agencies to help tackle this problem at a global scale.”

The donation will be spread over four years.

£3.5m pledged to regional cancer research unit

Prominent philanthropist Sir Robert Ogden has pledged to donate £3.5m to help get a new cancer research unit at Harrogate District Hospital off the ground.

The Yorkshire businessman and racehorse owner made his fortune developing London’s docklands and the industrial heartlands of the North. Sir Robert was also knighted 2001 for his services to charity and he has previously helped establish an autistic school in Barnsley and a similar Macmillan Cancer Research centre at St James’s Hospital in Leeds in 2000.

Plans for the new cancer unit have now been submitted, and it will be developed by Macmillan Cancer Support in partnership with Harrogate and District NHS Foundation Trust (HDFT), with each contributing £3.5m and £2m respectively.

Richard Ord, chief executive of HDFT, said that: ‘In these challenging financial times for the NHS we would not be able to do this without the amazing generosity of Sir Robert Ogden and Macmillan Cancer Support and we are extremely grateful for their involvement. We want to offer cancer patients across Yorkshire the very best we possibly can and this new unit will make that possible.’

Hedge fund pledges half a billion to fight malnutrition

A London hedge fund foundation has donated £517m to fight causes associated with malnutrition at a summit hosted by David Cameron.

The money from the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF) has been funded by the profits of Chris Hohn’s hedge fund TCI. The huge donation is also thought to be the single largest investment ever made by a private foundation towards nutrition and health related causes. The Nutrition for Growth summit in London also saw up to £2.7bn of new funding commitments, and the Government have also committed an extra £655m.

Mr Hohn’s wife, Jamie Cooper-Hohn, has played a significant role as a driving force behind the summit.

Speaking at the event, she said that: ‘Our approach to segmenting deaths by disease – AIDS, malaria, diarrhoea, pneumonia – means that we have missed perhaps the most critical factor in preventing child death, morbidity and disability.’

‘Under nutrition is the underlying cause of almost half of global child deaths and one third of maternal mortality. Similarly, we segment the paths to economic development under the traditional categories of agricultural productivity, power and road infrastructure.’

‘Yet, economic experts tell us that investments to prevent stunting, the irreversible condition that prevents proper growth and brain development, are among the most cost-effective, sustainable approaches to economic growth.’

The normally publicity shy Hohns are among Britain’s biggest philanthropists and have given away more than £1bn in five years. Mr Hohn’s fund is structured so a percentage of its earnings go directly to the foundation.

As a result of this, it has quickly grown to become one of Britain’s biggest in less than a decade, and this method of applying hedge fund-style performance targets has been credited with revolutionising charitable work in the UK.

Next section: Report

Report: Growing Up Giving

For this month’s edition of our report section, we have included a summary of a recent report conducted by the Charities Aid Foundation on how young people think about charitable giving entitled ‘Growing Up Giving’.

The research was intended to provide some context for CAF’s ‘Growing Up Giving’ campaign, which aims to help close the perceived ‘generation gap’ between different age groups in terms of charitable giving. The research was conducted by contrasting 500 interviews with young people aged 9-11 and 500 people aged 16-18 in order to expose the differences between young children and those approaching adulthood.

also identifies some of the key issues facing small charities and, in particular, it focuses on how to address some of the significant skills gaps and shortages that exist for many small charities.

Key Aims & Objectives

According to the report, the primary aim of the research was to understand how young people think about charities and charitable giving. Specifically, its intention was:

  • To explore young people’s attitudes towards charitable giving.
  • To understand what might encourage young people to engage more with charities.
  • To assess how young people see and hear about charities.
  • To quantify what proportion of young people are engaging in charitable activities and what these activities are.
  • To investigate how young people feel about charity being taught in school.
  • To determine if views on the above differ across demographics.

Key Findings & Conclusions

The report found that on the whole, young people feel very positive about charities, with the majority of those who were interviewed from both age groups agreeing with the following statements:

  • ‘I understand what charities do’ – 88%
  • ‘I think charities play an important role in our country’ – 78%
  • ‘I think it’s right that charities help people in countries’ – 71%
  • ‘I will give money to charity during the next year’ – 71%
  • ‘Young people should give up some of their time to help others’ – 68%

According to the survey, young people also have high expectations of society when it comes to charitable giving, with between half and two thirds of those interviewed agreeing with the following:

  • ‘All parents should talk to their children about the work charities do’ – 65%
  • ‘The more money people have, the more they should give’ – 63%
  • ‘I think that all businesses should give money to charity’ – 63%
  • ‘I will raise money for charity next year’ – 62%
  • ‘It is more important to help others than help yourself’

Young people also give a considerable amount to charity according to the survey. On average, donors aged 9-11 gave £3.58 to charity in the past month and donors aged 16-18 gave £8.63 in the past month. Based on this, children aged between 9-11 years old give nearly £20m a year to charitable causes, and young adults aged 16-18 give nearly £100m.

In terms of how often young people give, the report found that a third of young people give to charity in a typical month. Almost as many (32%) had ‘given items to charity’ and over a fifth (21%) had ‘helped somebody else in need’. The proportion who had given money in the previous month was found to be as high as 42%, comparing favourably with the 55% of adults who currently give to charity in a typical month.

According to the survey, schools were considered to be essential in engaging young people with charities, and it is thought that they can potentially play an even greater role. When asked how they might be encouraged to become more involved in charity work, the answers to the survey’s questions were unsurprisingly focused on schools, with:

  • 61% of young people stating that ‘school arranging for us to do some charity work’ would encourage them.
  • 53% welcoming the idea of a charity themed school day.
  • 49% welcomed the idea of charities coming to my school.

Perhaps surprisingly given the important role that schools play, it was also found that relatively few young people are talking to each other about charities. According to the survey, fewer than 10 young people (9%) said that they tend to hear about charities through their friends.

By far, television was considered to be the most common way that young people hear about charities (78%), then followed by schools (49%). The relatively small percentage of young people talking with their friends about charities suggests that there is much more that can be done to get young people sharing information in ways that they will welcome.

In terms of gender, attitudes towards charity from both boys and girls were found to be broadly similar, however with one or two notable exceptions:

  • When nearing adulthood, girls were found to be much more interested in working for charity than boys (50% vs 28%), with a much higher level of interest from girls aged between 16-18 years old.
  • The survey also found that although just over half (51%) of 16-18 year old boys intended to ‘raise money for charity during the next year’, this was significantly higher for girls at almost two thirds (65%).

Based on the research, this gap between genders appears to widen significantly over time, with girls eventually becoming almost twice as likely to want to work for a charity than boys as they become older.

Finally, there were three specific types of charities that children and young adults were drawn to supporting, although their relative interest in each differed substantially.

Survey respondents were asked: ‘If you could give £10 to charity, which type of charity would you most want to give it to?’.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the youngest respondents aged 9-11 were most interested in giving their money to causes associated with children, with 34% indicating as much. Following on from this, the second most common cause selected were charities associated with animals at 21%, more than double the proportion selected by the older group of respondents.

Whilst causes associated with children and animals were commonly favoured by younger givers, it was medical charities that featured the most strongly in the minds of 16-18 year olds, with 32% (three times the figure of 9-11 years olds) indicating that they would donate their £10 to this type of cause.

Click here to read the Growing Up Giving survey in full.

Next section: Phi Database Update

Phi in Numbers June 2013

This month, we’ve uploaded 5,217 records to the Factary Phi database, which takes us to a total of 420,095 searchable records.

The data in the latest upload is taken from a variety of different sources, with records of donations taken from UK universities including Keble, Jesus and Green Templeton College Oxford, along with the annual accounts of a number of grantmaking organisations and charities, including The Dulwich Picture Gallery, Arthritis Research UK and the Outward Bound Trust amongst others.

The donations in this month’s upload represent a minimum of £87.8m, with the largest single donation being made by the Department of International Development to the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine for £15.8m. As well as this, we have also uploaded newsworthy donations included in this month’s newsletter.

In light of the latest data to have been uploaded, we have included a breakdown of these donations according to donor type, along with a second graph showing how they compare according to value.

no-of-donation-according-to-donor-type

As is evidenced by the graph above, the majority of donations included this month have been made by individuals, followed by Trusts/Foundations, Companies and then Other Grant-making Bodies.

However in terms of overall value, the majority have come from Other Grant-making Bodies, representing £64.3m, followed by Trusts & Foundations (£17m), Individuals (£4.2m) and then Companies (£2.2m).

percentage-split-of-donations-according-to-value

It is interesting to note that such a relatively small number (235) of donations from Other Grant-making bodies represents well over half of the total upload in terms of value. Aside from the significant donation made to the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine for £15.8m mentioned above, there has also been a number of other high value donations made by Other Grant-making bodies that have been added to the database.

Indeed, the average size of these donations is £273,692, representing a noticeable increase from the average size of donations from Other Grant-making Bodies across the database (£39,825).

Next section: Profile

Profile: The Eveson Charitable Trust

The Eveson Charitable Trust was established in May 1993 according to the wishes of Mrs Violet Eveson, who left her considerable estate to the trust after her death at the 83. The trust supports and makes grants to charitable institutions in accordance with her Will and also according to the policies of the Trustees.

Violet Eveson, who was born in Hertfordshire and lived in the Midlands throughout her life, was a member of the hop-growing Pudge family from Bishops Frome. Her grandfather owned a number of hop fields in in the local area, and the wealth from this was then used to start Bowmakers, a large hire-purchase and finance house.

It has been widely reported that Mrs Eveson and her husband Robert did not lead an extravagant lifestyle, and the pair also had no immediate family to leave their estate to. Therefore in her Will, it was stated that the income from her estate was to be used for the relief and support of the handicapped, hospitals, hospices, children in need, the elderly, the homeless and for allied medical research.

She also made some significant gifts during her life to hospitals in Birmingham and Hereford, and selected her original Trustees from people with an interest in this area.

After her death in May 1993, an astounding £49m from her estate was left to the Eveson Charitable Trust to be spent according to her wishes.

For the financial year ending 31st March 2012, the trust reported an income of £1,180,741 and an expenditure of £2,654,159. Factary Phi holds 886 records of donations made from 2005 to 2011 representing a minimum of £9,318,617.

The largest donation to have been recorded in Phi is a £150,000 donation made to Macmillan Cancer Relief in 2007 and the average size of donations made to various charitable causes is £11,323.

According to Phi, the largest number of donations have been made to causes associated with Health (247), followed by Children/Youth (170), Welfare (107), Disability (86), Elderly (71), Development/Housing/Unemployment (70), Education (38), Arts/Culture (30), Sport (17), Rights/Law/Conflict (12), Mental Health (11), Religious Activities (9), General Charitable Purposes (8), Environment (7), Animals (2), International Development (1).

The Trustees

David Pearson

David is a Chartered Accountant and a Trustee of the G J W Turner Trust, The Douglas Turner Trust, The Public Picture Gallery Fund, Birmingham and also the R D Turner Charitable Trust.

Bruce Maughfling

Bruce is an Accountant and Chairman of the Eveson Charitable Trust.

Revd Anthony Priddis

Anthony is the current Bishop of Hereford and he is also a Trustee of St Peters, Saltley Trust, The Hereford Diocesan Board of Finance and Wright’s Charity School.

Bill Wiggin MP

Bill is a Conservative Member of Parliament for North Herefordshire. Prior to this, he worked for Commerzbank as a manager in the Foreign Exchange department.

Richard Mainwaring

Richard is a Practitioner and a Capital Tax Specialist with Chartered Accountants Mainwaring Dean Associates.

Next section: News

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