Welcome to the June 2015 issue of the Factary Phi Newsletter.
Major Giving News
University of Bath nets £5m
Bath Science graduate and the founder of Abcam plc, Dr Jonathan Milner has donated £5m to the University of Bath to fund the construction of the first UK centre for evolution research.
A long term philanthropist, Dr Milner founded the Evolution Education Trust in 2011, and also helped to set up and fund GEVOteach, a research initiative at the University which aims to improve the teaching of genetics and evolution in schools throughout the UK.
He also currently funds three PhD students at the university, and his donation will fund several new research projects as well as the appointment of new academic researchers and a full time public engagement officer for the centre.
RSPB to receive £2m
The Royal Society for the Protection of Animals has entered into a £2m partnership with the supermarket giant Aldi.
Their partnership, which is to start in July, will see the charity receive all profits from plastic bag sales as of next month and for the next three years.
Their deal is expected to raise in excess of £2m, and the money will be used to extend the RSPB’s Giving Nature a Home pilot in Cardiff, which encourages children and families to make their gardens more wildlife friendly. The scheme has so far benefited over 3,000 children.
Giles Hurley, managing director of corporate buying at Aldi, said: ‘It is an honour to partner with the RSPB. They are the UK’s biggest nature conservation charity, playing an important role in protecting our wildlife. Our partnership will leave a long-lasting legacy; a generation of children who are connected to nature, benefit from it, value our wildlife and care and understand enough about it to make a real difference.’
Anonymous donor pledges £1m
Julia’s House Hospice is set to benefit from a £1m gift from an anonymous donor.
Thanks to this most recent donation, the Dorset-based hospice has reached a fundraising total of £3.1m, leaving it just £400,000 short of the total £3.5m needed for them to open their new Wiltshire service for children with life-limiting illnesses.
Julia’s House Chief Executive Martin Edwards remarked that is was ‘wonderful news for Wiltshire’, and also added that they could likely open as early as autumn 2017.
Earlier this year, Ironman actor Robert Downey Jr helped raise nearly £1m for the hospice, and other starts have also shown their support, including David Beckham, Guy Ritchie and Michael McIntyre among others.
Philanthropists Honoured in 2015
Dr Naim Dangoor has been knighted for charitable services in this year’s Birthday Honours List 2015. A philanthropist and an engineer, he first came to the UK as a student and later set up a successful property development business. Known for his charitable giving, he has set up several trusts and endowments to support refugees and disadvantaged communities, and he has also endowed a very large number of educational bursaries. He donated £1.1m to Cancer Research UK in memory of his late wife, and he is a founder and Trustee of his own Exilarch’s Foundation. Recently in 2014, he donated £2m to the Royal Society of Medicine and £300,000 to Birkbeck, University of London for research into monotheism.
Rory Brooks has been made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire for charitable services. He is a businessman and a co-founder of MML Capital Partners. As a philanthropist, he co-founded the Rory and Elizabeth Brooks Foundation, which has in turn funded the Brooks World Poverty Institute at the University of Manchester, which he attended. He is an adviser to The Quintessentially Foundation and a Director of the Centre for Social Justice.
Nat Sloane has been made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire for services to venture philanthropy and social investment. He is a venture capitalist and a co-founder of the Impetus Trust, which has reportedly raised more than £20m for charitable causes over the past 10 years. He is also Chairman of the Big Lottery Fund.
Candida Gertler has been made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire for services to contemporary visual arts and arts philanthropy. She is a co-founder and a Trustee of the Outset Contemporary Art Fund, which supports new art through private funding. She is also a committee member for the British Friends of the Arts Museums of Israel and an executive member of the Tate International Council. She was previously Chair of Women in the Arts Lunch, and she co-founded Artprojx.
Andrew Salvesen has been made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire for services to entrepreneurship and philanthropic service to the community in Scotland. He is a former Managing Director of Christian Salvesen PLC’s oilfield technology operations and he has also held various other roles within the company and within the oilfield services sector throughout his career. He is a founder of the Andrew Salvesen Charitable Trust, a Trustee of the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust and a Vice Patron of Tall Ships Youth Trust.
Peter Laing has been made a Member of the Order of the British Empire for services to business, philanthropy and the community in Keith, Banffshire. He is a retired former care home owner and a Director of The Keith & District Sports Trust and Keith Community Radio Ltd.
Report: Future of Charitable Donations Survey 2015
This month, we have included our summary of the Barclays Future of Charitable Donations Survey 2015. The research for the survey was conducted by Critical Research, and was based a on a sample of UK based charities with a minimum turnover of £3m.
The research was also based on three-hundred and one interviews, and those people who responded were either directly responsible for, or were involved with the various methods by which their respective charities accept donations.
Key findings
- 20% of UK charities do not have the facility to accept online donations, the report states, despite 61% of respondents claiming that the number of people making online donations will increase over the next three years
- A further 38% of charities remain unable to accept donations via text
- Almost 80% of all donations made to charities are still made using the traditional method, via offline payments.
It seems that UK charities are in danger of missing out on growth opportunities, arguably due to a lack of innovation the way in which they accept donations. According to the research 20% do not have the facility to accept online donations, despite the fact that for 90% of those surveyed, the ease and convenience of online transaction was perceived to be a major advantage.
Over a third (38%) of charities remain unable to accept donations via text, and indeed, 25% of respondents said they felt that this method was simply not relevant for their charity or their target audience. 15% said they hadn’t even considered using this method, while a further 16% stated that they would be unable to implement it into their strategy.
When considering the wider sector in general, the survey suggested that offline donations still largely dominate across the board. 79% of all donations are made in this way overall, with the majority of charities accepting donations by cheque (95%) and cash (87%).
Despite this however, the majority of UK charities (78%) also stated that they felt the number of online donations is set to increase over the next three years, and encouragingly, of those who could not accept online donations, one in four are now in the process of introducing this technology.
Interestingly on the flipside, 17% of the charities surveyed felt that there will be no change in the number of online donations over the course of the next three years. This could also tie in with the 48% of respondents who also saw a lack of a ‘computer savvy’ donor base, as a major barrier.
One in ten charities do not currently accept online donations and said that there are too few potential donors for them justify introducing the facility, while another one in ten said it is just too expensive to implement.
The survey also highlights the prominence of the third party sites which process online donations, with 89% of charities who receive donations online using this method. Over half of respondents felt that over the next three years, more people will continue to donate this way, with its ease and convenience cited as a major factor. It is also worth noting however, that a third of respondents felt there will be no change or a decline in charities relying on third party sites, predominantly in order to cut down on paying third party fees.
David McHattie, who is Head of Charities at Barclays, commented: ‘The rise of online across all business areas, including the charity sector, is very hard to ignore. Over the past few years, online charitable campaigns like the ‘ice bucket challenge’ for ALS, or the no make-up selfie in aid of Cancer Research have seen resounding benefits from online engagement. So it’s surprising to still see that a fifth of UK charities appear resistant, particularly as most are in agreement that online fundraising is the way forward and that their supporters are more likely to donate online.’
The survey also found that those charities which function within the arts, culture and religious fields appear to be behind when it comes to accepting donations via text. Just over half of these (51%) were equipped to do so, compared with 71% of charities who were instead involved with health, rehabilitation and disability. Overall however, it is worth remembering that when looking at the sector as a whole, receiving donations by cheque still dominates compared to all other donation methods.
Clickhere for a full version of the report.
Phi in Numbers June 2015
Are Political Donors more likely to give to Charity?
Donor Search in the US threw down a challenge to Factary in March this year. Could we demonstrate that donation behaviour in the UK is similar to that in the US? In particular, did Factary Phi show any evidence that those donating to political parties are more likely to make philanthropic donations?
In the US, Donor Search has found that:
- An individual who has given at least $2,500 in his/her lifetime to federal political campaigns is 14 times more likely to give a philanthropic donation than someone who has not.
- An individual who has given at least $500 in his/her lifetime to federal political campaigns is 5 times more likely to give a philanthropic donation than someone who has not.
All the ins and outs of data differences and levels of availability on both sides of the pond make an exact replication of this methodology a bit tricky, but it does look like there is a correlation between political donations and philanthropic donations in the UK too.
Taking the quarter of a million personal donations listed on Factary Phi, we have attempted to match the names of those donating to charity with the names of those making a donation to any political party. This is, inevitably, far from being an exact science. The Cllr Peter Arnold who has donated to the Liberal Democrats in Newcastle, for example, is probably not the same person as the Dr Peter Arnold who has supported the University of Bath. These unlikely matches seem, however, to be less frequent than might be expected.
This has identified a relatively small group of around 1,500 individuals and couples (after de-duping) who appear to be both major supporters of a political party and major donors to at least one charity or university. This is dwarfed by the number of records on Phi which did not match to the name of a political donor.
This ‘group of 1,500’ do appear to be of particular interest. Even removing the Sunday Times Giving Index data from the picture (- many of which would have been linked to a major political donor), the average charitable donation recorded for these individuals is on average more than three times the size of the average donation to charity made by the non-political donors (an average of £30,059 per donation versus an average £9,533 donation). They are also giving two and a half times as much to their favoured political party as the non-philanthropic political donors (ie the people who are major supporters of a political party but do not appear on Phi as major supporters of other organisations).
Adding their average charitable and political donations together suggests that the ‘group of 1,500’ are likely to be relatively wealthy group, particularly as many of these individuals are making multiple donations both inside and outside of politics.
However, the group of apparently non-philanthropic political donors (the “Political Onlys”) makes us somewhat nervous about any conclusions which suggest that being a recognised political donor makes you more likely to be a major donor philanthropist, although it is possible that this group does make major donations to organisations which are not recorded on Phi.
Looking at it the other way round appears to be somewhat more revealing….We can be fairly confident that if a charity has a known major donor supporter who also appears on the Electoral Commission register, then these individuals are more likely to donate to charities and universities at a higher level than those who are not recorded as political donors. Although it is all about the averages and ‘more likely to’ is obviously not the same as ‘definitely will’!
Methodology and Data
- All Individual Donor records were taken from Factary Phi as it stood as at February 2015. Sunday Times Giving List entries and a single £1bn donation from Warren Buffet were removed from the calculations.
- Name matches were identified between those who had made a donation to a Political Party with those recorded on Factary Phi as having made a donation to any other type of organisation
- Political donations are regularly obtained from the Electoral Commission for entry to Factary Phi. Only actual monetary donations are taken – not donations in kind. Monetary donations in excess of £500 must be declared.
- The amount of donations made to charitable organisations is frequently not available in the public domain. Where actual donation amounts were recorded these were used, supported by the addition of mid-point amounts from any available Gift Bands.
Profile: The Dr Mortimer and Teresa Sackler Foundation
Founded in the year 1988, this foundation was established by Teresa and Dr Mortimer Sackler, who was an American physician, pharmaceuticals entrepreneur and philanthropist.
Born in 1916 New York to Jewish immigrants from Poland, Mortimer Sackler had set his sights on becoming a Doctor from a young age. Unfortunately though, he was denied a Jewish-allotted place in any New York medical school due to the quotas that were in place at that time. Undeterred, the young Mortimer instead bought a steerage ticket to Britain where he was accepted into Anderson College of Medicine at Glasgow University. However he would later return to America where he completed his training at Middlesex University School of Medicine in Massachusetts.
Once qualified he became a specialist in psychiatry, and alongside his brothers Arthur and Raymond, he moved into research at the clinical outpatient department at Creedmore state hospital, New York.
As part of their research, the brothers pioneered a number of new innovations in how alterations in bodily functions can potentially affect mental illness. Their research also contributed to a move away from some of the more common and invasive medical treatments that were used during the period, such as the use of lobotomies and electric shock therapy. These procedures became less common, and were to be replaced by the use of psychoanalysis and pharmaceutical solutions that we see today.
In 1952, Mortimer and his brother Raymond purchased the Purdue Frederick Company, a small drug company based in Greenwich Village, which the pair would run together as co-Chairmen. Years later in 1966, they purchased British company Napp Pharmaceuticals. The brothers also established several successful drug companies in other countries.
In 1996, the family company introduced a new super drug to market. OxyContin, a powerful opium-driven narcotic which proved to be extremely effective in treating people suffering from terminal cancer and severe pain. It proved so successful that by 2001, it was considered to be the best-selling non-generic narcotic pain reliever in America.
Mortimer Sackler used his fortune from the pharmaceuticals industry to donate generously to a variety of different charitable causes. He died in 2010 at the age of 93 and is survived by his children, his third wife Teresa, and one brother, Raymond Sackler.
For the financial year ending the 31st December 2013, the trust reported an income of £28,278,299 and an expenditure of £7,279,841. Factary Phi holds 59 records of donations made to various organisations since 2005 worth a minimum of £36,586,511
According to Phi, the largest proportion of these donations have been made to causes associated with Arts/Culture (36), followed by Education/Training (10), Environment (7), Health (3), Children/Youth (1), Heritage (1), Health (1).
The Trustees
Theresa Sackler
His third wife, Dame Theresa Sackler is a former teacher and a passionate gardening enthusiast. She is a Trustee of the Victoria and Albert Museum and also the Serpentine Galleries.
Peter Darling
Peter Darling is a former Chairman of Mercury Asset Management and he is a current Director of Hilbrook Management Ltd, Sam Holdings (UK) Ltd, Soditec Ltd, the Scottish Equitable Life Assurance Society and the International Trust for Croatian Monuments. He is also a Trustee of his own Peter Stormonth Darling Charitable Trust and the Sackler Trust.
Ilene Sackler Lefcourt
Mortimer’s daughter, Ilene Sackler Lefcourt is a Director of Napp Pharmaceutical Holdings Ltd and she is a founder and Director of the Sackler Lefcourt Center for Child Development. She is a Trustee of The American Museum of Natural History and a board member of The Columbia University Department of Psychiatry Board of Advisors, The Hastings Center for Bioethics, The Margaret Mahler Psychiatric Research Foundation and the Rockefeller University Parents & Science Scientific Advisory Council.
Marissa Sackler
Marissa Sackler, also Mortimer’s daughter, is the founder of the non-profit incubator Beespace, and she is on the board of directors for Invisible Children and the Dia Art Foundation. She was formerly a photographer and a consultant for the humanitarian non-profit Charity:Water.