Welcome to the January 2016 issue of the Factary Phi Newsletter.
Major Giving News
Sacha Baron Cohen donates over £600,000
Alongside his wife Isla Fisher, the comedian and actor Sacha Baron Cohen has chosen to donate more than £650,000 to two charities operating in Syria.
The International Rescue Committee is to receive £335,000 and the same amount will also go to Save the Children in order to help vaccinate against measles in northern Syria.
Justin Forsyth, who is CEO of Save the Children said: ‘Syria’s health system had collapsed and deadly childhood diseases such as measles had returned, threatening the lives of many children.’
‘By allowing us to make their generous donation to Syrian children public, Sacha and Isla are helping highlight the tragedy of the issue today’.
‘I would urge all Square Mile firms and workers to be showing their generosity at this time of need for the people of Syria.’
Marks and Spencer’s raises £2m
M&S customers and staff have raised a total of £2m for Macmillan Cancer Support in 2015.
Steve Kemp, who is head of Food Retail at M&S, said ‘Each year we are astounded by the efforts of our wonderful teams and customers in getting behind our partnership with Macmillan, and this year our expectations have been exceeded yet again! £2 million is an absolutely fantastic amount to have raised, and we are proud to support the incredible work Macmillan does. More than one in three of us will get cancer in our lifetime and it’s the toughest fight most of us will ever face’.
Macmillan’s Claire Singlehurst, who is the charity’s Director of High Value Fundraising also added that ‘We are delighted that M&S has raised £2 million for Macmillan in 2015. This is a remarkable achievement and I would like to personally thank all of the generous M&S colleagues and customers who made this possible. Every penny raised will help fund more vital Macmillan professional posts in communities across the UK, to help ensure that no one has to face cancer alone.’
Medical school receives £1m
The Dennis and Mireille Gillings Foundation has donated £1m to The University of Exeter Medical School. The money will be put towards the schools pioneering work in genetic disorders, and it will also be used to fund new staff and to improve patient care.
Dennis Gillings, who attended Exeter, said ‘I have been hugely impressed by the growth and development of the University of Exeter into one of the UK’s top ten and now world’s top 100 universities. Our gift to the Medical School will sustain and enhance Exeter’s pioneering research in this field’.
Dr Mireille Gillings also commented ‘Attracting the brightest and best clinical and research staff to improve public health in Devon will enable patients and their families in the South West of England – and around the world – to benefit from more effective and safe diagnoses of a wide range of disorders.’
Report: Coutts Million Pound Donor Report 2015
This month, we have included our summary of the latest Coutts Million Pound Donor Report, produced in association with the Centre for Philanthropy at the University of Kent in November 2015.
Introduction
According to the findings of the report, the volume of million pound donations in the UK rose by 2% in 2014 (increasing from 292 to 298). Also significantly, the overall value of these donations also increased by a substantial £200m over the previous year, rising from a total of £1.36bn to £1.56bn.
The main reason for this, it is stated, is because of one very large donation of £105m that was made in 2014, which accounts for the ‘lumpy’ nature of the statistics. Yet even when this is taken into consideration, the statistics still suggests that overall, donors gave slightly more generously in comparison with the previous year.
Many of the major trends from previous years also continued, with universities and foundations remaining as the most popular beneficiaries of £1m donations, though foundations alone did take pole position in 2014. The vast majority of featured donors also lived in London, however the significance of international donations has also continued, exemplified by a £60m donation to Great Ormond Street Hospital by Her Highness Sheikh Fatima bint Mubarak of the United Arab Emirates.
As was also the case in 2013, the distribution of donor types in 2014 was marked by a dramatic rise in the number and value of mega-gifts from corporations or corporate foundations. Individual donations also continued to show some signs of recovery relative to their unprecedented drop in 2013.
Number and Value
In 2014, 150 donors made 298 charitable donations that were worth £1m or more, with a total value of £1.56bn. This represents a 2% increase in the number of donors over 2013, and an increase of 15% in terms of total value.
Much like in 2013, 2014 saw a quite a large number of new donors who were giving for the first time. Overall, there were 33 of these new donors, with the figures excluding those who directly appeared in previous reports, as well as any donors who might overlap, or may in some way be synonymous with each other, such as individual business owners and their businesses, or individual donors and their personal foundations etc.
In terms of their average size, million pound donations made in 2014 increased by £0.7m or 15% over the previous year, which is consistent with the relatively small rise in donation numbers versus their relative increase in overall value.
The mean value of donations was £5.3m, while the median and mode stayed at £2m and £1m respectively.
Average Size
The largest single million pound donation made in 2014 was £105m. 11% of them (34 in total) were eight-figure sums, however the ‘mega-gift’ mentioned above is what has buoyed the mean value, despite an increase in donations worth exactly £1m. This represents 15% or 46 cases of the total number of donations, compared to 13% or 39 cases in 2013.
Source
Compared with their relative decline in 2012, £1m pound donations from corporations have continued to recover throughout 2014. Moreover, donations from this group have now begun to exceed all previous contributions. Between 2008 and 2011 these donations accounted for around 10% of the total value in gifts each year, now in 2014, this percentage has risen to account for nearly 23% overall.
As was also the case in 2013, these donations came as a result of the continued philanthropic activity of a number of established firms such as Goldman Sachs, GlaxoSmithKline and Shell, as well as a number of new entrants and their associated foundations.
Elsewhere, gifts made by individual donors have also made a great deal of progress towards recovery, relative to the dramatic fall in value that was experienced in 2013. The figure rose from 18% (£239m) to 25% (£389m) in 2014. While the majority of these gifts remained at less than £2m, the number of grants over £10m doubled to ten in 2014. This included the second-highest donation in the dataset, worth £60m, which went to Great Ormond Street Hospital. Many of the larger-value gifts in this category were the result of individuals donating to their personal foundations; which may be indicative of the recent trend among high-net-worth donors who have pledged their fortunes to charity before their death.
As donations from both corporate and individual donors have increased in 2014, inevitably the percentage of those from foundations and trusts has decreased compared to the previously year. Giving from this sector fell by 16% to a total of 51% in 2014. However, there was also a significant decrease in the actual value of donations to £790m, a deficit of £125m in comparison to 2013.
Location
As was also the case in previous years, London remains as the centre of UK philanthropy, producing the vast majority of million pound donations (192 of the 298 gifts, from 74 different donors) in terms of location.
13 donations came from donors in the North West, 13 from the North East (representing 6.5% and 2% respectively of the total value), with the South East also reaching double figures (10 donations) representing 5% of the total value.
The second largest donation of the year came from an international donor, at £60m, from the United Arab Emirates. In total, 20 donations came from outside the UK from 10 different countries, which accounted for just over 9% or £144m of the total value. This marks a proportional and actual decrease from 2013’s figures when seven-figure donations from overseas amounted to £190m and accounted for 14% of the total value.
Recipients
There were a total of 243 recipients in 2014 with 298 donations spread between them. 29 organisations received more than one, 20 recipients received two, and the remainder each received three or more. As was also the case in 2013, the latter were mostly foundations and universities, though two health-orientated charities also received three or more gifts, and several environmental and heritage organisations were awarded two or more.
Distribution
Charitable trusts and higher education remained as the main destinations for million pound donations in 2014. Together, these groups attracted over two-thirds of the total value. In contrast to 2013 however, the largest share (36%) went to charitable trusts and foundations. This change is unsurprising, the report states, given the marked increase in corporate donors, who tend to donate to their associate foundations. This shift may also be influenced by the decrease in donations given by foundations, as higher education institutions (HEIs) typically receive a large number of donations from this source.
Five of the ten largest donations were still received by HEI’s and these were each worth at least £26m. The University of Oxford received two of the ten most generous donations, with the University of Cambridge, Imperial College London and University of Edinburgh each receiving one. Of the remaining five, four of these went to foundations and the last was received by a charity concerned with health.
In total, 35 universities received donations of a million pounds or more, with the University of Oxford and University of Cambridge receiving 11 and 10 respectively. However, UK HE philanthropy is not limited to the Oxbridge universities, the report states, as eight non-Oxbridge institutions also received more than one donation, and collected eight of the twelve gifts of £10m or more (University College London received two of these types of gifts).
Clickhere for a full version of the report.
Phi in Numbers: January 2016
During the course of December and January, several batches of new donations numbering at more than 20,000 records have been uploaded onto the Phi database, with records worth in excess of £78m.
This brings us to a total of 629,871 records of donations in Phi overall, and as is to be expected with such a significant number, these donations are spread across quite a large number of different recipients in various sectors.
UK Universities feature heavily, however there are also a number of donations made to charities and other Universities based in Scotland, with some examples including Quarriers, Alzheimer’s Scotland, The National Galleries of Scotland Foundation, Scottish Ballet and the National Theatre of Scotland.
Given the large number of records uploaded during this period, we thought it might be interesting to survey the various featured activity types in terms of their value. It should be noted that our survey is based on records with either an exact donation amount or a gift band lower (minimum £). Those with only a ‘gift band upper’ have been excluded for the sake accuracy. The results are also based on the data as it appears in Phi, and it is therefore not necessarily representative of the wider giving sector as a whole.
As is demonstrated by the chart above, the largest proportion of donations in terms of their value have been made to the Arts/Culture activity type, followed closely by Welfare, Children/Youth and Mental Health.
Interestingly, despite Education/Training making up well over half of the number of records uploaded during this period (13,307 records making up 62% of the upload), it comes in at 7th on the list in terms of overall value. The activity type that actually has the highest average donation size in the upload is International Development (£72,032).
We have also included a second chart displaying the makeup of each activity type relative to the upload, split according to donor type (Trusts/Foundations, Individuals, Companies etc). For reference, all donations to have been uploaded onto the database during this period were made between 2011 and 2015.
Profile: The Dunhill Medical Trust
This trust was originally formed from part of the estate of Herbert E Dunhill, a British tobacconist and the younger brother of Alfred Dunhill, who was the founder of the Dunhill luxury goods company and later, Dunhill branded tobacco products.
Prior to founding the well-known tobacco company, Alfred Dunhill got his start in business when he inherited his father’s horse harnessing company in 1893. Shortly after this, he began to supply accessories for motor cars under the name Dunhill’s Motorities, which also sold clothing and accessories to chauffeurs and their employers.
He then entered the pipe making business in 1904 where he developed the ingenious ‘windshield pipe’ which allowed motorists to simultaneously light up and smoke while driving. It was several years later, in 1907, that he opened his first tobacconist’s shop on Duke Street, London and soon after this, in 1908, the company developed the first Dunhill cigarette.
The business expanded enough to take on an additional premises, and in 1912 he was joined by Herbert Dunhill, along with his eldest son Alfred and his second son Vernon.
By 1921 the firm had received its first royal warrant as the tobacconist to Edward, Prince of Wales, and the tobacco brand also became of favourite of Winston Churchill and poet Siegfried Sassoon.
Alfred, the company’s original founder retired from the day to day running of the business in 1929. With his health beginning to fail him, he also chose to leave his wife and moved to Worthing to join his long-term mistress, Vera Mildred Wright, who would also change her name to his via deed pole.
The company’s chairmanship was then passed to his son, Alfred Henry, the same year that he retired. His younger brother Herbert died in 1950, and this trust was specifically established in order to promote research into tuberculosis, which was the cause of his death.
His niece Mary Dunhill Lane was one of its first Trustees, and while it was originally founded with this specific aim in mind, its trust deed was formally amended in 1986 to cater to an increasing number of applications related to issues associated with ageing and the care of the elderly in society.
For the financial year ending the 31st March 2015, the trust reported an income of £3,342,189 and an expenditure of £4,646,076.
Factary Phi holds 347 records of donations made to various organisations since 2008 worth a minimum of £16,842,063. According to Phi, the largest proportion of these donations have been made to causes associated with Education/Training (163), followed by Health (73), Welfare (39), Elderly (29), Disability (25), Arts/Culture (9), Development/Housing/Employment (3), General Charitable Purposes (2), Children/Youth (1), Environment (1), Mental Health (1) and Sport (1).
The Trustees
Kay Glendinning
Kay Glendinning the daughter of Mary Dunhill Lane. She is a Trustee of The Generation Trust, The International Medical Education Trust and the Oral and Dental Research Trust.
Professor Sir Roger Boyle
Professor Sir Roger Boyle is a medical doctor and a Trustee of the British Cardiovascular Society. He is a former director of the National Centre for Cardiovascular Prevention and Outcomes at UCL and national director of the Department of Health of UK. He was also a consultant cardiologist at York District Hospital for a number of years.
John Ransford
John Ransford CBE is a non-executive director of HC One Vision. Previously, he originally qualified as a social worked before gaining a background in the health, wellbeing and government sectors. He was awarded a CBE in 1997 for services to social care.
Professor James Mcewen
Professor James Mcewen is an Emeritus Professor in Public Health and he is also a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences.
Professor Roderick Hay
Professor Roderick Hay is a consultant dermatologist at London Bridge Hospital and he is also Chair of the International Foundation for Dermatology.
Professor Peter Lansley
Professor Peter Lansley is a retired professor in the school of Construction Management and Engineering at the University of Reading.
Professor Alison Petch
Professor Alison Petch OBE is a former director of the Institute for Research and Innovation in Social Sciences.
Deborah Dunn-Walters
Deborah Dunn-Walters is a professor of Immunobiology at Kings College London.