The most generous man in Britain this year does not want to talk about his philanthropy. Sir Paul Marshall, the hedge fund boss who was knighted in 2016 for his charity work, takes the top spot in The Sunday Times Giving List.
Worth an estimated £875 million, Marshall is a founder trustee of the Ark children’s charity and chairman of its academy chain. He has donated £145.1 million in the past 12 months — about £2.8 million a week — including a seven-figure sum to Holy Trinity Brompton, his local church in Knightsbridge and home of the “Alpha courses” for born-again Christians that are popular with celebrities such as Bear Grylls and Geri Halliwell. He also gave a sizeable donation to Tiny Tickers, a charity that works to improve the early detection, diagnosis and care of babies with congenital heart disease, and more than £87,000 to Razom, which raises funds for Ukraine.
On the topic of his munificence, the former Liberal Democrat, outspoken Brexit backer and budding media mogul behind GB News is uncharacteristically quiet.
He is not alone. According to the Charities Aid Foundation (CAF), only 23 per cent of high-net-worth individuals publicly discuss their giving — British donors often prefer to stay anonymous. Despite the fact that the UK is the third most generous country in the world when it comes to giving money to charity, public displays of generosity are received much like public displays of wealth — with derision. This is in stark contrast to the US, where lower federal tax rates, less social provision and other factors mean that wealthy individuals are expected to give to schools, hospitals and churches.
“We tend to be much more cynical,” says Joe Crome, head of UK/US clients at CAF. Yet as Andrew Carnegie, one of the greatest philanthropists in history, once said: “It is more difficult to give money away intelligently than to earn it in the first place.”
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That’s where the middlemen come in. To help millionaires struggling to part with their cash there are now private banks, advisers and charities offering their expertise. It seems that control-freakery, which can be so essential when it comes to building a business, may not be so helpful when it comes to the business of giving to good causes.
Traditionally donors put strict parameters on how and where their money should be spent, but there has been huge growth over the past decade in trust-based philanthropy, particularly the use of donor-advised funds (DAFs), which remove the administrative and legal burden for donors, and the need for lengthy grant applications and extensive reporting for recipients.
This “places more trust in the expertise and capabilities of the recipient”, says John Canady, the CEO of the National Philanthropic Trust UK, which has calculated that contributions to such funds are up by more than 35 per cent since 2021. This is good news all round, as every penny pours straight into the charity and isn’t wasted on the overheads of having a private foundation. DAFs’ agility enables donors to use them like a charitable endowment for long-term giving, or for a quick, responsive donation — as disaster relief, for example.
This shift in trust has led to a new sense of openness. “Much of philanthropy and the decisions that drive it have historically operated behind closed doors,” says Juliet Agnew, head of philanthropy at Barclays Private Bank.
The younger generation, especially, are embracing this trend for transparency. “There has been something of a reckoning within the philanthropic world,” Agnew says. Donors are increasingly aware of the origins of their wealth and how its creation may have contributed to social injustices or harmfully impacted the environment. Money may be given to help fix problems caused by founders or ancestors — reparation, in other words. The Rockefellers, for example, who made their fortunes in oil, recently committed more than $1 billion to advance climate change solutions. The Greene King pub group, whose founder profited from slavery in the 18th century, announced a partnership with the International Slavery Museum in Liverpool and has pledged funding for Black History Month initiatives.
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That openness is expanding the scope of philanthropic giving, broadening out from local or personal concerns, such as religious and community obligations, to global causes. “More donors are focusing on the ‘big issues’ of our time and seeking out ways to have the most impact through their giving,” Agnew says. This matters more than ever as we are entering what the industry has labelled the “great wealth transfer”, where a staggering £5.5 trillion will shift globally between generations over the next 30 years.
As a result, a new wave of collaborative philanthropy is being embraced. “Broadly, next-generation donors are more inclined to partner with other donors,” Canady says. In a move away from top-down, closed-door philanthropy, different funders or groups are sharing intelligence and costs, and pooling resources to help a particular cause.
A more radical fringe of inheritors is taking things a step further, addressing the nuts and bolts of charitable giving and turning to “progressive” advisers such as the Good Ancestor Movement and Ten Years’ Time, which tackle issues of inequality and social justice in wealth redistribution. And then there’s taxation, which a small but noisy cohort of donors claims is in dire need of change. The UK wing of the Patriotic Millionaires campaign group is calling for a hike in taxes on the super-rich, backed by 40-plus members including Guy Singh-Watson, the founder of Riverford Organic Farmers, and Ian Gregg, whose father founded the Greggs bakery chain.
“Rather than increasing philanthropy, we think there needs to be a systemic overhaul in the way the most wealthy are taxed,” says Rebecca Gowland, executive director of Patriotic Millionaires. “Their contribution needs to be much greater. Giving is not the answer — fairer tax is.”
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For many on the Rich List, giving their money away becomes their primary business. The Weston family, who own Primark and Fortnum & Mason and are ranked 27th in this year’s Giving List, are a clear example of this. Thanks to their ancestor Garfield Weston, their foundation owns about 80 per cent of the family’s holding company, and the latest accounts show they received more than £90 million in dividends last year. It is undoubtedly the most generous foundation to UK-based charities on our list, having donated £91 million last year — the majority to smaller organisations that struggle to raise funds.
Sir Lloyd Dorfman, the philanthropist and founder of Travelex, who has donated tens of millions to good causes including the Royal Opera House and ranks 95= on our list, has said that enjoyment is crucial for him. “It’s a combination of the altruistic side — the notion that you’re helping people, you’re changing lives — and doing things that I enjoy,” he said. “I don’t play golf, I’m not into horse racing, I don’t want to own a football team. This is what I enjoy.”
While linking capital to the right causes is still important, donors are increasingly turning towards a blended form of philanthropy that combines investment with donations. According to Nick Loughran, the co-founder of Integra, a consultancy that offers social impact guidance, this can entail “innovative approaches such as philanthro-capitalism or venture philanthropy”. Such philanthropic portfolios combine donations as well as investments into companies that have social or environmental impact — for example, giving to a company that’s working on climate solutions or to a social enterprise that’s tackling racial inequality.
It might sound complicated, but it’s a move away from traditional foundations and all their complexities, and towards something that many self-made billionaires know a lot about: how to make money. Outsource how that happens, and the hope is that this new form of philanthropy becomes a much more efficient way of financing good causes. Less faff, more impact. Win-win.
How is the Sunday Times Giving List compiled?
The Sunday Times Giving List, in association with the Charities Aid Foundation (CAF), tracks the philanthropic activity of more than a third of Britain’s 350 wealthiest people. Analysis of this year’s list found that, of the 100 Rich Listers who feature, 90 gave more than £1 million, 38 gave more than £10 million and 9 donated more than £100 million. However, donations by the top 100 have fallen year on year by £208 million. They gave away a total of £3.233 billion compared with £3.431 billion in 2023.
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The Giving Index is compiled annually by The Sunday Times. It calculates the proportion of total wealth donated or pledged to charity by those who appear in the Rich List. It is based on accounts lodged with the Charity Commission, the Scottish Charity Regulator or questionnaires received by May 10, 2024. Donations are defined as money distributed personally, by companies, by charitable foundations; or by broader-based charities that are identified with a given individual.
We only feature a top 100. There may be some names that feature in the Rich List but not the Giving List because the individuals have chosen not to reveal their charitable giving.
In association with Charities Aid Foundation
Rich List 2024
Explore the definitive guide to the wealth of the UK’s richest people
The Rich List replaces the usual edition of the magazine this weekend
