Nearly three hundred UK donations of £1m or more, with a value of £1.36bn, were made to charitable causes or banked in foundations in 2013.
The research is published in the annual Coutts Million Pound Donor Report, released on 3 November. This report tracks the number, size, scale, and destination of £1m+ donations made by individuals, foundations and corporations in the UK.
The number of gifts represents a 50% increase on 2012, though the total value is only a 1% increase on the £1.35bn identified in the previous year. The number of donations of £1m+ is the highest ever recorded since the report was first produced in 2008.
Higher education institutions continue to be the most popular beneficiaries, with 65 or 41% of all £1m+ donations, totalling £552m, to fund initiatives such as research projects and scholarships. Higher education institutions in fact received seven out of the ten largest donations in 2013, all worth at least £30m.
Dr Beth Breeze, director of the Centre for Philanthropy, part of the School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research and co-author of the UK report, said the findings marked a new stage in UK philanthropy, when ‘giving a million’ becomes the new normal for those that have the capacity to give at the highest level.