Celebrating and inspiring philanthropy around the world.

The 2014 Coutts Million Dollar Donors Report illustrates that major philanthropy is thriving. Tracking donations worth a total of $26.3bn[2] across seven regions - up from $19bn in 2012 - our findings make for encouraging reading and suggest that major philanthropy is becoming more prevalent, more visible and more organised.

Since 2008, Coutts has produced the Million Pound Donors Report to provide insight into major UK philanthropy. In 2013, we decided to cast our net wider to capture also the scale and nature of donations of $1m or more in the USA, Russia, Middle East (GCC[3]), China and Hong Kong. This year, we also added Singapore. The result is a report that is a leading authority on major philanthropy internationally.

Our report is about more than just data. The inspiring interviews with major donors demonstrate that philanthropy is driven by people’s values, passions, interests or visions for a better future. We are grateful for the frankness and honesty of the donors who kindly shared their personal experiences of philanthropy with us.

The social, economic and political contexts for the seven regions we looked at vary enormously. Data on high-net-worth giving may be easily accessible in the likes of the UK and the USA, but in other regions it is not as readily available. Whether this is due to the relative infancy of the philanthropic sector, or because of cultural factors that encourage major donors to stay out of the public eye, the result is that the true scale of giving in some areas is likely to be considerably larger than we report. We would also like to acknowledge the vast number of donations below the $1m threshold, which are not tracked in this report.

Such considerations mean that it would be misleading to make direct comparisons between the jurisdictions covered. This report nonetheless gives a strong sense of how philanthropy is growing and changing in each region, and which causes and communities attract the most attention. Overall, there is little doubt that major philanthropy is on the rise.

There are some trends evident in the report that warrant exploration. While it is important to exercise caution when generalising across regions that are very different, there are some striking common features.

HIGHER EDUCATION STILL LEADS THE FIELD

Higher education topped the table of most popular causes supported in four of the seven regions (the UK, USA, Hong Kong and Singapore), and came second in a further two. This echoes what we noted in previous editions of the report. There are many likely reasons: for instance, education is seen by many major philanthropists as the key to the success of both individuals and countries. Universities also embrace a wide variety of activities or subjects and so offer wide appeal to donors who may support research, the building of premises, scholarships or the development of endowments. On a more practical level, universities are generally very sizeable and well-established institutions that can easily absorb donations of $1m or more.

FOUNDATIONS AS RECIPIENTS

Foundations attracted sizeable donations in many of the seven regions. Many major donors favour them as a means of ‘banking’ mega-gifts, that is, distributing them – often to multiple organisations – over longer periods of time. Sometimes these larger donations are used to establish or grow endowments. Even in countries where philanthropy is not so well-established, such as Russia, there are growing signs that individuals and corporations are setting up foundations to formalise their giving for the longer term. Support for foundations is often accompanied by the professionalisation of philanthropy, for example the employment of dedicated, professional staff.  

GIVING STAYS CLOSE TO HOME, BUT OVERSEAS DONATIONS ARE ON THE RISE

Previous reports have suggested donors tend to give close to home, and 2013 was no different. Most major donations still went to causes within the donor’s country or region.

That said, 2013 saw the growth of overseas donations in many of the regions featured in the report. In fact, overseas donations was the third largest category of recipient.

It is too early to say if this is a meaningful trend, since many of the overseas donations went to one-off causes such as the relief of natural disasters. The overseas figures were also skewed by a small number of mega-gifts in excess of a billion dollars in the USA and Middle East. But what begins as ad hoc engagement in response to a tragedy has the potential to grow into a more strategic relationship between donor and recipient – it will be interesting to see if this pattern continues into the future.