Sunday Times Giving List-topping hedge fund manager Christopher Hohn gave £484m to the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF) through fees earned from The Children’s Investment Fund (TCI) in the year up to August 2008.

This represents a 79% increase over the previous year, when Hohn donated £271m to CIFF.  He has given more than £1 bn to CIFF through TCI in four years. TCI  2008 profits were up 73% from the previous year.

CIFF’s expendable endowment grew from £778m to £1.56 bn between August 2007 and 2008. The foundation’s spending on charitable activities grew to £33m for 2008, up from £11m the previous year.

The largest of CIFF’s grant-making programmes was focussed on ‘child survival’, as in 2007. One of these is an HIV/AIDS initiative, which delivers the Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission Programme (PMCTP), run by the William J. Clinton Foundation.

CIFF also more than tripled its staff and increased the number of trustees by two, to seven, in the year up to August 2008.

Jamie Cooper-Hohn, Hohn’s wife, is President and CEO of CIFF and Hohn is a trustee.