Jersey property developer donates £100m fortune to top Giving List 2013

Jersey property developer donates £100m fortune to top Giving List 2013

News (UK)

Jersey-based former property developer David Kirch topped this years Sunday Times Giving List, published on 21st April, after donating his £100m fortune to his foundation.

Since 2006 Kirch has given a £100 Christmas handout to all pensioners in Jersey, at an annual cost of around £1m. He was prompted by the discovery last year that he had cancer to make his latest, largest, gift, but also referred to the both the happiness derived from giving.

Kirch is quoted by The Sunday Times, saying: “I love the island and so I have decided to benefit the elderly, as they are often forgotten.”

In total more than £2bn of charitable spending was captured by the 2013 Giving List, which ranks philanthropists according to the proportion of their wealth given to charity.

The Giving List also reports that Lord Ashcroft is about to become the seventh Briton to sign the Giving Pledge, after making a similar personal commitment in 2008. Instigated by Warren Buffett and Bill and Melinda Gates in 2010, the initially US-focussed initiative went global in February 2013.

Others that have made the commitment include Richard and Joan Branson, and Lord Sainsbury, who climbed to third position on the Giving List by making donations equivalent to half his listed 2013 wealth of £590m. Hedge fund manager Christopher Cooper-Hohn, who also made the pledge in February is second on the Giving List after donating and generating more than £90m.

Dr John Low, chief executive of the Charities Aid Foundation (CAF) who partner with The Sunday Times to produce the Giving List, said: “The big donors in the Giving List are pushing their money out into the world; they are not doing it in response to appeals. This systemic form of giving has the biggest strategic impact. Frankly it is the bedrock of philanthropy in the UK.”

New faces on the Giving List include Martin Lewis, who donated £11.1m from the sale of his website MoneySavingExpert.com last year, and boyband phenomenon One Direction, who will give more than £1m through their Comic Relief single ‘One Way or Another’ and the proceeds of a concert this month.

The top ten of the Sunday Times Giving List includes:

 

                                                2013 wealth     Recent donations          Giving index

1 David Kirch                            £100m             £100m                         100.00%

2 Christopher Cooper-Hohn  £150m             £90.3m                        60.22%

3 Lord Sainsbury                      £590m             £294.9m                      49.99%

4 Talal Shakerchi                      £100m             £22.4m                        22.44%

5 Martin Lewis                            £60m               £11.1m                        18.50%

6 Graham Tuckwell                  £308m             £34m                           11.05%

7 Alan Parker                           £2,400m          £206.9m                      8.62%

8 John Reece                            £200m             £16m                           8.02%

9 Sir Martin Laing                     £120m             £9.1m                          7.57%

10 David and Heather Stevens£152m               £11.4m                        7.53%

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