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Personal giving

From one-off donations to long-term giving, or designing your personal philanthropic strategy, we work together to help you realise your giving ambitions.

DISCOVER OUR PERSONAL GIVING SOLUTIONS

Corporate giving

You have the vision for making a difference. So do we. We help you plan how to give based on your goals.

DISCOVER OUR CORPORATE GIVING SOLUTIONS

Services for charities

Helping your charity or social enterprise become more resilient.

DISCOVER HOW WE SUPPORT CHARITIES

Insights

Discover the latest insights for donors and charitable organisations to help create a greater impact

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About us

We are a leading charity, working at the centre of the giving world. We help donors to give more impactfully and charities to build their resilience so they can do more of their life-changing work.

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Research

High Value Giving

Our first in-depth look at giving by the UK's high-net-worth population, the research includes estimates of the number of wealthy people in the country and the size of their contributions to philanthropy.

Read the report

UK millionaires are donating nearly £8 billion to charity.

 

In CAF’s first ever report about the value of giving by Britain’s wealthy population, we commissioned research by Altrata, the owners of Wealth-X and experts in the behaviours and attitudes of wealthy people. Altrata’s findings suggest that the UK’s wealthy population donated £7.96 billion in 2023, and the true value may be even higher.

HNW_Total_Donations

Edward Garrett, Head of Private Clients at the Charities Aid Foundation says:

“The UK has a strong history of philanthropy, which has been behind some of our most important innovations and funds crucial charitable services throughout our country. But there is cynicism towards philanthropy in the UK, perhaps more so than other countries.

“There is considerable untapped potential for philanthropy to contribute towards tackling local, national and global challenges. Donors, particularly among the next generation, are increasingly considering their giving as part of the spectrum of capital they can invest within the broader impact economy. The Government can take steps to harness this and renew Britain's culture of giving to strengthen civil society for the future, with high-net-worth individuals and professional advisers playing a leading role.”

Key findings

Read the report

The UK has an estimated 536,000 millionaires.

While most of this wealthy population have between £1 million and £5 million in investable assets, there are an estimated 59,000 who have more than £5 million, including around five and half thousand who have at least £30 million.

Distribution_Pyramid_2

High-net-worth individuals hold investable assets worth an estimated £2TN.

This is the combined total held by those with at least £1 million in investable assets, excluding the value of their main property and their pensions. The wealthiest 0.01% (c. 5,500 people) have combined investable assets estimated at £548 billion.

The potential for high-net- worth giving could be as high as £19.9 billion.

If the wealthy donated 1% of their investable assets they would collectively give an estimated £19.9 billion – which would mean an estimated £12 billion more going to good causes.

 

Top causes supported by this group include education and the arts.

The most popular cause for wealthy donors is education, although it is one of the least popular among the wider population. Six in ten of the wealthiest people in the UK donated to education, compared to just 4% of general public donors.

Women are overrepresented among the most generous donors.

The top 10% of donors are those who give away the most as a proportion of their income. Like the wider high-net-worth population, this groups is majority men. However, women are significantly over-represented, as are those who inherited their wealth.

Recommendations for growing high value giving

 

Policymakers need to:

Focus on financial advice.

Direct the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to use its powers to add philanthropy to Continuing Professional Development (CPD) and the curricula of industry qualifications. This would help to increase the knowledge of philanthropy among financial advisers. The FCA has an important opportunity to include philanthropy and social investment in all its work on sustainable finance.

Deliver a national strategy.

Deliver a national strategy for philanthropy and charitable giving to bring together a co-ordinated and cross-government approach to charitable giving, including high-net-worth giving.


Advisers need to:

Talk about philanthropy with your clients.

Only 5% of advisers are very confident in discussing philanthropy with their clients. Yet nearly one in five wealthy people surveyed would choose a financial adviser who offered support on making charitable donations, rising to 57% of under 35s.

Boost your knowledge of giving structures.

Make sure you understand the ways clients may choose to give and the tax reliefs on offer to incentivise giving. You do not have to be an expert in giving but be aware of key giving solutions, including charitable foundations and DAFs. Our resources are here to help you realise your clients’ giving ambitions.


Donors need to:

Grow your giving.

Consider using a donor advised fund: DAFs allow you to invest and grow the amount you give to charities and can be invested through a variety of ESG funds. DAFs can also be very flexible to support grant making and impact investing. Also consider whether you have non-cash assets that you would like to explore donating.

Think strategically about giving.

Developing a giving strategy usually means identifying the change that you want to see and investing in how you believe this change will be realised. After identifying the charities and causes you want to support, donating over the long-term and in an unrestricted way can significantly support a charity’s ability to achieve their mission.

CAF’s advisory, grant making and impact investing services helps donors to define their strategy and achieve meaningful change.


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