The power of giving

The British are said to be among the most generous people on earth. When it comes to ordinary people scraping together pennies to give to children’s hospitals or donkey sanctuaries, this is unquestionably true. Yet when it comes to wealthy individuals using large slices of their fortunes to make transformative donations to institutions such as universities and schools, we are a long way behind America.

Where are the Carnegies, the Rockefellers? We do have wealthy donors, but they are generally on a much smaller scale, and quite often feel inclined to make their donations anonymously, as if it were an embarrassment to be seen to be acting with generosity.

The donation of £100 million to Cambridge University by one of its Natural Sciences graduates, David Harding, will hopefully prove to be a watershed. The single biggest donation ever made by a British citizen to the university, it will be used to fund 100 PhD students at a time, drawn from around the world and with the emphasis on under-represented groups.