The following are 10 key points that have come out of our new Major Donor Giving Research Report. 

1. Whilst Breeze and Lloyd argue there is an industry standard of £5,000 constituting a major gift,[1] a survey of 88 charities published in 2013 suggests that there is no consistent sector-wide definition.
    
2. A third of Breeze and Lloyd’s major donor respondents do not expect access to the charity leadership until they have given a donation worth £50,000 or more.[2]
    
3. New Philanthropy Capital have argued that a step change in how generosity and giving are seen by the very wealthiest could see giving from this group increase in the UK from its current level of £1.3bn to £5.2bn per year, if donors were to adopt best practice levels of giving.[3]  
    
4. Britain’s wealthiest people gave approx. £3.2bn to charitable causes in 2016, up 20% from 2015.[4]
    
5. With nine years of data available, Breeze argues that there is now sufficient evidence to confidently speak of a ‘boom time’ for UK philanthropy driven by new and repeat million-pound donors.[5]
    
6. The US remains significantly ahead of any other country in terms of giving; in the US $258.5bn was given to charity in 2015, compared to $17.4bn in the UK, which had the second-highest figure of the countries researched.[6]
    
7. CAF found a correlation between charitable giving and volunteering time, suggesting that encouraging greater levels of volunteering could yield results in terms of money donated to philanthropic causes.[7]
    
8. Five inter-locking influences that drive giving among the wealthy identified by Lloyd ten years earlier are still valid, namely: belief in the cause, being a catalyst for change, self-actualisation, duty and responsibility and relationships.[8]
    
9. Why Rich People Give revealed that ‘feeling that my money will make a difference’ (74%), ‘being already interested in the cause’ (74%), ‘if it fits with my pre-determined giving objectives’ (73%) and ‘being asked by someone I know and respect’ (69%) were considered the most relevant when deciding which giving requests to consider.^[9]
    
10.  Lloyd and Breeze recommend that charities: become better at asking, ensure that experiences of serious giving are positive and reinforcing, integrate legacy promotion with other forms of relationship development, consider matched funding schemes and to address the lack of confidence in their competence.[10] 

You can download the full report using the purple download form below, or by visiting this page. Why not share your thoughts on Major Donor Giving in the comments section too?