A total of 232 donations of £1 million ($1.6 million) or more were made by a total 130 donors in the 2010/11 financial year, according to an annual survey by Coutts which noted that this is the highest figure in any single year since 2008.

There has also been a big increase in the number of million pound donors, with 130 different donors identified; up from 73 the previous year (this includes individuals, charitable trusts, foundations and corporations, some of whom made more than one donation worth £1 million or more).

“It’s extremely encouraging for the development of UK philanthropy to note that this is the highest number of donors and donations since we began compiling this report in 2008. Large scale philanthropy is on the increase and the more donors there are and the more they communicate about the benefits their philanthropy brings to society and what it means to them personally, the more it will grow and strengthen a new generation of philanthropists,” Maya Prabhu, executive director, philanthropy services at Coutts, said in a statement.

The Coutts annual report, now in its fifth year of publication, tracks size, scale and recipients of donations worth £1 million or more from individuals, trusts and corporations in the UK and is illustrated with a number of case studies of donors and recipients, who discuss their experience.

More than half of the million pound donations made in 2010/11 were donated by 93 individual donors with a total value of £763 million, highlighting that living individuals are the most significant source, the report said.

The most popular areas for donation are in higher education, international development and arts and culture, with individuals and institutional donors giving the largest donations within these areas, as well as a particular growth identified in environmental causes for 2010/11.

The report shows 191 organisations received million pound donations in 2010/11, an increase from 154 recipients in 2009/10, while the majority (166) received only one donation of this size. Organisations that received multiple million pound donations tended to be the oldest universities (notably Oxford and Cambridge) or national arts and cultural institutions. An overall £7 billion has been donated by million pound donors in the past five years from 2006/07 to 2010/11.

The total value of donations was £1.241 billion – lower than the total value recorded in the previous year, at £1.312 billion, covering donations in 2009/2010.

Although, despite the fall in the overall value of million pound donations, the amount that went directly to charities rather than being “banked” in foundations, increased from £631 million to £747 million, indicating a shift towards getting funds out onto the “front line” to charities, many of which continue to struggle to raise funds from other sources.

Heartening

"At a time when ordinary donors are finding it tough to maintain their support for charities, it is heartening to see those with a greater capacity to give are stepping up to the challenge in increased numbers. A 7-figure donation is obviously a major commitment, and it is not surprising that people start by making a gift of £1 million, rather than - say - £10 million. But experience shows that, if donors feel their money is well spent, and that their contribution is appreciated and makes a tangible difference to the causes they care about, then they will continue to give at this level, and quite possibly increase their contributions. You very rarely meet an ex-philanthropist,” said Dr Beth Breeze from the Centre for Philanthropy at the University of Kent and co-author of the report.

As in every year that the report has been published, the most frequent size of donation is worth exactly £1 million, indicating that “giving a million” has both economic and psychological significance for donors, and that the size of donation establishes a donor amongst the “top rank” of UK philanthropists.