Britain's Super-Rich Pledge £100M+ to Museums and Research

The National Gallery waited nearly 200 years for a transformative donation. Last September, two showed up on the same day.

Sir Michael Moritz and the Rausing family each pledged £150 million to the historic London gallery. These gifts represent the largest sums ever given to a museum or gallery anywhere in the world, arriving just when public arts funding faces severe cuts.

Welcome to Britain's golden age of giving. Analysis of The Sunday Times Giving List shows today's top 20 donors each contribute an average of £126 million annually, up from just £53 million a decade ago.

The new benchmark for super-donors is £100 million, and at least ten British-based philanthropists have now joined this elite group. Last week alone, the National Trust received £10 million from private equity boss Humphrey Battcock, the largest cash donation in its 131-year history.

These aren't old money aristocrats protecting family fortunes. They're self-made entrepreneurs giving away wealth they built from scratch.

Moritz, 71, started as a journalist writing about Apple before joining venture capital firm Sequoia Capital. His early investments in Google, PayPal, YouTube and LinkedIn built a £4.43 billion fortune that he and his wife Harriet Heyman are now giving away through their Crankstart Foundation.

Igor and Anastasia Bukhman, both just 43, represent the youngest wave of super-donors. After their daughter Sonya was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at age three, they pledged £100 million to fund research for a cure, including £10 million to Oxford University for a new research center.

Their fortune comes from Playrix, the online gaming company Igor founded with his brother. Now they're also supporting young artists through the Tate's Art Now program.

The Ripple Effect

City traders Greg Skinner and Suneil Setiya took their approach even bigger. Their Quadrature Climate Foundation has pledged over £1.1 billion to 280 environmental organizations since 2019, handing out more than £200 million in 2024 alone.

The surge in mega-donations stems from an explosion of self-made wealth. Britain had just 25 billionaires in 2000 but 177 by 2022, most of them entrepreneurs who built their fortunes rather than inheriting them.

Unlike the landed gentry who viewed family trusts as vehicles to preserve wealth for heirs, these new philanthropists see giving as their legacy. They're choosing museums, medical research and climate action over multi-generational dynasties.

The National Gallery's new wing and expanded collection will welcome visitors for centuries, funded by people who built their wealth in a single lifetime and chose to share it.