10 years of the Master Charitable Trust

The Hoare family and C. Hoare & Co. customers have always been deeply involved in philanthropy.?Ledgers dating back to before 1900 hold records of some 1,500 philanthropic accounts through which funds were channelled to charities.

More recently, we became the first UK bank to launch a Donor-Advised Fund (DAF) – the Master Charitable Trust (MCT) back in 2011. The MCT is an?alternative to standalone charitable foundations or trusts.?Today, the MCT sits at around 10% of the UK DAF market, with over 100 customers. It has distributed over ￡160m with an average of c.130% year on year growth. Customer giving more than doubled in the 18 months following the start of the pandemic, from just over ￡41m to almost ￡84m.

Our long history of philanthropy and banking means we are well-placed to prioritise innovation in our approach to giving and helping our customers do the same. Behind the Golden Bottle Trust, lies an 100% impact-invested portfolio, formed of a range of social investments. This includes Snowball IM, an impact vehicle that we co-founded, with the aim of driving positive change whilst still delivering a strong financial return.

10 Years of Giving

The MCT has grown exponentially over the past decade. In 2011 we had two customers who made 43 grants to the sum of just over ￡87k and 2020 ended with 688 grants (over ￡63.5m). We support our donors in exploring a wide range of possibilities in philanthropy and enable them to be imaginative in their giving. During this time, we have facilitated many types of different grant requests, including creating a bespoke agreement for the construction of a school in Israel.

Further Insights

As the number of MCT donors has grown, so has their generosity. We witnessed our first six-figure donation in October 2014, given to the University of Toronto. This has since been followed with a further 23 donations all over ￡1m, the largest of which was a ￡6.25m grant. The charity which received the most funding, The Prince’s Trust, received over ￡10m from 15 separate donations. The charity with the highest number of donations at 38, totalling ￡355k, was Ealing food bank.?

Over the lifespan of the MCT, charities within the education sector have received the most support from customers (￡40.3m), followed closely by those relating to health or saving lives (￡35.2m). Of the latter, 69% of donations have been granted since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.

As a bank with a long tradition of innovative philanthropy,?we understand how philanthropists may feel overwhelmed by?administration and we are pleased to offer a flexible, efficient way to simplify giving. We look forward to growing the Master Charitable Trust and continuing to offer our customers best-in-class support for their philanthropic ambitions over the years to come.