Major gift

Philanthropy website The Big Give is aiming to raise £20 million in its 2010 Challenge Fund, which offers to double public donations to charities.

Dame Stephanie Shirley, the government-appointed Ambassador for Philanthropy, has launched an online community for philanthropists in an effort to promote further philanthropy in the UK.

Angela Bowen has been appointed as the new Head of Major Donors at Cass Business School, London. She has been working in professional fundraising for 15 years, both in the UK and the USA.

Russian businessman Vladimir Potanin has announced that he will donate all his wealth to philanthropic purposes over the next ten years.

Prominent Northern Ireland industrialist and philanthropist Sir Allen McClay, 80, has died in America where he had gone for medical treatment.

Major donor giving site The Big Give raised £7.7 million last week during its Christmas 2009 matched giving campaign. The first £3 million of this was raised in just two hours.

John Duschinsky, founder of BeTheChange Consulting, and Clare Cotton of Cancer Research UK presented a masterclass on ‘Innovation in Action’ at the 29th IFC in Holland this week.

In response to the typhoon, a tsunami and two earthquakes that struck parts of the Asia-Pacific region within five days of each other, philanthropist Alec Reed created a matched fund on theBigGive.org

Sir Richard Branson will give the keynote speach at this October's Raising Funds from the Rich conference in London.