Goldman Sachs gives away £17m to UK charities

Goldman Sachs’s charitable foundation gave away £17.4m in the UK last year, up from £14.5m the year before. Schools and universities received the largest proportion of funding from Goldman Sachs Gives, which gave away more than £4m for UK scholarships and education investments over the year, according to accounts recently filed to Companies House.

This included a £558,500 donation to the London School of Economics, which had received just £8,500 from the investment bank in 2013.

Greenhouse Schools Project, a London-based charity that develops sports programmes for inner city children, received the largest amount of education donations from the foundation, totalling £1.15m over the year. Oxford University, which has benefitted from the foundation in previous years, was not listed among this year’s recipients.

 The rest of the money went to charities supporting arts and culture, local communities, humanitarian causes and medical developments.

Launched in 2007, Goldman Sachs Gives makes charitable donations on behalf of its empoylees and supports programmes in 38 countries. In that time, the fund says it has given away more than $1.6bn to non-profit organisations tackling social and environmental issues.

 In total, the UK arm received £23.3m from its US parent in the year to June 2014, up from £19.1m in 2013. Goldman Sach is one of the world’s largest corporate philanthropists. The foundation focuses on programmes that contribute to economic growth and help create jobs.

One of its main initiatives is the 10,000 Small Businesses programme, a course for business owners which helps them grow their firms and create jobs.

The UK has participants from Yorkshire, the North West, the Midlands and London. The foundation also supports 10,000 Women, which aims to provide female entrepreneurs around the world with a business and management education, mentoring, and access to capital. Goldman Sachs continued its charity commitments throughout the recession.

The investment bank paid its 34,000 staff an average of $373,264 last year - a $10,000 cut. The Wall Street giant reported a fall in profits in the final three months of the year, according the company’s latest financial results showed. Goldman Sachs employs around 5,580 staff in the UK.

telegraph.co.uk