Eye On: Chris Hohn August 6, 2015

(Caroline Broadhurst is deputy chief executive officer at The Rank Foundation and through the Clore Social Leadership Programme was a visiting fellow at Foundation Center. This is part of her series about the motivations of U.K. donors who have signed the Giving Pledge. For more about Chris Hohn and the other Giving Pledgers, visit Foundation Center's Eye on the Giving Pledge.)

Among the many different models of fundraising and grantmaking, The Children's Investment Fund and its counterpart Children's Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF), stand out in terms of scale and reach. In 2003, Chris Hohn created an innovative model for The Children's Investment Fund in which investors pay a fee to the Foundation, incrementally, depending on the Fund's performance. Fast-forward a dozen years, and CIFF has endowed assets over $4 billion. While Mr. Hohn uses his skills from the investing world, CEO Michael Anderson manages the Foundation on a day-to-day basis. The foundation's mission is to transform the lives of poor and vulnerable children in developing countries in the areas of children and mothers' health and nutrition; children's education, deworming and welfare; and climate change.

Chris Hohn:

• Successful hedge-fund manager
• British-born U.K. resident
• Father of four children, including triplets
• Co-founder of Children's Investment Fund Foundation
• Personal net worth is over $1 billion

Mr. Hohn and his former wife, Jamie Cooper, are co-founders of CIFF, and both serve on its Board of Trustees. Both are generous philanthropists. Ms. Cooper was ranked #3 and Mr. Hohn was ranked #7 among British givers, according to the 2015 Sunday Times Giving List, which identified top givers and the percentage of wealth they give away. The same list, co-sponsored by the Charities Aid Foundation, also ranked CIFF as #5 in assets among British charities. In 2014, Mr. Hohn was appointed Knight Commander of the Order of St. Michael and St. George (KCMG) for his service to philanthropy and international development.

Mr. Hohn attended Southampton University in England and moved to Boston to complete his MBA at Harvard University as a Baker Scholar. According to Active Philanthropy, Ms. Cooper recalled that her former husband was first inspired to explore philanthropy when he visited the Philippines early in his career and was shocked at the plight of children who lived in extreme poverty. This experience may have spurred Mr. Hohn to direct CIFF's ambitious aim "to demonstrably improve the lives of children living in poverty in developing countries by achieving large scale and sustainable impact." Much of the London-based organization's work takes place in Africa and South Asia, with strategic priorities focused on nutrition, child survival, educational achievement and more recently, climate change. CIFF works in partnership with governments, policy-makers and NGOs to address global issues. In 2014, CIFF awarded $122.2 million in grant awards.

-- Caroline Broadhurst