Professor Beth Breeze OBE 

Director at the Centre for Philanthropy, University of Kent

Beth worked as a fundraiser and charity manager for a decade before co-founding the Centre for Philanthropy at the University of Kent in 2008 where she now leads a team conducting research and teaching courses on philanthropy and fundraising, including an MA Philanthropic Studies and a Fundraiser Apprenticeship.

Beth researched and wrote the annual Coutts Million Pound Donor Report from 2008-2017, co-authored Richer Lives: why rich people give (2013), The Logic of Charity: Great Expectations in Hard Times (2015) and co-edited The Philanthropy Reader (2016). Two of her books The New Fundraisers (2017) and In Defence of Philanthropy (2021) have won the AFP Skystone Research Partners book prize. In 2023 she published two further books: Advising Philanthropists: Principles and Practice (co-authored with Emma Beeston), and The Fundraising Reader (co-edited with Donna Day Lafferty and Pamala Wiepking).

Beth is currently working on the 3rd decennial update of the Why Rich People Give study, and has begun a new project to understand the nature, challenges of opportunities of Moonshot Philanthropy. In recognition of her services to philanthropic research and fundraising Beth was awarded the OBE by the Queen, presented by Prince William at a ceremony in Windsor Castle in December 2022.