Oil tycoon Sir Ian Wood pumps £70m into charitable causes

Scottish philanthropist Sir Ian Wood has pledged £70million of investments into charitable projects - including helping pupils across the country as well as support for 45,000 farmers in East Africa - a review of his foundation has revealed.

Sir Ian Wood. Picture: Jon Savage/JP

The Aberdeen businessman, who made his fortune from the oil industry, issued the latest results of the work by Wood Foundation last night which shows where his charitable donations have gone.

Now in its ninth year of operation, The Wood Foundation (TWF) continues to make strong progress and has increased its investment in, and commitment to, activities in Scotland, in particular those based in the North East, but also to global charities.

To date TWF has invested and committed £70million through its venture philanthropy model, now evenly split across three focus areas – Making Markets Work for the Poor in Sub Sahara Africa, Developing Young People in Scotland, and Facilitating Economic & Education Development in Scotland.

In Sub Sahara Africa, TWF is working to support farmers in the tea sector. The Foundation now works with 45,000 smallholder tea farmers across Rwanda and Tanzania, and has seen an average 70 per cent increase on farmer yields in the last two years. The programme includes 9,500 hectares of new tea planting.

In Scotland, TWF supports a number of programmes focused on tolerance, citizenship, enterprise and philanthropy in young people. 

The Youth & Philanthropy Initiative (YPI) is one of the most successful school programmes in Scotland with more than 26,000 pupils involved from 195 schools.

The Global Learning Partnerships (GLP) is also growing and it is intended that the professional development opportunity for Scottish-based teachers will be extended from Rwanda into Uganda next year, increasing the number of teachers involved from across Scotland to about 40.

The IPS programme will see regional specialists introduced to raise confidence and competencies of primary science teachers across Scotland. TWF has committed £900,000 to this programme.

TWF also committed £25million to Opportunity North East (ONE), the private sector led body that supports the development of four key industries (Oil & Gas; Food, Drink & Agriculture; Life Sciences; and Tourism) in the North East of Scotland.

Already ONE has had a significant impact on the Aberdeen City Region Deal with £210m of government funds allocated to the area. This includes £10.7million to NHS Grampian for a new car park at Foresterhill Health Campus, a £5million grant for the creation of Robert Gordon University’s Oil & Gas Institute, £2.75million in state of the art Science, Technology, Engineering & Maths (STEM) teaching facilities at two Aberdeen schools and an ongoing commitment to support the Aberdeen Youth Games.

Sir Ian Wood, Executive Chairman of TWF said: “TWF continues to make really good progress with a significant feature this year being our increased commitment to various economic and educational projects in Scotland.

“The Aberdeen Hospital Car Park has been my wife’s project and has been extraordinarily well received with a very large amount of supportive messages.

“The Foundation is in good shape with good direction and an excellent management team. We are not resource constrained in developing our programmes.”

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