Big givers

ANDREW Carnegie is Scotland's best-known philanthropist. Between 1883 and 1929, the Scottish-born American steel baron built more than 2,500 libraries in the United States and Britain.

In modern times, Sir Tom Hunter, Scotland's first billionaire, established the Hunter Foundation to support education and entrepreneurial projects and pledged to give 1 billion to charity. Last month, Harry Potter author JK Rowling gave Edinburgh University 10 million to study multiple sclerosis, the disease that killed her mother.

Oil tycoon Sir Ian Wood's Wood Family Trust aims to invest 50m in economic, community and enterprise activities in sub-Saharan Africa and Britain over a ten-year period.