It was around 1980 that Paul Marshall, a keen Christian undergraduate at Oxford, went to a presentation by the evangelical aid agency Tearfund. He was so impressed by the call for Christians to help the world’s poorest people that he committed £10 a month to the charity. Within a few years he had lost his faith, so he cancelled the standing order.
Now, aged 64 and having returned to faith, Marshall is one of the UK’s most generous philanthropists. Last year, according to the Sunday Times Giving List, he gave over £5.5m a month to charities. His money buys influence in the media, in education—and in the Church of England. His philosophy of faith-based philanthropy is simple. He seems to believe that he has been blessed by God and called to use his enormous wealth to change the culture of the UK.
Marshall is co-owner of the hedge fund Marshall Wace, which he founded almost 30 years ago with Ian Wace. In 2017 the firm made £19m by shorting the beleaguered outsourcing giant Carillion, effectively betting that the company’s share price would plummet. Carillion was chaired by fellow evangelical Christian philanthropist Philip Nevill Green. Carillion collapsed, with the loss of thousands of jobs, but Marshall Wace carried on growing. In the year ending February 2022 it reported revenues of £1.5bn, with profits amounting to £720m (though the figures for the following year were slightly lower).