Charity covers the cost of Obama’s Scottish speech
Barack Obama has given a speech in Edinburgh to an audience of more than 1000 businesspeople who paid up to £2000 a ticket – and nine lucky schoolchildren.
The speech, one of Obama’s first major addresses since leaving office, was paid for by a charitable trust founded by a Scottish entrepreneur, Sir Tom Hunter.
Hunter, who has pledged to give at least £1 billion to charity but has so far donated only £51.7 million, said it would be a ‘‘true honour’’ to hear about Obama’s ‘‘epic, historic journey’’ from the Chicago to the White House.
The media were excluded from the Hunter Foundation event at the Edinburgh international conference centre, which also featured performances by singer Annie Lennox and pop-rock band Texas. Ewan Hunter, chief executive of the Hunter Foundation, said this was because ‘‘the aim is not to raise awareness of the charity but to raise funds for charities across Scotland’’.
He said all profits from the event, which was sponsored by the Royal Bank of Scotland, would be donated to charities supported by the Hunter Foundation.
Top tables at the dinner cost £20,000 for 10 diners, while tables at the back cost £5000.
One of the 120 tables was occupied by the winner of a secondary school essay writing competition, eight of their friends and a teacher.
Further funds were raised from an auction, with prizes including two walk-on parts in the next J K Rowling Fantastic Beasts film, naming rights to the Gleneagles hotel’s American bar, and a private tennis session with Roger Federer and Andy Murray.
Ewan Hunter, who is not related to Sir Tom, declined to state how much Obama was being paid for the speech, and the Obama Foundation did not respond to requests for comment.
Obama has previously commanded as much as US$400,000, for a speech at a healthcare conference organised by Wall Street firm Cantor Fitzgerald.
It is possible to directly request a speech from Barack or Michelle Obama by completing a form on the Obama Foundation website.
Hunter did not explain how Obama had been booked for the appearance, but said that for a small charity, the Hunter Foundation had a good record of attracting big names.
‘‘We’ve had [Bill] Clinton, George Clooney, Leonardo DiCaprio and Sir Richard Branson,’’ he said. ‘‘Sir Tom has got a very strong network.’’
In 2007 Sir Tom Hunter, who had recently become Scotland’s first billionaire, told the BBC that he would donate £1b to charity. The broadcaster described the gift as the ‘‘single most generous philanthropic commitment made by any Briton’’.
Records at the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator show that Hunter’s foundation granted £1.7m to charity last year, £1.3m in 2016, and less than £1m in 2015 and 2014.
Ewan Hunter said total donations so far totalled £51.7m. He acknowledged that this was far short of the initial pledge, but said Sir Tom was still committed to donating a full £1b ‘‘in his lifetime, and he’s not dead yet’’.
‘‘It is a fantastic challenge, but he intends to meet it’’.