JK Rowling charities gift £8m to good causes

HARRY Potter author JK Rowling’s charities donat e d more t han £8 million to good causes in the last year.

The Edinburgh-based writer, who also pens crime novels under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith, has given away millions from her fortune to fund charity work.

The money has been donated by the 52-yearold’s two charitable foundations in the past year.

Rowling founded and is president of the Lumos Foundation, which works to stop the practice of children being held in institutions, and also established the Volant Charitable Trust, which supports a number of good causes at home and abroad.

Volant made more than £3million of donations to 20 organisations including the Disasters Emergencies Committee, Oxf a m, Save the Children and Christian Aid.

Lumos g ave more than £5.2m to help orphans and troubled children held in institutions across the world. It contributed to de-institutionalisation projects in Moldova, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria and Ukraine.

The charity also helped reunite 111 children from orphanages in Haiti with their families, while also responding to the devastation caused by Hurricane Matthew, giving emergency care and supplies for 2,000 people.

The charitable foundations are largely funded by individual donations from Rowling and royalties from her books.

The best-selling author set up Lumos after seeing disturbing images of a little boy in a cage in the Czech Republic.