In 1869, John James Sainsbury and his wife, Mary Ann, bought a small dairy shop in London and turned it into a grocery store. That was the first Sainsbury's. From the beginning, the Sainsburys created a supermarket chain, which today has over 700 stores, of which 191 are in the USA. Total sales are nearly $30 billion and profits are about $1 billion. And for more than 100 years now, Sainsbury's has been the most successful supermarket chain in Great Britain's history. Moreover, the Sainsbury family put the same vision and fervor into their philanthropic efforts as they did in their great retail ventures.

Today there are 19 trusts, set up by 18 different members of the family spanning over three generations. They have provided the benchmark for British philanthropy over the past three decades and have set up a single administrative office, for economy of style, breadth of knowledge, and to preserve the distinctive character of each foundation while building a collective reputation for discreet, substantial and sustained support for innovative action, through grants ranging from large to small. A few examples follow:

• Massive long-term support for the country's National Gallery, where there is now a new Sainsbury wing
• The Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts at the University of East Anglia
• The Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health
• Projects further afield, in the recovering post-Soviet Union economies of East and Central Europe for example, and especially in the fragile world of sub-Saharan Africa, where they collaborate with a certain Rockefeller Foundation
• Education and scientific research
• Smaller grants on subjects ranging from autism to the environmental effects of aviation.
  In 2001, the Sainsbury Trusts donated some $90 million to a wide range of good causes both in Great Britain and abroad. The flagship of this fleet of trusts is the Gatsby Charitable Foundation.

Lord David Sainsbury

Lord David Sainsbury established Gatsby in 1967 when he was 27 years old. He used his own inheritance to do it. In 1993, David Sainsbury made a further gift to Gatsby of over $300 million. At the time, this gift was the largest single philanthropic donation ever recorded in the UK. Each year since then, Lord Sainsbury has donated at least another $10 million to the trust.
Gatsby is one of the most interesting grantmaking institutions in the world. First, Gatsby is very focused. Its trustees concentrate on a limited number of areas, such as plant science, mental health, or help to Africa.

Second, Gatsby is proactive. Rather than awaiting proposals, its trustees identify areas for action.

Third, the trustees are not afraid to experiment and take risks, both of which are generally outside the comfort zone of most government bureaucrats. Finally, the trustees look to the long term. They believe that many things worth changing can take 10 years or more to improve substantially. Clearly defined aims, not the length of the grant, are important to the trustees.
David Sainsbury was educated at Eton and at Cambridge, where he began by reading history but became fascinated by science. He graduated in 1963 with a BA in psychology. In 1971, he received his MBA from Columbia's Graduate School of Business. He joined his family's supermarket business after graduation, rising to become finance director and then chairman and chief executive. In 1997, Columbia University honored him with its prestigious Botwinick Prize in business ethics, which is awarded to leaders who display exemplary ethical practices in management and leadership. That same year, Prime Minister Tony Blair made him Lord Sainsbury of Turville and, a year later, appointed him as Minister for Science & Technology.