This year in hedge fund philanthropic news, Canada’s hedge fund industry gathered in November to raise $150,000 in support of Hedge Funds Care Canada (HFCC), which is dedicated exclusively to the treatment and prevention of child abuse and neglect.

Corey Goldman, President and Director of Hedge Funds Care Canada said,  “Hard times bring stress, and stress causes pain but there is no reason that any child should be exposed to physical or psychological trauma, maltreatment or neglect.”

Also in November, leaders across the hedge fund industry raised more than $1.7 million at the 100 Women in Hedge Funds 2008 Charity Gala at Cipriani in New York City. In addition to the New York Gala, 100 Women in Hedge Funds also hosted a successful Charity Gala in London and fundraiser in Geneva in September this year.

These charity events raised over £630,000 ($1.2 million) for Wellbeing of Women, a UK charity focused on women’s health issues.

Britain’s most generous philanthropist, hedge fund manager Chris Hohn, who established the Children’s Investment Fund more than five years ago, donated £230 million to the hedge fund’s charitable arm but was dwarfed by the philanthropy of American billionaires such as Warren Buffet, who pledged $31 billion to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Other notable British philanthropists include the Scottish entrepreneur Sir Tom Hunter, who donated £100 million to charity three years ago and David and Heather Stevens, the founders of the insurance company Admiral, who this year donated £100 million.

Also in the news was Operation Breakthrough, which uses boxing as a tool to help tackle juvenile delinquency in Hong Kong, and Operation Smile, which helps repair childhood facial deformities in the poorest parts of the world.

Most recently an anonymous New York hedge fund manager contacted the British cancer campaign group after hearing of the plight of Jack Rosser, 57, who could not afford a life saving cancer drug. He then offered to sponsor the patient through recovery.