In 2000, Rowling established the Volant Charitable Trust, which uses its annual budget of £5.1 million to aid women and children, and to combat poverty and social inequality. The fund also gives to organizations that aid children, one parent families, and multiple sclerosis research.[108] Rowling said,
"I think you have a moral responsibility when you've been given far more than you need, to do wise things with it and give intelligently."Rowling, once a single parent herself, is now president of the charity One Parent Families, having already become their first Ambassador in 2000.[109][110] Rowling collaborated with Sarah Brown, wife of British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, to write a book of children's stories to aid One Parent Families.[111]
In 2001, the UK anti-poverty fundraiser Comic Relief asked three bestselling British authors – cookery writer and TV presenter Delia Smith, Bridget Jones creator Helen Fielding, and Rowling – to submit booklets related to their most famous works for publication.[112] Rowling's two booklets, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and Quidditch Through the Ages, are ostensibly facsimiles of books found in the Hogwarts library. Since going on sale in March, 2001, the books have raised £15.7 million ($30 million) for the fund. The £10.8 million ($20 million) they have raised outside the UK have been channeled into a newly created International Fund for Children and Young People in Crisis.[113]
In 2005, to improve the lot of vulnerable children in eastern Europe, Rowling and MEP Emma Nicholson founded the Children's High Level Group.[114] In January 2006, Rowling went to Bucharest to highlight the use of caged beds in children's mental institutions.[115] To further support the CHLG, Rowling auctioned one of seven handwritten and illustrated copies of The Tales of Beedle the Bard, a series of fairy tales referred to in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. The book was purchased for £1.95 million by on-line bookseller Amazon.com on 13 December 2007.[116][117][118] Rowling commented "This will mean so much to children in desperate need of help. It means Christmas has come early to me."[116][119] Rowling will give away the remaining six copies to those who have a close connection with the Harry Potter books.[116]
Rowling has contributed money and support for research and treatment of multiple sclerosis, from which her mother died in 1990. In 2006, Rowling contributed a substantial sum toward the creation of a new Centre for Regenerative Medicine at Edinburgh University.[120] On 1 August and 2 August 2006 she read alongside Stephen King and John Irving at Radio City Music Hall in New York City. Profits from the event were donated to the Haven Foundation, a charity that aids artists and performers left uninsurable and unable to work, and the medical NGO Médecins Sans Frontières.[121] In May 2007, Rowling gave $495,000 to a reward fund of over $4.5 million for the safe return of a young British girl, Madeleine McCann, who disappeared in Portugal.[122][123] Rowling, along with Nelson Mandela, Al Gore, and Alan Greenspan, wrote an introduction to a collection of Gordon Brown's speeches, the proceeds of which are donated to the Jennifer Brown Research Laboratory.[124]