Clarke Willmott announces national charity partner as part of new community strategy

By Peter Davison

18 October 2023

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Social Mobility Foundation

Bristol-based law firm Clarke Willmott LLP has announced a national charity partnership to launch its focus on a community strategy support for social mobility. It’s part of a wider commitment as a firm to its ESG plans.

The firm will be supporting charity Social Mobility Foundation (SMF) with volunteering efforts over the course of the next year. Regional charity partners will also be announced for each of its seven offices soon, so that they can engage more closely and add social value to their local communities.

The announcement launches the firm’s new community strategy to support social mobility, an initiative brought in by CEO Peter Swinburn who took over leadership of Clarke Willmott in May.

Social Mobility Foundation was chosen as the national partner as it aims to level the playing field for students with the ability and ambition to flourish academically and in the world of work, but who lack the opportunities and networks to help them get there.

The SMF’s Aspiring Professionals Programme opens up 11 different professional sectors to young people. Each January 2,000 Year 12s join the programme from across the UK and are supported for five years, giving them the skills to achieve their aspirations.

Peter Swinburn, CEO of Clarke Willmott, said: “We are delighted to announce our partnership with Social Mobility Foundation, a fantastic charity doing vital work in supporting young people and providing them with opportunities to enhance their lives.

“We recently asked our people what causes they were interested in and a huge percentage thought that social mobility was where we could make the biggest impact together. We will be working hard, led by our head of ESG, Karen Higgins, to support, volunteer and provide mentoring for this charity.

“It’s also close to all our hearts as a caring and inclusive firm that has long supported our wider communities while promoting alternative career paths and growing talent from within.”

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Sarah Atkinson, chief executive of SMF, said: “We are delighted to be working with Clarke Willmott as their national charity partner. It is incredibly positive that Clarke Willmott recognise the need to improve social mobility within the sector and beyond and are committed to becoming a social mobility champion.

“We hope our partnership will help to encourage open conversations about what social mobility is and how it impacts the legal sector and business more widely, as well as provide vital networks for SMF students who will be mentored by Clarke Willmott employees.”

By Peter Davison

Peter Davison is deputy editor of The Business Magazine. He has spent his life in journalism – doing work experience in newsrooms in and around Bristol while still at school, and landing his first job on a local newspaper aged 19. By 28 he was the youngest newspaper editor in the country.

An early advocate of online news, he spent the first years of the 2000s telling his bosses that the internet posed both the biggest opportunity and greatest threat to the newspaper industry and the art of journalism. He was right on both counts.

Since 2006 he has enjoyed a career as a freelance journalist. He lives in rural Wiltshire with one wife, two children, and three cats.