Since its inception in 1990, Stewarts has been actively involved in supporting a variety of charities. The Stewarts Foundation was set up in 2010 to formalise and manage the firm’s charitable giving.

In 2020 the partners of Stewarts donated over £805k to The Stewarts Foundation to support its chosen causes.

To date, the Foundation has donated over £6.1m to over 180 charities.

The Foundation’s vision is to:

• Create opportunities for the disadvantaged in our society
• Treat people less fortunate than ourselves with compassion and respect
• Make a substantial social impact

The Foundation supports a small number of UK charities carefully selected by its Trustees through its grant-giving programme.

Grant giving

The Foundation refocused its grant giving principles in 2016 to include four key areas:

• Alleviating poverty
• Enabling access to justice
• Supporting disability
• Providing educational opportunity

As part of this, the Foundation committed to donating £1m over four years to the Access to Justice Foundation. This initial commitment ended in 2019 but the Foundation will continue to give to the Access to Justice Foundation for a further five years. The grant will be split between the provision of aid for legal advice centres, and covering the cost of a new Access to Justice Centre and Network which will be the go-to centre for all things “Access to Justice” related.

As well as Access to Justice, charities supported by the Foundation in 2020 include:

• Back Up: donation towards supporting the Outreach team, which supports both the individual with a spinal cord injury and their families.
• Brainbox: donation towards new laptops and other support services.
• Centrepoint: donation used to part fund the continuation of the Senior Mental Health Advisor post who oversees our mental health programme across the city of London.
• City Solicitors Horizons: donation used to support a social mobility initiative to improve access to the legal profession. In addition to the grant a number of solicitors are mentors for students through University.
• Danny Turnbull Scholarship Fund: funding for a disabled student to undertake their LPC at The University of Law. This has been awarded to Victoria-Jayne Scholes.
• Feast!: donation to a charity using food being thrown away by supermarkets to create meals for the homeless. The funds will be used to support the coordination of FEAST! programmes in North and South London as demand for food parcels increases. This will include securing food surplus distribution to various community centres with kitchens, maintaining community kitchens, volunteer coordination and training, maintaining social media presence, partnerships, and service evaluation efforts.
• Headway: donation towards the continuation of Emergency Fund grants. The Emergency Fund provides grants to help adult brain injury survivors and their families cope with the practical implications in the immediate aftermath of brain injury. This fund was originally set up with early grants from the Foundation.
• Just for Kids Law: donation to fund a full-time youth opportunities worker.
• JUSTICE: donation to an all-party law reform and human rights organisation working to strengthen the justice system – administrative, civil and criminal – in the United Kingdom. The grant will be used to support JUSTICE’s core work including its working party on the Family Justice System, where we will be focusing on improving the system for separating families who need help with child arrangements, i.e. private law proceedings, focusing on how procedures can best prioritise the child’s welfare.
• Royal Academy of Arts: grant will fund a student bursary.
• School Home Support: donation towards their safeguarding and child protection work.
• Spinal Injuries Association: donation used to fund the Peer Support Service for spinal cord injured people and campaign activities of the Public Affairs team.
• St George’s Crypt: donation used towards the Growing Rooms project which is a part of the Health and Wellbeing programme.
• St Mungo’s: donation used to support “Putting Down Roots” a skills and employment project leading to qualifications in gardening and horticulture.
• Wellbeing of Women: donation to help fund a study led by Dr Varsha Jain at the University of Edinburgh into abnormal uterine bleeding.
• WheelPower: donation used to fund programmes and events which help recently paralysed people access sport and active recreation.

You can find out more about The Stewarts Foundation here.