Tilney Smith & Williamson has launched its first corporate charity partnership with Impetus, a charity aimed at helping disadvantaged younger people.

The firm has committed to a £100,000 annual donation for the next three years.

Impetus focuses on helping young people from disadvantaged backgrounds by ensuring they get support to succeed in school, in work and in life.

The charity finds, funds and builds a portfolio of charities (currently 17) to narrow the gaps in education and employment for young people from poorer backgrounds.

The firm said its partnership with Impetus will help open the door for staff to make a difference in their local communities and act as ambassadors for the financial and professional services sectors to attract a broader spectrum of people.

There will be opportunities for Tilney Smith & Williamson staff to volunteer, undertake pro bono work, attend or run knowledge sharing events and fundraise. 

Nicola Mitford-Slade, group executive committee lead on charities and communities at Tilney Smith & Williamson, said:  “The charity finds, funds and builds the best programmes that transform the lives of young people from disadvantaged backgrounds. By doing so, they very much follow the ethos of our own recently launched statement of purpose to ‘place the power of good advice into more hands’ and their work also aligns to our values of personal, partnership and performance.

“Our search for a charity partner was a robust one, led by three clear objectives. Firstly, we wanted to continue supporting those impacted most by the Covid-19 pandemic, following the support Smith & Williamson gave to FlatShare and Food Cloud and Tilney gave to Critical NHS in 2020. Impetus supports education and routes into employment for young people, two areas significantly disrupted by the pandemic.

“Secondly, we sought a charity that can benefit from our wealth of technical expertise through pro-bono and volunteering work. From specialist tax advice right through to our teams of HR and marketing professionals, we believe our people can make a huge difference to Impetus’ charity partners.

“Finally, it was important that our partner has a similar geographical footprint to us. Impetus’s 17 charity partners are spread across the UK, meaning the majority of our staff will live and work within a stone’s throw of one of their projects.”