Community Giving:

Over £1.3M donated to charity since 2020

We give 1% of our profits each year and everyone that works at Mewburn Ellis has one community day per year to enable them to support causes they care about.

Community is important to Mewburn Ellis. For us this means nurturing our people, helping everyone develop and contributing to the wider communities in which we operate, as well as supporting worthy causes with time and money. We donate 1% of our profits to charity each year through our Forward Community Programme Charity Fund. Everyone that works at Mewburn Ellis has one community day per year to support causes they care about, we operate a Give As You Earn (GAYE) scheme, so our people can donate to charities of their choice in a simple and tax effective way and we match their own fundraising for charities of their choice up to £1000. Our combined community effort has amounted to more than £1,300,000 of investment since 2020.

We have a Community Champion that leads our activity and a group of people within the firm that support our community initiatives. Their role is to feed thoughts and ideas into the process and work closely with our chosen charities.

Our criteria for choosing charities to support is as follows, they must be:

Relevant to our business and the sectors and technical areas in which we operate

Helping to get more people into IP and remove barriers to entry to our profession

Important to our staff, enabling them to use their community day where possible

Directly supported by our people with their own fundraising efforts - we match up to £1,000

Supporting the local communities where our offices are based. These charities are voted for by our people

In line with our inclusion and diversity goals and values

Focussing on the environment and tackling the climate crisis

Emergency situations where we believe providing urgent help is the right thing to do

This chart shows our charitable donations since 2020, grouped by category.

Click a bar to see which charities we’ve supported, and again to see in which years we made donations – you can also filter by year.

Find out more about why community is so important to our firm

Firmwide Charities we Support

Mewburn & Wellbeing of Women Committee

by Frances Salisbury

Our Women’s committee are proud to support the UK’s only charity working across all areas of women’s gynaecological and reproductive health, with a donation of £30,000. Their pioneering work is ...

Our Involvement with the National Literacy Trust

by Maria Hall

At Mewburn Ellis, we believe that reading is more than just a foundational skill, it's a gateway to opportunity, imagination and success.

Mewburn Ellis team up with Support Dogs to sponsor an Assistance Dog

by Julie Carlisle

This week (7 – 13 August 2023) is International Assistance Dog Week and this year we're excited to mark it by announcing a new partnership with Support Dogs, a national charity dedicated to saving ...

£20,000 support for FoodCycle to help address the cost of living crisis.

by Maria Hall

This year we have chosen to support FoodCycle as one of our firmwide charities and have made a £20,000 donation. FoodCycle's vision is a society where no one is hungry or lonely and their volunteers ...

Mewburn Ellis CREST Awards partnership report

by Maria Hall

We are delighted to share our CREST Awards partnership project report. This outlines some of the amazing work that the funding from Mewburn towards the British Science Association’s (BSA) CREST ...

Mewburn Ellis support the British Science Association CREST Awards with £40,000 donation

by Maria Hall

We're really pleased to announce that we have now finalised an agreement to work with the British Science Association (BSA) as our main firmwide charity. We have made a £40,000 donation to them to ...

Local Office Charities we Support

Cambridge office announces support for Cambridge Rape Crisis Centre (CRCC)

by Susie Harrison

Our Cambridge office has selected to support Cambridge Rape Crisis Centre (CRCC) with a total donation of £50,000 across two years. Already this year, our funding has helped provide counselling to 30 ...

Bristol office selects Springboard Opportunity Group as their chosen charity to support

by Maria Hall

This year, our Bristol office voted for Springboard Opportunity Group as their office charity. We have made a £15,000 donation to the charity for this financial year – this is enough to fund a week ...

Cambridge office selects Cambridge City Foodbank as their chosen charity to support

by Maria Hall

Our Cambridge office has chosen Cambridge City Foodbank as one of our local charities and we have made a donation of £15,000 this year and a commitment to contribute the same next year.

A visit to The Booth Centre — Manchester office to support charity over next two years

by Maria Hall

The Booth Centre is a charity that our Manchester Office have chosen to support over the next two years. The centre provides direct support to people in the Manchester area who are homeless or at ...

London office selects The National Brain Appeal as their chosen charity to support.

by Maria Hall

This year, our team in London have voted for The National Brain Appeal as their office charity. We have made a £15,000 donation to the charity for this financial year and a commitment to donate a ...

Mewburn Ellis Announce Local Office Charity Donations of over £55,000

by Maria Hall

Earlier this year, as part of our Forward Community Programme, each of our offices got together to talk about what was important to them and created a short list of charities they would like to ...

Inclusion & Diversity Charities we support

We have also made donations of between £5-25K to each of the following charities in support of the overall aims of our community programme with a focus on diversity, inclusion and sustainability: These charities have been nominated by our I&D Collaboration Group.

Mewburn Ellis donate £20,000 to Jonathan's Voice

by Maria Hall

As part of our community programme our inclusion and diversity collaboration group have once again chosen to support Jonathan’s Voice, a charity dedicated to supporting mental health specifically ...

Mewburn Ellis support Jonathan's Voice for third year, donating £50,000 so far

by Maria Hall

“The focus of our I&D strategy is building inclusion, we are aiming to do this by ensuring that we listen more effectively and build connections within Mewburn Ellis and with external bodies. ...

A Tribute to Stephen Lawrence – his life, legacy and the long road to justice

by Kate O'Rourke

Stephen Lawrence Day is celebrated annually on 22 April to honour the life and legacy of Stephen Lawrence. Stephen would have been 47 years old today.

Ten new charities to benefit from our Community Fund

by Maria Hall

We have ten new charities that we are now supporting with donations of between £5,000 and £10,000 each. They have been chosen to align with our focus on inclusion, diversity and sustainability.

Women of Mewburn Ellis network charities we support

As part of our commitment to women at the firm we also allocate community funds to specifically support women's charities. These charities are nominated and voted for by our women’s group the WoMEn of Mewburn Ellis Network.

Mewburn & Wellbeing of Women Committee

by Frances Salisbury

Mewburn Ellis donate £7,500 to Mothers for Mothers

by Maria Hall

Our WoMEn network here at Mewburn are passionate about giving back and supporting the community, one of the chosen charities we are supporting this year are Mothers for Mothers, a charity that offer ...

Endometriosis - research, diagnosis and treatment progress

by Fay Allen

March is Endometriosis Action Month, and this year’s focus is on raising awareness.

Proud to support the Better Kitchen Sink Project

by Maria Hall

Mewburn Ellis announces firmwide menopause policy

by Robert Andrews

We are delighted to have launched a firmwide menopause policy to encourage discussion around, and support colleagues dealing with, the impact of menopause. The policy is thought to be the first of ...

Ten new charities to benefit from our Community Fund

by Maria Hall

We have ten new charities that we are now supporting with donations of between £5,000 and £10,000 each. They have been chosen to align with our focus on inclusion, diversity and sustainability.

Environmental & animal charities we support

We're passionate about the environment and making a difference in this important area. Charity is an important part of this.

Mewburn Ellis donate £10,000 to Rewilding Britain

by Maria Hall

Sustainability is at the heart of our business and means a lot to our people at Mewburn Ellis. Our sustainability collaboration group selected Rewilding Britain as one of our sustainability charities ...

Mewburn Ellis team up with Support Dogs to sponsor an Assistance Dog

by Julie Carlisle

Ten new charities to benefit from our Community Fund

by Maria Hall

We have ten new charities that we are now supporting with donations of between £5,000 and £10,000 each. They have been chosen to align with our focus on inclusion, diversity and sustainability.

Mewburn Ellis support the Sustainable Development Goals. Our community work delivers against ten of the seventeen goals.

Read all our Community Giving Blogs

Mewburn Ellis donate £300,000 to charity partnerships for 2025/2026 — over £1.3M donated since 2020

by Maria Hall

Today marks International Day of Charity (5 September) and since 2020, we’ve donated over £1.3M to charity so far, including £300K in 2025, through our Forward Community Programme Charity Fund ...

Cambridge office announces support for Cambridge Rape Crisis Centre (CRCC)

by Susie Harrison

Look for a Book: Spreading the Joy of Reading in Local Communities

by Maria Hall

At Mewburn Ellis, we’re passionate about supporting literacy and helping children build a lifelong love of reading. That's why we're proud to launch Look for a Book, a new initiative in partnership ...

Our Involvement with the National Literacy Trust

by Maria Hall

At Mewburn Ellis, we believe that reading is more than just a foundational skill, it's a gateway to opportunity, imagination and success.

Empowering Young Minds with CREST Star Kit Boxes

by Maria Hall

At Mewburn Ellis, we are passionate about inspiring the next generation of scientists and engineers. That’s why we are delighted to continue our partnership with the British Science Association (BSA) ...

Mewburn Ellis is the first UK IP firm to join UN Global Compact

by Maria Hall

We are proud to announce we have joined the UN Global Compact initiative – a voluntary leadership platform for the development, implementation, and disclosure of responsible business practices.

three page spread - sustainable communities report

Our approach to our Forward Community Programme:

Given over £1,300,000 to good causes and grown our Mewburn Forest to over 74,000 trees.
Enhanced our inclusive and supportive culture by becoming the first IP firm to receive the Menopause Friendly Accreditation and established Men's Health Campions across the firm.
Achieving a CDP score of B, and a Platinum rating with EcoVadis, joining the UN Global Compact and earning the Great Place To Work™ certification.

Meet our Community Champion

Maria Hall

Community Champion & ESG Lead

Maria is committed to using Mewburn Ellis’s platform to drive meaningful charitable impact. With the support of the Community Group, she champions initiatives that promote fundraising, volunteering, and community engagement across the firm. She manages the Community Fund and oversees the relationships we build with charities. Her focus is on strengthening these partnerships and supporting a culture where giving back is a shared priority. We believe that commercial success should always be paired with making a positive difference in the world.

Charity Partnership Application Form

If you would like your charity to be considered for partnership, please complete this form. Please note we can only consider registered charities as payments can only be made via the Charities Aid Foundation. Applications for each funding cycle can be submitted from July until the following February each year. All submissions will be reviewed after the end of February deadline. Successful applicants will be notified by email by the end of May at the latest.

All charities we work with need to be aligned with our criteria outlined above in some way. Our firmwide charity needs to align with our business and the sector and technical areas in which we operate. Our local charities can be much broader in focus. They are voted for by our people in each office so you must explain why your charity is relevant for that office.

charity

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Mewburn Ellis Forward is a biannual publication that celebrates the best of innovation and exploration. Through its pages we hope to inform and entertain, but also to encourage discussion about the most compelling developments taking place in the scientific and entrepreneurial world. Along the way, we’ll engage with the IP challenges that international organisations face every day.

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