2025 Impact Report
Community
Recognising our interdependence.
Community is something we share. That’s why we invest in mutually beneficial community partnerships that support healthier, more vibrant and more inclusive places for all.
What we've achieved in 2025:
Last year, we shared the following impact goals to:
- Increase the number of be the difference days from 35% to 50% of our people in 2025.
- Invest in the community with charitable donations and pro-bono work equivalent to at least 2% of profit each year.
- Refine our approach to giving in 2025 by agreeing a firmwide cause.
- Allocate an annual allowance per employee to achieve 5,000 hours of positive impact in 2026.
Our progress on these goals:
- Increased the number of charities to 40 but saw a drop in the percentage of people taking up volunteering from 35% to 23%.
- Met our goal of investing 2% of profit in our communities through donations and pro-bono work.
- Introduced a three-year community investment model through a voted firmwide cause to ‘End poverty and hunger’ linked to UN Sustainable Development Goals 1 & 2.
- Achieved 1,894 hours of positive impact. We appointed a new pro bono champion to help build momentum towards our 2026 goal.
Community impact stories
Our cause: to end poverty and hunger
Until December 2027, our chosen charities are those that seek to end poverty and hunger by providing emergency food and support or strengthening the social security system so people meet their own basic needs with dignity. Our three office-based charities are Home-Start Camden and Islington, Horsham Matters and Nourish Foodbank. During onboarding, charities highlighted cashflow challenges, so we replaced a year-end donation with smaller monthly payments of £150 a month. Our people have also volunteered, taken part in sponsored runs and organised donation drives to raise £4,250 over 5 months. This included the annual Great Cripps Run and The Big Give for our firmwide charity Meals & More that funds meals and essential support for children and families in need.
Evolving our approach to pro bono
In 2025, we appointed a new pro bono champion, Partner Tom Bourne, to encourage more people to contribute their professional time and skills to worthy causes. Many colleagues serve as trustees and board members for purpose driven organisations. In 2025, 419 hours were spent on pro bono work, valued at £127k and we estimate a further 695 hours of trustee time. During Pro Bono Week, we announced a new partnership with Fifth Day – an initiative designed to elevate awareness and acceptance, across the legal industry, of business services pro bono. By signing the Charter, we commit to promoting professional volunteering across the firm from both legal and business services teams.
Primary school partnerships
Locally to each Cripps office, we have developed partnerships in state-funded primary schools to support learning where resources may be stretched. Our annual budget is £8,000. We have delivered Reading Angels and French lessons at The Free School in Tunbridge Wells and hosted competitions and pupil led councils. For Marlborough Primary in London, we have provided maths mentoring and contributed towards new computers. At Colgate Primary in Horsham, we funded a new sensory space and continued our reading and maths programmes.
To widen our reach in 2025, we commissioned Punchdrunk Enrichment to train eight teachers from schools across London and the Southeast to deliver ‘A Small Tale’, an immersive story that sparks classroom imagination. Funding covered a CPD day, a prop toolkit and follow-up online training. All teachers rated the programme exceptional; one said it would “inspire children to write their own story” and support literacy.
Our cause: to end poverty and hunger
Until December 2027, our chosen charities are those that seek to end poverty and hunger by providing emergency food and support or strengthening the social security system so people meet their own basic needs with dignity. Our three office-based charities are Home-Start Camden and Islington, Horsham Matters and Nourish Foodbank. During onboarding, charities highlighted cashflow challenges, so we replaced a year-end donation with smaller monthly payments of £150 a month. Our people have also volunteered, taken part in sponsored runs and organised donation drives to raise £4,250 over 5 months. This included the annual Great Cripps Run and The Big Give for our firmwide charity Meals & More that funds meals and essential support for children and families in need.
Evolving our approach to pro bono
In 2025, we appointed a new pro bono champion, Partner Tom Bourne, to encourage more people to contribute their professional time and skills to worthy causes. Many colleagues serve as trustees and board members for purpose driven organisations. In 2025, 419 hours were spent on pro bono work, valued at £127k and we estimate a further 695 hours of trustee time. During Pro Bono Week, we announced a new partnership with Fifth Day – an initiative designed to elevate awareness and acceptance, across the legal industry, of business services pro bono. By signing the Charter, we commit to promoting professional volunteering across the firm from both legal and business services teams.
Primary school partnerships
Locally to each Cripps office, we have developed partnerships in state-funded primary schools to support learning where resources may be stretched. Our annual budget is £8,000. We have delivered Reading Angels and French lessons at The Free School in Tunbridge Wells and hosted competitions and pupil led councils. For Marlborough Primary in London, we have provided maths mentoring and contributed towards new computers. At Colgate Primary in Horsham, we funded a new sensory space and continued our reading and maths programmes.
To widen our reach in 2025, we commissioned Punchdrunk Enrichment to train eight teachers from schools across London and the Southeast to deliver ‘A Small Tale’, an immersive story that sparks classroom imagination. Funding covered a CPD day, a prop toolkit and follow-up online training. All teachers rated the programme exceptional; one said it would “inspire children to write their own story” and support literacy.
Our ambitions for 2026:
- Focus our efforts to enable 50% of our people to take up Be the difference time. Celebrate our volunteers during volunteers’ week in June. Partner with clients and their charities to create volunteering opportunities.
- Improve reporting. Pilot an employee engagement platform in 2026 that encourages volunteering activity and rewards people for logging their time.
- Roll out at least one structured pro bono project in support of our cause to end poverty and hunger.