Community Foundation

Over the past five years, we have raised over £210,000 as a firm for our previous Charity Partners The Rainbow Trust and Mind. We are proud of our people who continue to be generous with their time in support of many charities and community projects.

We launched the Moore Kingston Smith Community Foundation in May 2021 to support greater engagement opportunities and broaden our collective impact.

With a history of undertaking innovative and rewarding projects to support the needs of local communities, forming the Foundation was naturally the next step in demonstrating our commitment to social responsibility.

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The Moore Kingston Smith Community Foundation

Ring-fenced from Moore Kingston Smith LLP and set up as a separate entity, the Moore Kingston Smith Community Foundation operates as a legal charitable incorporated organisation in its own right, enabling better transparency and governance of the firm’s charitable fundraising.

The Foundation claims Gift Aid on all personal funds raised and collected. In addition, sponsorship monies raised are match funded for any registered charity, enabling our people to support their own chosen cause with additional backing.

Annual report and accounts

As a registered charity, the Moore Kingston Smith Community Foundation carries out a range of activities to benefit local communities, strengthen charitable giving and enable our people to better support the causes close to their hearts. This includes match-funding sponsorship monies raised for any registered charity, making charitable donations, getting stuck into local initiatives as a firm and offering a personal volunteer day of leave for all our people to get involved with the initiatives they are passionate about.

Moore Kingston Smith is part of the Moore Global network, which has two member firms based in Ukraine: MS-Kiev and Moore AP Odessa. Since the war in Ukraine began, the Foundation has accepted donations from people and member firms across the network for the welfare of our Moore Ukraine people and their families.

Below we share the Trustees’ annual report and financial statements in accordance with applicable law and regulations. The report highlights the activities carried out, both as a firm and individually by our people, as well as outlining the Foundation’s future plans.

 

Read the full report and accounts

Matched charity sponsorships

Table of charities we have matched sponsorships

Charity partner: St Giles

Moore Kingston Smith is thrilled to announce that its people have chosen St Giles as the firm’s new Charity Partner, by a firmwide vote. St Giles provides support across a broad range of issues with services designed to make a genuine, long-term impact on social mobility, an issue that is close to the heart of a number of the firm’s people. Social mobility is also the priority area of focus for the firm’s Equity, Diversity and Inclusion and Charity Committees for 2023.

A national social mobility charity, St Giles gives advice and training to over 5,550 people every year affected by poverty, exploitation and abuse, struggling with addiction or mental health problems, caught up in crime, or a combination of these issues. The charity uses expertise and lived experiences to empower people who are not getting the help that they need.

St giles image of two young people working

Community activities

Moore Kingston Smith has always engaged with the communities close to us and the people we work with. More recently in these extraordinary times, we highlight just some of the terrific voluntary work our people are involved in. Their efforts create positive social value in the lives of many. Read on to find out more.

Training mentors to support mentees with vital life skills

Nick Winters, Partner, volunteers as a mentor and mentor trainer. He has many years’ experience of developing mentoring skills and has a role in training other mentors.

Nick tends to have long-term mentees who focus on developing their skills. Other work concentrates on solving a shorter-term problem, such as a change of career or dealing with a particular problem.

Outcome for mentees

Outcomes for mentees

 

Outcome for Nick

Outcomes for nick

Supporting black women in their working life experiences

Dionne Amoo, Head of Business Development, is a volunteer for Counter-Col Network (CCN) – a network that is dedicated to supporting black women in their working life experiences. As well as offering pragmatic support, such as affordable sources of coaching, counselling and legal services, CCN is a place for black women to feel solidarity and draw confidence from being around others with shared experience and understanding.

While volunteering with CCN, Dionne has been using her skills to build the CCN website, contribute to their future strategy and develop CCN communications to be concise, clear and welcoming for anyone who lands on their website.

Outcomes for CCN

CCN’s outcomes are generally based on the three elements of its mission: to create the space for black women to restore, be empowered and achieve:

CNN communities activities

 

Outcomes for Dionne

For Dionne as well, volunteering with CCN has been a transformative experience: “The whole experience has come from a negative and trying to turn it into a positive. Through CCN, I have realised that what I’ve been through is the result of a system, and I’ve been able to give myself a bit of a break. I’ve started to feel more empowered and confident about myself and my own experiences.”

Communities activities - Dionne

 

In the future, Dionne will continue to be committed to CCN and their mission to make a better world, especially through support with their communications, strategy and events.

Other examples of our people volunteering in the wider community include
  • Coronavirus vaccinator, St John’s Ambulance
  • Committee member, Art for Cure
  • School governor
  • Helpline volunteer, Tax Aid
  • Admin officer, Sea Cadets
  • Trustee and treasurer positions at wide range of charities
  • Blood donor
  • Animal carer, Animal Sanctuary
  • Delivery volunteer, Local Food Bank
  • Run director, Local Parkrun
  • Trustee, My Society
  • Trustee, Restart Project
  • Detachment commander, Army Cadet Force
  • Coronavirus crisis team member, GP practice
  • Committee member, Arsenal Independent Supporters’ Association
  • Treasurer, Nip in the Bud

For an overview of our activity, take a look at our Snapshot of community activities 2020/2021.

Community engagement at Moore Kingston Smith

Moore Kingston Smith has been facilitating an annual Action Day for several years. As we’ve evolved, this initiative has transitioned into office and personal volunteer days. Rather than coordinating a single day of mass action, our colleagues and associates now have the flexibility to choose when they would like to lend a hand in local communities across London.

Whether it’s schools, residential care homes, community centres, or city farms, we partner with local projects and charities where our skills and commitment can enrich lives. From painting murals and assembling furniture to hosting workshops or simply spending quality time with those who need it most, our volunteering efforts are diverse yet focused.

Financially, the time allocated for these volunteer days equates to approximately £400,000 annually. Still, the true value of our collective efforts cannot be measured in monetary terms alone. The impact on our local communities is both profound and far-reaching, as countless individuals reap the benefits of our targeted interventions.

By adopting a more personalised approach through office and personal volunteer Days, we empower our people to pursue causes close to their hearts and ensure a sustained and meaningful impact throughout the year.

Proud sponsors of Leyton Orient Football club

We think it is fair to say that we are football-mad at Moore Kingston Smith. We’ve been sponsoring Leyton Orient for years and are proud to be back-of-shirt sponsors of both the men’s and women’s teams. We’re even prouder to wear the O’s kit in the occasional business friendly.

Proud sponsors of Sevenoaks Rugby Club

We know a thing or two about rugby. We play it. We watch it. We even audit a premiership rugby club. So it’s a natural progression for us to wear our heart on our sleeve by sponsoring our local club, Sevenoaks Rugby Club. Importantly, both our organisations are big on community involvement and widening opportunities.

Charity activities

Landmarks Half Marathon

Landmarks Half Marathon

Skydive for mind

Skydive for Mind

Thames Bridge

Thames Bridges trek

3 Yorkshire Peak challenge

Yorkshire 3 Peak challenge

Governance

The Moore Kingston Smith Community Foundation is dedicated to providing support to charitable organisations and projects. If for any reason you have not been satisfied with your dealings with us, we do want to know.

If you are unhappy about our practices

If you are unhappy about our ways of operating or fundraising practices, please get in touch with any one of the Trustees. If you are not sure who to contact, please email Paul Samrah on psamrah@mks.co.uk.

Once you have contacted us, we will do our best to resolve the issue as soon as we can

Making a formal written complaint

If you are not satisfied with our initial response or wish to raise the matter more formally, please write to Graham Tyler who is the Chairperson of Moore Kingston Smith Community Foundation. You can contact them on gtyler@mks.co.uk. If your complaint is about this person, please write to psamrah@mks.co.uk.

All written complaints will be logged and we will respond to you with a written acknowledgement within five working days. Complaints will be investigated properly, and we will give you a reply within ten working days, explaining how we propose to deal with the issue. If it is not possible to deal with the issue swiftly, you will receive an interim response informing you of the action taken to date and/or being considered.

If you do not feel that we have resolved your written complaint

If you are not satisfied with our full response, you can refer the matter to either the Fundraising Regulator, if the matter relates to a fundraising issue, or the Charity Commission, if the matter relates to how the MKS Community Foundation is run.

You can find details to contact the Fundraising Regulator at www.fundraisingregulator.org.uk/complaints.

You can find details to contact the Charity Commission at www.gov.uk/complain-about-charity.

Our overall complaints procedure can be found here.

Contact us

Find out more about how we are making a difference, please email Paul Samrah.

Fundraising Badge

Moore Kingston Smith Community Foundation
Registered charity number: 1194068
9 Appold Street, London EC2A 2AP

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