Irwin Mitchell Raises £56,000 For Charity Of The Year

National charity Support Dogs is set to benefit from a record £56,000 donation from Irwin Mitchell’s Sheffield office, after staff at the firm spent all of last year raising funds for the organisation.

Support Dogs was nominated by staff at the office to be their Charity of the Year for 2016 as part of a nationwide initiative developed by the Irwin Mitchell Charities Foundation. 

Established in 1997, IMCF is an independent registered charity set up by the firm which has donated more than £1.5 million to third sector organisations. A record £163,000 was raised in total across the law firm’s offices in 2016, with the £56,000 for Support Dogs also being a record for the Sheffield office.

Support Dogs was launched in 1992 to provide, train and support specialist assistance dogs to help those affected by medical conditions including autism and epilepsy.

Niall Baker, Regional Managing Partner at Irwin Mitchell’s Sheffield office, said: “We are delighted to be able to provide this record donation to a truly fantastic cause in our local community.

“Our Charity of the Year initiative is something that all of our employees are very passionate about, with everyone pitching in to raise funds in a variety of ways across 2016 to ensure we can provide quality support to this charity.

“Last year was a record-breaking one in terms of our fundraising work and we are very proud to be able to give back to the local communities where we operate in this manner.”

Irwin Mitchell has been a long-time supporter of Support Dogs, even funding the training of a dog called Mitchell. He is currently assisting Sheila, who is affected by a range of medical conditions which make her day-to-day life difficult. 

The firm’s latest donation of £56,000 will go towards the funding of additional premises for the charity, enabling the charity to expand its work for the first time in over 12 years to increase the number of support dog partnerships it can train each year.

Rita Howson, Chief Executive at Support Dogs, said, “We are hugely grateful to everyone at Irwin Mitchell’s Sheffield office for this fantastic donation which will allow us to make a huge difference to a lot of people’s lives. The money raised is far beyond our expectations and will make a significant difference to our charity’s work.

“As well as funding the training of a support dog partnership, it will help us at a really important time in our history. The expansion to extra premises will allow us to train many more support dog partnerships each year and help us as we face an unprecedented demand for our services. This donation from Irwin Mitchell has made the expansion of our work so much more feasible. Working with the firm across 2016 has been an absolute pleasure and we truly appreciate the hard work and effort which has gone into raising these vital funds.”