Staff At Law Firm’s Newcastle Office Raise £19,000 For Rape Crisis

A charity that supports survivors of rape, sexual violence and abuse in Newcastle and the surrounding region is set to benefit from a £19,000 donation from Irwin Mitchell’s office in the city, after staff at the firm spent a year raising funds for the good cause. 

Rape Crisis Tyneside and Northumberland (RCTN) was voted for by staff at the office to be their Charity of the Year for 2017 as part of a nationwide initiative by the Irwin Mitchell Charities Foundation (IMCF). 

Established in 1997, IMCF is an independent registered charity set up by the firm which has donated more than £1.6 million to third sector organisations. 

Following 12 months of fundraising activities, including a campaign to raise £20,000 in a month to celebrate IMCF’s 20th anniversary, nationally, the law firm raised £180,000 during 2017 – a record for the firm. In doing so, the majority of Irwin Mitchell’s regional offices, including Newcastle which held a sponsored fire walk, a ‘neon Clubbercise’ session and charity ball to raise cash, smashed their own fundraising records in the process. 

The bumper donation, which is £5,000 more than staff raised in 2016, will be used by the charity to help support the front line staff delivering services to the 700 referrals they receive each year. 

Paula Myers, Regional Managing Partner at Irwin Mitchell’s Newcastle office, said: 

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It’s an honour to be able to provide this record donation to a truly fantastic cause in our local community.

Last year we celebrated 20 years of the IMCF and I am delighted that thanks to the creativity and generosity of Irwin Mitchell employees, we made our anniversary year a record breaking one.
Everyone at IM is passionate about giving back to the communities we operate in and making a real difference to the lives of those supported through our Charities of the Year programme.

We are incredibly proud of what we achieved last year. Hearing how Rape Crisis is going to use the donation, and the positive impact that will have on survivors of sexual violence, is spurring on our staff to think of bigger and better ways to fundraise for this year’s good cause. Paula Myers - Partner

Andrea Perrett, Co-CEO of RCTN said: “We have been taken aback by the generous donation that Irwin Mitchell has made following the tremendous efforts of their Newcastle office’s charity committee to raise funds for us.  We had planned to use the money to contribute to the cost of supporting the front line staff to deliver services, for example by employing a member of staff to handle the 700 referrals we receive each year.  The amount raised means that we can do more than that and we need to think how best to put the money to use.   As an example, £11,000 would enable us to deliver a programme of group work across Newcastle and £15,000 would enable us to recruit a part-time counsellor to provide around 10 counselling sessions a week.  So this is a significant sum that Irwin Mitchell has raised.

“Many women and girls who have experienced sexual violence encounter a wide range of issues they have to overcome in order to feel safe to live their lives the way they would wish to.  RCTN provides therapeutic counselling, helpline and email support and practical and emotional support for free to these women and girls.  This donation will contribute to RCTN continuing to offer these free services and to helping women and girls cope with, and recover from, the physical and mental impact of sexual violence.”