Mills & Reeve charitable trust supports Oxfordshire Community Foundation
The national law firm’s charitable trust has pledged to Oxfordshire Community Foundation as part of its wider ESG efforts after opening their Oxford office last year.
Oxfordshire Community Foundation (OCF) is a charity that builds thriving communities through effective philanthropy.
In the current climate, costs are continuing to rocket, and many individuals and families are facing extremely difficult situations. Through a collective fund, local businesses significantly increase the charity’s positive impact by combining contributions in one fund from which grants are made annually to Oxfordshire charitable organisations.
OCF distributes between £2 and 3 million in grants every year to charities across Oxfordshire that are working at the grassroots level to tackle the most pressing problems faced by its citizens, including emergency response to issues such as the cost-of-living crisis.
Mills & Reeve partner, Tim Whitney, joined OCF as a Trustee at the start of this year and is working to keep the close ties that have been built between Mills & Reeve and OCF, including facilitating training between the two organisations.
And Mills & Reeve’s head of new business, Matt Skipper, has been further supporting the charity by hosting “lunch and learn” sessions covering topics such as business development, developing a strong personal brand, sharing content as well as building networks and in-person networking.
The firm’s charitable trust has made two donations to the OCF Cost of Living Fund totalling £4,800.
Kate Parrinder, Head of Development at Oxfordshire Community Foundation, said: “Despite Oxfordshire’s prosperous economy, it hides serious social problems. One in five children in Oxford lives in poverty, and 15 neighbourhoods across the county are in the 20% most deprived in England. We are so grateful to the Mills & Reeve Charitable Trust for joining together with other local businesses, trusts, councils and individual philanthropists to take real action. Their generosity will improve many lives across the county.”
Peter McLintock, head of Mills & Reeve’s Oxford office, said: “After opening our Oxford office last year, the firm’s seventh UK office, it is a pleasure to be able to support local causes in the region. OCF’s inspiring work impacts so many people and I am really pleased we can play a part in that.”
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An innovation and governance gap is opening up between businesses that realise the potential of GenAI and those that see its impact as limited, our new report has found.
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Our report shows that less than a third of businesses (31%) are using GenAI, with only one-fifth (22%) seeing it as high value.
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Paul added: “The explosion of GenAI has seen a raft of regulations introduced across the world, with more likely, and all of them subject to change as AI understanding develops. In the UK, the regulation of AI relies on existing legal frameworks such as intellectual property, data protection and contract law, highlighting the growing need for these frameworks to be adapted to address the novel risks and complexities introduced by AI technologies. All this suggests that there will be no steady state for regulation for some time.”
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