Burges Salmon Charitable Trust

Burges Salmon Charitable Trust is a grant-making foundation rooted in a law firm's responsible business ethos, dedicated to advancing public benefit through support for local UK charities fostering fairer futures and social mobility. Its core values emphasize community engagement, equal opportunity, skills development, and people-led philanthropy blending financial aid, staff volunteering, and mentoring. Funding decisions prioritize initiatives addressing immediate needs while catalyzing long-term empowerment, believing sustainable change arises from grassroots partnerships empowering vulnerable populations with integrity, inclusivity, and direct community impact.

It supports projects championing children and young people through education interventions like after-school clubs, literacy programs via children's books, and skills training for social mobility; youth wellbeing encompassing health services, mental health counselling, therapeutic activities, and food poverty relief tackling hunger and insecurity; homelessness prevention via outreach, shelter support, and housing stability for families and individuals; elderly care addressing isolation through befriending, day services, and community activities; arts and creative programs building confidence and inclusion; victim support including counselling and advocacy for domestic abuse recovery; and community development strengthening local connections via peer support groups, mentoring, and employability training for care leavers and disadvantaged youth. Interventions favor preventative, community-led, person-centred approaches delivering holistic wellbeing, early intervention for at-risk children aged 5-19, family support for carers, and trauma-informed services promoting resilience against poverty, exclusion, and complex needs.

Exclusions encompass capital projects, seed funding, and strategic capacity building, focusing instead on direct project or aligned core costs yielding tangible community benefit. Distinctive for its law firm integration driving employee-volunteered themes like "Fairer Futures for Young People" and "No Child Goes Hungry," it prioritizes small to medium grassroots charities serving urban southwest England communities, regional families in crisis, Edinburgh youth facing barriers, homeless individuals, isolated elderly, and children with education or wellbeing gaps, valuing lived experience leadership, financial need, and measurable public benefit over national scale.