This article forms part of our "Spotlights: Impacts in action" series looking at the impact our responsible business framework is having on clients, colleagues, communities and governance.
Overview
At Rathbones, supporting the communities where we work and live is a core part of our responsible business approach. Through community investment, partnerships, advocacy and volunteering, we aim to create positive and lasting impact by widening access to opportunity, strengthening financial inclusion, supporting young people and entrepreneurs, and contributing to resilient, sustainable communities. Our work spans national and regional partnerships, colleague‑led fundraising and volunteering, financial education initiatives, and active engagement in policy and industry collaboration, ensuring that our contribution goes beyond funding alone and supports meaningful, long‑term change.
On this page
Progress in 2025
Community investment
We aim to add value not only to our clients, but also to the communities where we work and live. To support this, we provide community investment through donations, fundraising, volunteering, and partnerships. There are three main sources of our financial support for community investment: the Rathbones Group Foundation, which supported over 60 national and regional partners in 2025, matching of colleague fundraising, and colleague giving through Give As You Earn (GAYE) and Microhive.
Funding from the Rathbones Group Foundation focuses on equality of access to opportunity for children and young people (from the age of 5 to 25) across three key areas: education, entrepreneurs and the environment. Much of our regional community investment takes the form of multi‑year partnerships and in 2025 our offices continued to support charities including London Youth, FARE Scotland and Cornwall Wildlife Trust to name a few. 2025 saw a continuation of our national partnerships with Young Enterprise, Money Ready and Justice & Care.
Financial inclusion and education
We recognise the importance of financial awareness, inclusion and education, and the responsibility we have to advance them. Financial exclusion reinforces economic inequality, by supporting initiatives that expand access to financial knowledge and services, we can help build a more informed, equitable, and financially secure society. We do this through our financial awareness courses and our national partnerships with Young Enterprise and Money Ready.
In 2025, we delivered a series of nine financial awareness courses, designed to break down the complexity of investing and financial planning. These courses, which included three dedicated sessions for 16 to 25 year‑olds, reflected our belief that understanding your finances is a crucial step toward long‑term resilience and wellbeing. They covered key financial concepts from inflation and asset classes to risk and responsible investment.
Entrepreneurs
We support founders and business owners who are scaling organisations (at every stage of their journey), recognising both the ambition and the resilience required to build and grow a business.
The Rathbones Inspire programme brought together a vibrant community of 390 entrepreneurs through a series of six targeted events designed to share insights and foster connections amongst peers. The events focused on the key challenges faced by fast growing businesses: capital, clients, and people.
Policy and industry advocacy
Through advocacy and collaboration, we help shape policy frameworks that contribute to environmental action, build more resilient economies and have a positive impact on our communities. We actively engage in regulatory discussions and industry‑wide initiatives to advance sustainability best practice and participate in collaborative demands for regulatory or policy change.
In 2025, our policy engagement focused on contributing practitioner insight to key UK sustainability reporting and disclosure reforms. This included engagement with the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), where we provided feedback on the effectiveness and practical application of emerging sustainability‑disclosure requirements. Through participation in FCA advisory forums, we supported efforts to improve alignment across frameworks, simplify disclosures and make sustainability information clearer and more useful for firms, advisers and clients. We continue to support the FCA’s objective to improve the clarity, accessibility and usefulness of sustainability information, while reducing duplication and unnecessary reporting burdens.
More on how we empower communities
Financial awareness
Find the dates of our upcoming Rathbones financial awareness courses.
Our environmental impact
We are committed to reducing our operational environmental footprint.
The other pillars of our responsible business framework
Clients
Applying an active and thoughtful approach to client service, selling practices and responsible investment.
Governance
Enhancing our governance through embedding privacy, human rights, nature and climate risk considerations in our decision-making process.