By Mike Pigott

One of my first memories after joining Mark McNeely in this company in 1988 was the fact that he was donating a significant amount of the company’s time to Our Kids, a Junior League-sponsored program that addresses child sexual abuse.

Many years later, the dedication to pro bono service initiated by Mark in the late 1980s is still flourishing at McNeely Pigott & Fox. The company currently has teams of employees assigned to serve 26 clients free of charge. Over the course of this year to date, we have performed more than 2,300 hours of service, with the value of that work being almost $300,000.

MP&F was recently ranked No. 4 among regional companies selected for a Corporate Giving Award that was presented by the Nashville Business Journal. We were the only company in our industry to be selected for the honor this year.

Our pro bono clients include many of the community’s strongest nonprofit organizations, including Hands On Nashville, the YWCA, Ronald McDonald House, RBI, Safe Haven Family Shelter, Friends of Radnor Lake and the Nashville Public Library Foundation.

In the past six years, we have donated more than 22,000 hours to 112 organizations. The value of that time is $2.65 million.

In addition to the time devoted by the company and its staff through pro bono work, there are many MP&F employees who devote their own after-hours time to good causes. Accounting Assistant Pat Ackerman, for instance, has volunteered as a tutor for people learning English as a second language. She currently is devoting significant time to counseling for Retrouvaille, a program for people in troubled marriages.

“This is a great community, and one of its strengths is the fact that Nashvillians give generously of their time and money to worthwhile causes,” observed MP&F Partner Alice Chapman. “Our staff really enjoys the pro bono opportunities the company provides because they know they are making a difference and making Nashville even stronger at the same time.”