Bank launches new fund to support local communities

 NatWest today announced details of a new fund to support local charities and projects, and is inviting customers and local people to decide who should benefit from this new community initiative.

Last month NatWest launched a charter setting out their commitments to customers and what they can expect from their bank. As part of the charter, which was based on direct input from 30,000 customers, they have made a commitment to support the local communities they work in.

An important element of this community support is the creation of 380 individual funds of £5,000 – approximately one per cluster of six branches - which are available to help good causes in communities which are local to and served by a NatWest branch.

Customers and members of the local community can nominate a good cause or project by visiting their local NatWest or by logging on to www.natwest.com/communityfund.  Once all the nominations have been received a panel consisting of representatives from the bank, local people and community figures will select three charities/projects from those put forward. The community will then be invited to vote for their favourite of the three, with the most popular receiving a £3,000 grant with the two runners up each receiving £1,000.

Norman Chambers, Regional Director for South London said: ‘NatWest has a long and proud history of helping good causes and our £5,000 Community Fund will bring this support to a new level. By asking local people to nominate and vote for the community charities/projects which are important to them, the fund will be directly supporting the communities the bank serves.”

Norman added: “By way of an additional support for the community, the bank has granted our employees a day away from the office to help local good causes. We hope this element of our customer charter will deliver more than 10,000 days of community volunteering in 2010