Summary / objectives

Each month, Waitrose branches around the country will distribute £1,000 between three local project, through its ‘community matters’ giving initiative.

The initiative will deliver a total of £2.28m to local charities over the course of the year.

Background

This is the first time Waitrose has embarked on such a campaign.

Staff and customers of Waitrose stores all around the country are encouraged to nominate and vote for three local organisations/projects, including welfare organisations, community groups, schools, or local divisions of national charities. Each store branch has a ‘community matters champion’ whose role is also to find out potential beneficiaries. The final decision on the three shortlisted organisations is made by PartnerVoice forums (Waitrose’s local democratic bodies).

Once the store has chosen its projects/organisations, customers at checkouts are given tokens to place in one of the three boxes allocated to the successful charities at the exit of the store. The money is then divided up among the charities according to the proportion of tokens they have in their respective boxes.

Special characteristics

This campaign gives local projects and organisations of all sizes the opportunity to compete to become one of the chosen beneficiary charities. For the smaller, less well known causes it also offers a great publicity boost.

Merits

This is a model that can be easily replicated by other companies who want to make a difference in the communities around them. Local projects and organisations could also lobby the companies in their locality and encourage them to adopt a similar scheme.

Other relevant information

Info from

John Lewis partnerships and here.

Good fundraising gets noticed. See also here and here.