The Regional Australia Bank is inviting groups and customers to join its Community Partnership Program.
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The program allows customers to support their local community simply by transacting with a selected savings account and nominating their choice of organisation from a list of almost 1,000 registered groups and causes. It is growing with the inclusion of the Holiday Coast Credit Union footprint.
Currently Regional Australia Bank are holding Community Group Information Sessions around this region. They had an event for Port Macquarie at the Port City Bowling Club on November 26 2019 with 50 groups invited to attend.
On Tuesday January 14 2020, they invited 37 groups to a community group information session at the Kempsey Macleay RSL Club.
"Our teams are working on holding further events in the region over the next few months to ensure we really spread the message that we want to support our community organisations wherever we can," said Regional Australia Bank CEO Kevin Dupe.
"Our management and staff have also been attending meetings with community groups to talk about the program and its benefits separate to the information evenings, as we know not everyone can attend these so we look to provide as many opportunities as possible.
"Our staff are actively promoting the program to our customers and recipient groups during their day-to-day activities, not only within our branches but also within our customer support centre.
"To date, we have 26 recipient organization registered in the Holiday Coast network specifically in Coffs Harbor, Gloucester, Laurieton, Port Macquarie, Taree, Sawtell, Tea Gardens, Wauchope, Wingham, and Woolgoolga regions," he added.
Mr Dupe added that those recipient organisations will actively promote the program to their support base, many of whom are already members.
"The Community Partnership Program is people-powered - the more people that participate, the more donations local community organisations will continue to receive. It works by calculating a customer's average annual savings balance and donates the equivalent of 1% back to a chosen group each year - at no cost to the participant.
"Our teams have been working on building the recipient list for each area. As groups comes online, we will be listing them on our website and promoting them widely," he added.
"Last year we donated $1.2 million back into our community through this program, our target this year is $1.5 million and we are on track to achieve that goal. With the addition of the Holiday Coast Network we expect this program to head rapidly towards putting in excess of $2 million back into our communities," said Mr Dupe.
Customer John Oxley contacted our newspaper to say that customers in Wauchope, Port Macquarie and Kempsey would like to be able to access the Community Partnership Program and specify local charities of their choice.
Mr Dupe says it's early days, and meetings are still taking place, but they are pleased to already have 26 recipient groups in the Holiday Coast network.
"It's a program that's driven by word of mouth so it does take a little time," he added.
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