Your Co-op Launches New Fund To Support Local Communities

The Midcounties Co-operative, which operates 218 Co-op Food stores across the West Midlands, Oxfordshire, Gloucestershire and Wiltshire, as well as trading nationally through its Co-op Travel, Co-op Childcare, Co-op Energy and Co-op Broadband and Mobile businesses, has launched a new Doing Good Together Fund which allows members to apply for grants to give a helping hand to local causes that matter to them. 

The Doing Good Together Fund has been created in response to the Society’s members, which total more than 700,000 people, who said that they wanted to be able to give back more to their local communities.

Using a greater share of the Society’s profits towards benefiting the local community, the fund will provide small grants to support important local good causes – from dinner and dance sessions for those with dementia to plants for parks, from biscuits for book clubs to kits for cricket teams, and much more.

Every time that members shop in their local Midcounties Co-op Store, they will earn reward points that will increase the money available for local causes, with the first 1,000 points going directly to the Doing Good Together Fund.  To make it easier and more affordable for members to make ethical and sustainable choices, members now earn more points every time they purchase Co-op own-brand products and services, such as own-brand, Fairtrade and Co-op Holidays.

Members will be able to apply for grants for local good causes that matter to them, with Store Managers empowered to use their understanding of local needs to select those that can benefit the most and have the greatest community impact. 

This is the next stage of The Midcounties Co-operative’s Doing Good Together membership proposition, which was launched last year to provide members with enhanced offers and discounts across all its businesses, alongside pledging a greater proportion of the Society’s profits to local communities.

Phil Ponsonby, Chief Executive Officer of The Midcounties Co-operative, said: “Our members have told us how important it is for them to know that each time they spend money with us, they are helping to do good within society.

Whether it be helping the creation of a dementia support group, a neighbourhood allotment, or supporting a local food bank, the Doing Good Together Fund is going to make sure that all of us can do just that. Every time a member buys their dinner in our food stores, books a holiday, takes out a broadband contract, or puts one of their children into one of our nurseries, a proportion of what they spend will be going directly back into the causes that they can champion and put forward for funding.

By launching the fund, we are going further to deliver on our purpose to create a fairer, more sustainable, and ethical future and support communities by doing good together.”

How the Doing Good Together Fund works:

• Being a Midcounties Co-operative member means you can save more and give more back to the community every time you shop, including Co-op Food, Co-op Little Pioneers nurseries, Co-op Travel, Co-op Broadband and Mobile or Co-op Energy.

• The first 1,000 membership points earned by a member are donated to their most frequently used branch.

• The more members trade with a branch, the greater the amount of funding that individual store will have to donate to local causes, with a minimum of £500.

• Members can apply for grants for local causes they wish to see funding be awarded to through the Your Co-op membership app.

• Store managers are empowered to approve grants or when needed recommend them for approval to a dedicated Doing Good Together panel.

For information on how you can become a member of The Midcounties Co-operative and the Doing Good Together Fund please visit the website here: https://www.midcounties.coop/membership/