As many as 7,000 local charities stand to benefit from a new community scheme unveiled by Waitrose.
Community Matters will allocate £1,000 per month to each of Waitrose’s chain of stores over the next 12 months. Staff and customers of the stores will be asked to nominate and vote for three local charities amongst which the £1,000 will be divided each month.
The scheme is expected to deliver a total of £2.28m to local charities over a 12 month period. “We are confident [that customers and staff] will embrace the scheme and help support the causes that mean something to them,” said Tina Varns, community liaison officer at Waitrose.
Voting for the causes will take place at ‘PartnerVoice’ forums in Waitrose branches. Customers at check outs will be given tokens to place in one of the three boxes allocated to the successful charities at the exit of the store. The money will then be divided up among the charities according to the proportion of tokens they have in their respective boxes.
