Citizens in the community

A Near West Theatre performance

Above: Charter One’s Champion in Action programme has assisted more than 90 small non-profit agencies who support their local communities. Near West Theatre, Cleveland, Ohio provides local youngsters with the chance to engage in creative activities and was the first to benefit when the programme was extended to the Midwest.

In the US, Citizens has a proud tradition of community involvement and investment. During 2007, we invested $25 million with more than 4,000 non-profit organisations and over the last six years our charitable investments have grown by 500%. We extended our UK Give As You Earn programme to the US; under the Colleague Matching Gift Program launched in August, Citizens matches the charitable donations qualifying employees make to eligible organisations up to $1,000 per year.

The Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) in the US encourages financial institutions to help meet the needs of low and moderate income communities. There are four CRA ratings: Outstanding, Satisfactory, Needs to Improve and Substantial Non-Compliance. Citizens has Outstanding ratings in every state where it operates and we have retained the Outstanding CRA rating throughout all of our acquisitions.

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