Charity cash boost through water company’s new community incentive
9th December 2021
Essex & Suffolk Water has launched a charity cash boost initiative and is asking customers to play their part in deciding where future funding goes.
Tens of thousands of pounds will be donated every year through Essex & Suffolk Water’s new community scheme – Drop Swap – the first of its kind for the company.
The initiative puts customers in the driving seat with deciding where donations to nominated charitable causes go on a bi-monthly basis and all by simply using the utility company’s free app.
Essex & Suffolk Water’s app is available for customers to use around the clock to access services, such as updating their water meter readings and making account payments at a time that suits them. By using the app customers will be rewarded with ‘e-drops’ to vote for their local charity of choice and can nominate other charitable causes to benefit from future support.
Louise Hunter, who is Essex & Suffolk Water’s Corporate Affairs Director, said: “We already support our local communities in many ways – gifting time and expertise via our amazing employee volunteers to donating cash and equipment to community and environmental projects.
“The Drop Swap initiative is a fantastic addition to the great support we give our communities and it will help the charitable causes that matter the most to our customers. The idea originally came from a session with our customers at our 2019 Innovation Festival and so I’m especially pleased to see it brought to life as a great example of how our customers can shape how we deliver our services.
“We want to help as many deserving causes as possible, through this funding channel, across our local communities of Essex, Suffolk and London Boroughs. So that’s why I’m urging all of our customers to download and start using our free app to help the causes that are close in their hearts.”
The utility company asked its customers and employees which issues they felt were most important to their communities, and where it could make the most positive difference. The key areas were named as eradicating water poverty, supporting water for health and improving the water environment.
Charities and projects supporting these three areas will benefit from the Drop Swap fund and will also be offered some help from the company’s employee volunteering programme, Just an Hour.
Essex & Suffolk Water is extending its longstanding working partnership of delivering thousands of pounds worth of project grant funding with the support of the Essex Community Foundation, who will help to deliver this cash funding boost to charitable causes across the whole of its operating area.
Andy Payne Warpole, Head of Programmes at Essex Community Foundation, said: “We are pleased to support Essex & Suffolk Water, as one of our fundholders, to further engage with their customers and to promote the work of local charities.”
For more information on the company’s Drop Swap initiative, visit: www.eswater.co.uk/app and in your android or iOS app store by searching for ‘Essex & Suffolk Water’.
If you are an Essex-based voluntary organisation in need of funding, please contact our grants team on 01245 356018 or email grants@essexcf.org.uk