Sponsorship and donation criteria
On this page you will find information about all our charitable giving initiatives including the sponsorship, one-off donations, and our Community Fund.
Basic criteria
All sponsorship and donation requests, large or small, must meet the following basic criteria:
- The event or initiative must be in support of a local cause or local registered charity.
- Charitable outcomes must support the community on-island.
- The individual, group or committee applying must be based in the Channel Islands.
- We cannot support political groups or issues.
- We cannot support individuals with sponsorship for challenge events or crowdfunding campaigns. Instead, we encourage anyone fundraising to apply for a donation towards a fundraising raffle prize or goods.
We aim to support as many different causes as possible, so please note that past donation or sponsorship does not automatically guarantee that you will be supported again in subsequent years.
One off donations (up to £50)
Gifts are usually in the form of Co-op vouchers, posted out to recipients, allowing groups ‘self-serve’ and visit in-store to purchase goods, or use vouchers as a standalone prize.
As well as the basic criteria:
- This is for one off donations only - we cannot give ongoing support
- Each year, we can support up to two requests from any one individual or group fundraising on behalf of charities.
- We may provide more than two donations per year in support of a particular charity if these are not in the same month.
One off donations (between £50 and £250)
Gifts are usually in the form of donated goods, that will be collected by the recipient from a Grand Marché store. This may include support for larger community events and initiatives.
- This is for one off donations only - we cannot give ongoing support
- We can make one donation per charity per year at this level
Co-op Community Fund (up to £2,000)
This fund is open year-round for applications and there are two funding pay-outs per year, in the spring and autumn.
- Funding usually no more than £2,000 will be granted per project.
- Where a request is for more than £2,000, or we cannot fund the full amount requested we may seek to partially support the project.
- Donations must be used towards a specified project or initiative.
- We are unable to support requests to fund off-island travel, bursaries, salaries or the running costs of a charity.
- Applications must support at least one of these topics:
- Local environment/sustainability
- Social inclusion/equality/diversity
- Health and wellbeing
- Supporting the elderly and other vulnerable groups
- Supporting the next generation
- Ethical trading
- Consideration is given to whether charities/organisations have been recently supported by the Co-op in other ways or in previous Community Fund pay-outs.
- Consideration is given to how widely a particular project supports the local community, and how strongly the cause resonates with the Co-op’s current areas of focus in sustainability/community development.
- Only one donation per year will usually be made to any project, except at the discretion of the Co-op.
Corporate sponsorship (over £2,000)
This is aimed at larger, island- or Channel Islands-wide initiatives that also result in demonstrable marketing/publicity activity in line with the Co-op’s sustainability and community objectives. Requests will be considered as part of the Co-op’s annual corporate sponsorship budget.
These must fall in line with the Co-op’s values and key community support topics, and be able to demonstrate measurable impact:
- Protecting the environment
- Social inclusion/equality/diversity
- Health and wellbeing
- Supporting the elderly and other vulnerable groups
- Supporting the next generation
- Ethical trading
Each year we will aim to balance our support across the above areas and will look at longer term partnerships/support where possible that align with our long-term sustainability/community aims.