With you DCU – Darlington Credit Union’s new pay it forward savings initiative
On the 22nd of August, Darlington Credit Union launched a new savings account – ‘with you DCU’ which offers a monthly draw where the winning member can donate £100 to a cause of their choice.
Darlington Credit Union, a member-owned, not-for-profit Credit Union covering Darlington, the Northeast, and North Yorkshire is launching this new savings account to encourage new and existing members to invest £200 in the ‘with you DCU’ savings account. These philanthropic investments will help us to lend to those that need it most and who, for many reasons, cannot access other forms of borrowing. Our target is to attract 1000 members to invest £200 by the end of December 2023.
A monthly draw will see winning members able to donate £100 to a charity or worthy cause of their choice as a thank you for their philanthropy and support of Darlington Credit Union.
Chief Exec Sue Cross said “The cost-of-living increases and the rise in interest rates have seen some sizeable savings amounts withdrawn whilst at the same time we are seeing an increased demand for lending and financial support with our MoneySmart programme.
Having been around for 14 years as Darlington Credit Union, we have strong foundations – some of our walls were made of large bricks and small bricks, and with some of the larger bricks being removed, I want to take this opportunity to strengthen our walls rebuilding those gaps with lots of small bricks. I appreciate it is a challenging time for individuals, businesses, charities, and other organisations and I equally know that it is in challenging times when we see the best of people and their real commitment to philanthropy put into action.
We are contacting existing members, key individuals, local businesses and asking them to open a ‘with you DCU’ account with Darlington Credit Union knowing that their savings will be making an enormous difference to our members, helping them to navigate life’s financial ‘ups and downs’ and increase their financial confidence.
Savings will be protected under the FSCS (Financial Services Compensation Scheme). The account does not pay interest or a dividend but there will be the monthly draw giving the opportunity to pay it forward if you are a winner.
I have one last point – ‘I’m with you DCU, are you?”
If you want to help us help others, and have the chance to give back to the community you can open a ‘With you DCU’ savings account here –
https://www.darlingtoncreditunion.co.uk/with-you-dcu/
More information.
From Tuesday 22nd August 2023, members can open an account and deposit £200 into a ‘With you DCU’ account. A monthly draw will be held for accounts that have a balance of £200 on the qualifying date.
Members selected for the £100 prize will be able to nominate where they would like to donate to a charity/worthy cause of their choice. So, whether it is your local football club or a charity close to your heart, you could have the chance to give back to the community!
Darlington Credit Union is a community financial co-operative formed in 2009 from 4 smaller credit unions. We have grown to serve the whole of the Northeast and North Yorkshire with almost 4,000 members. We are proud to be a not-for-profit, ethical, fair lending and saving institution. We can only do this with our members help. Your savings mean we can help those that are in financial need.
Darlington Credit Union is always looking for innovative ways to help the community. We do more than just lending, we offer 1:1 financial support with things such as budgeting, bills accounts to help members make sure that their regular commitments are paid on time, our DCU app for savings and banking, we offer a Payroll Deduction Scheme where employers can help employees save and borrow with ease, and so much more! We have 22 payroll partners on board with us, ranging from Darlington Borough Council to NHS Foundation Trusts and SMEs in our area. Our ambition is to double this by the end of 2024.
One of our new payroll partners is Ex-mesh based in Hartlepool “We wanted to be able to offer our employees a payroll savings scheme and found Darlington Credit Union immensely helpful. They provided all the information and literature to promote the scheme and it has been extremely easy to implement and manage for both weekly and monthly paid employees”
Laura Cooper from Primary Healthcare, Darlington, another Payroll Savings partner “We would definitely recommend the Credit Union’s Payroll Saving Partner Scheme, the staff are extremely passionate about what they do. It was so easy to set up and easy to process each month.
As an employer being able to offer more financial support to our staff is amazing”
We offer a range of loans from £100 to £15,000 – loans can help with the cost-of-living expenses, we have members who have borrowed for emergency bills, car repairs, home improvements, vets bills.
We work with members to ensure that the loan is going to be affordable and encourage them to save as well as repaying the loan. This is unique to Credit Unions.
Our average loan is £825 but we also do debt consolidation loans and can help members to make savings each month and reduce their debt levels.
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