26 January 2021
By Elaine Murphy
elaine@TheCork.ie
€3 million donated directly to community groups by the bank in 2020, supporting those most vulnerable in the community
AIB branches across Cork have donated over €40,000 to local causes last year as part of AIB Together, the bank’s community investment programme. In total, money was raised for over 80 local causes including West Cork Women against Violence, Cobh Hospital, Marymount Hospice and Midleton Meals on Wheels.
In addition to the money raised for local causes, on a national level AIB committed €2.4m to Trinity College Dublin’s dedicated Covid-19 Research Hub to urgently accelerate the college’s immunology project.
The bank also launched the ‘AIB Together Fund’ to further support communities impacted by the Covid-19 crisis. This allowed staff to donate directly into a dedicated fund which the bank then matched, helping raise over €422,000 for the bank’s long-standing community partners FoodCloud and Soar, as well as Alone, and Pieta House. The bank also established a fund of €200,000 which allowed branches to donate directly to vulnerable groups in the community which were impacted by the pandemic.
This has brought the total amount donated by the bank and its staff to causes in support of Covid-19 to over €3 million. This money helped support the vital work these charities and organisations do and the vulnerable groups they support in the community.
John O’Doherty, Head of AIB, Cork said “AIB has a long and proud tradition of supporting local communities in Cork. In these difficult times, we are very aware of the challenges facing our local charitable and voluntary bodies in supporting their client base and in raising much needed funds to maintain their services.
In recent weeks, we in AIB Cork have had the privilege to present donations to over 80 charitable and voluntary organisations based across Cork City and County with funds amounting to a total of €40,726.
Our staff in each of our AIB Cork branches selected organisations in their respective communities and the net result is that we have been able to support a wide and varied range of deserving causes from across our county. Our hope is that these funds will make a difference to those in our community that need it most at this time.”
Mary Whitelaw, AIB’s Director of Corporate Affairs, Strategy and Sustainability said “Communities across Ireland were impacted last year as a result of Covid-19 and the response by AIB staff across the country in raising much needed funds for those who are most vulnerable in the community is heartening. In addition to a number of other initiatives, the bank and its people supported communities across Ireland through fundraising and charitable donations to local community groups to the tune of over €3 million last year, as well as an additional €2.4 million which was donated to Trinity College Dublin to accelerate the college’s immunology project to help tackle the Covid-19 pandemic. We hope this money has in some way helped vulnerable communities across Ireland during what was a difficult year for many.”
Founded in 2018, AIB Together provides a platform for staff to support charities and causes across Ireland. Each AIB employee is entitled to two volunteering days per year to support their chosen cause as part of the programme and can volunteer or fundraise for a charity of their choice or one of AIB’s core community partners.
Since partnering with FoodCloud in 2018 for example, over 1,100 AIB volunteers have volunteered over 7,000 hours which have gone towards ensuring 100 million meals have gone to people and not to waste across Ireland and the UK.
