New member magazine: Dichterbij
Preview of future membership policy
through the Rabobank Foundation, the
Projects fund and the Herman Wijffels
Innovation award. The aim for the coming
years is to invest a great deal more in the local
network around the members and their banks.
Local communities - people - are increasingly
benefiting from the preconditions created by
Rabobank to enable people to realise their
initiatives.
In order to stimulate member involvement
even further, a new member magazine was
launched: the 'Dichterbij' magazine, which
succeeds the successful 'U' magazine. What is
special about the new magazine is that more
general financial information items and banking
and non-banking offers are interspersed with
backgrounds of clients, members, the local
community and their banks. Consequently, the
magazine no longer appears as a single issue,
but is tailor-made in more than 180 versions
for the 1.6 million members. Virtually all local
Rabobanks now have their own member
magazine.
Due to the scaling up to larger banks, local
Rabobanks are still in the process of improving
and deepening member involvement and
creating embedment in their - new - local
communities. Embedding member influence
and control and recruiting engaged members
are core policy elements. The growth in the
number of banks using an executive model
will result in the installation of more and more
member councils, while more and more banks
that retain their partnership model are
nevertheless installing member councils as
well. These councils will increasingly function
as committed and essential local 'bottom up'
sounding board to boards of directors,
management and members of the Supervisory
Board.
In addition, the diversity of initiatives in the
area of cooperative dividend will be made
more visible by raising members' awareness of
these initiatives through campaigns. In early
2007, an intensive member campaign was
organised in order to profile the member
programme by means of national and local
examples.
For more information
www.rabobank.com
For members: Rabocard with climate
contribution
Practically everything that man produces and consu
mes results in emissions of the CO2 greenhouse gas.
Excess CO2 is one of the main causes of global war
ming: in the past century, the average temperature
has risen by 0.6 degrees centigrade and scientists
think it will rise by at least another 1.5 degrees centi
grade over the next hundred years. This has serious
consequences for nature: coral reefs are dying because
the seawater is warming up and the North Pole ice,
habitat of the polar bear, is melting. Rabobank and
World Wildlife Fund's Dutch branch have joined forces
to counteract climate change. The first result were
made available in spring 2007, when private credit card
holders who are bank members are able to choose for
a card with a climate contribution. It concerns 400.000
clients, and Rabobank will compensate the CO2
emissions associated with their purchases. Using a
specially developed formula, the total CO2 emission of
a purchase is converted into a cash amount, which is
invested by Rabobank in sustainable energy projects,
particularly in developing countries.
Membership policy 85
