BBVA employees choose the 176 winners of Territorios Solidarios
The figures from the fifth edition of Territorios Solidarios (Solidarity Territories) attest to the strength of this initiative. A total €1,650,000 has been allocated to fund the 176 selected projects. Once again, BBVA employees have displayed their most humane side, either as project sponsors or by participating through the voting platform.
A total of €1,650,000 will be allocated in 2017 to fund the 176 solidarity projects that were chosen. This year, a total of 363 initiatives were submitted and sponsored by BBVA employees and the Corporate & Investment Banking (CIB) unit. The sponsoring employees were responsible for convincing their co-workers to vote for the cause they were championing.
Some 13,000 employees participated in this edition, either as sponsors or supporters, casting their vote through the initiative’s platform. “The employees themselves detect the needs of their communities, contact the organization and propose it as a candidate,” reminded Cristina de Parias, Head of BBVA Spain, during the presentation of the selected projects. She also praised the sponsoring employees for “without a doubt, creating opportunities in society.”
Impact Figures
Each of the 176 most-voted initiatives will be awarded a maximum of €10,000, a decision adopted to reach a higher number of territories and beneficiaries. Some 32% of the awarded projects focus on offering assistance to people with disabilities and their families, 30% on developing childhood and youth oriented projects and 21% on helping the sick and their relatives. Territorios Solidarios has always prioritized local and regional initiatives: on average, seven out of every ten projects chosen in prior editions were either local or regional. This year, this ratio stood at 75%.
Territorios Solidarios’ figures attest both to its trajectory and BBVA’s commitment – through its workforce – to social causes: Overall, the bank has devoted €9.1 million and workers have proposed almost 4,500 projects, of which 962 have been voted by more than 50% of the workforce. The program has benefitted about two million people across all the Spanish provinces.