Community Service 2009 Company of the Week

October 18, 2009

Citizens Financial Group

Citizens Chairman and CEO Ellen Alemany (center) digs into a pile of wood chips used to fill a play area at Riverside Mills Park during a community project with Citizens Champion in Action recipient Olneyville Housing Corporation.

Volunteers weed a community garden in Riverside Mills Park across from the Olneyville Housing Corporation’s affordable housing units. The park revitalization was part of a community project with the U.S. Conference of Mayors, Citizens, Olneyville Housing Corporation, and neighborhood residents.

Citizens Bank colleagues build the playground structure at Riverside Mills Park.

In June, more than 70 Citizens Bank volunteers, neighborhood residents and representatives from the U.S. Conference of Mayors spent a day at Riverside Mills Park in the Olneyville neighborhood in Providence, Rhode Island. They renovated the playground, weeded a community garden, and beautified bike path and river walk areas to make the park a safe, accessible place for neighborhood families.

The project resulted from an exceptional partnership involving the bank and two of its recent Champions in Action® – Olneyville Housing Corporation and the Woonasquatucket River Watershed Council. It underscored the success of Citizens’ Champions in Action program, a co-branded initiative that has brought attention to some of the most critical needs in communities across the company’s footprint in New England, the Mid-Atlantic and the Midwest (where Citizens operates under the Charter One brand).

Since Champions in Action began in 2002, Citizens has directed more than $5 million to 180 organizations that support local causes such as violence prevention, youth services, community health care and elder support. Collaboration with local media partners also generates $2 million in free television and print exposure annually for the Champions in addition to benefits including in-branch and Web site promotion, public relations and advertising expertise, and volunteer support from Citizens and its media partners.

“The Champions award gave Olneyville Housing Corporation tremendous visibility that we truly needed. The program is about building relationships that go far beyond a ceremony, literally changing an organization’s future,” said OHC Executive Director Frank Shea.

Citizens Financial Group, Inc. is a $153 billion commercial bank holding company headquartered in Providence, R.I., and through its subsidiaries, has 1,480 branches, approximately 3,600 ATMs and approximately 23,000 employees. CFG is owned by RBS (The Royal Bank of Scotland Group plc). Its Web site is citizensbank.com.

Congratulations, Citizens Financial!

For more information on Community Service 2009, please visit www.financialcommunityservice.org.

Click Here to view a list of our past Companies of the Week.