In the Community

We run Right to Read and Number Partners schemes to help local school children improve their numeracy and literacy skills. And we also run E-volve, where our employees can become an online mentor to a local secondary school pupil, providing support to help them build their skills, plan their careers and prepare for exams.

Our employees have been taking their skills into local schools since 1997, helping children to build their confidence with key curriculum subjects.

Our current passion is to help teach children about the world of finance and money management. Our employees volunteer to run financial education sessions with local secondary school pupils. Volunteers talk about their personal financial experiences, as well as using our hugely popular Credit Made Clearer videos to teach children about how credit works.

Over 60 Capital One volunteers are working with Young Enterprise to provide personal economics training to more than 1,000 local school children during the next year.

We've also worked with the Personal Finance Education Group (pfeg) and debt management charities to create 'To Your Credit', a board game about money management that's aimed at secondary school pupils. The game, which has been accredited by pfeg and rolled out to secondary schools across Nottingham, is a fun way for students to learn about budgeting.

For the younger generation we have developed interactive tours of our offices, with the aim of raising career aspirations among local primary schoolchildren. During the tours, the children will have the opportunity to talk to employees from across our business and hear more about the types of jobs they might want to have when they are older.

We know that financial education isn't just about teaching children though. In addition to our Credit Made Clearer videos, we are exploring other ways in which we can help young people and adults throughout the UK understand how to manage credit in the most responsible way possible.

We work closely with local schools, community groups and sports clubs to help build aspirations in young people and provide them with positive role models to help them focus on their future goals and ambitions. We're proud to work with:

• The National Ice Centre
• Nottinghamshire County Cricket Club
• EPIC Partnerships (a Nottingham based education and sports charity)
• Nottingham Rugby Football Club
• BBC Sport Relief

We have a brilliant partnership with the National Ice Centre that we are very proud of, that's brought inspirational sports education to young people across Nottinghamshire. The Capital One Ice Rink hosts a variety of ice skating experiences, from sessions for disabled people to coaching children who haven't had the chance to skate before.

Our employees help pupils taking part in the Schools Skating Programme. In the last two years, Capital One volunteers have helped teach nearly 5,000 local children to ice skate.

Teamwork is a big part of our culture at Capital One. Our employees are given a free day every year to get involved with the community. We've transformed schools, nurseries, playgroups and youth centres.

We've also created business plans, websites, databases and provided financial consultancy to local community groups.

We love to recognise the time and effort put into fundraising and community involvement by our employees, so to help funds along, we have several donation schemes that make every penny count:

• Through our 'Pound for Pound' scheme, our employees can ask us to match (or part-match) the amount they raise for charity
• If our employees volunteer regularly for a local community group, we have a Community Investment Grant available for them to give to their charity of choice
• Our 'Pennies From Heaven' scheme helps employees automatically donate the pennies in their salaries to Macmillan Cancer Support
• 'Give as you Earn' gives employees a tax efficient way of donating to their favourite charity straight from their salary