This is people just choosing to buy something -often something they would have bought anyway. They just choose to buy a different version – one that benefits the community.
It’s up to you how much you donate from the product or service you choose. It can be 10p it can be £10. It can be £50! It’s up to you.
If you decide to run with WATERMARK it can be used as good PR for your business, it will be featured on the WATERMARK website, all press releases and promotional material. And you will be showing your customers, suppliers and partners you care. And that’s worth a lot.
You could choose an ‘opt out’ scheme. You can say to your customers ‘You can buy this WATERMARK product at this price (where you add slightly extra to the price) or you can opt out and you can still buy the product without contributing to the fund”. It’s very unlikely they will opt out!
No one! It’s all done on trust. You keep a track of sales, or put money in a tin, or use the app we will be developing to sort out the money. When you feel like there’s enough, transfer it to the Fund via bank transfer or PayPal.
Well that’s what the whole thing was set up for – to support struggling businesses. So if they miss a bit nobody loses any sleep.
Because we are all in this together! Calderdale is unique because of its landscape and buildings but also because of its small businesses. It’s why people choose to live, work and visit here.
Remove those small businesses and all of a sudden people stop coming, shops close for good, the town attracts less investment and all of a sudden our towns become ghost towns.
This means house prices drop and jobs go! Scary thought, so supporting a venture like this makes sense to everyone.
Why not just do something ourselves? You could and that would be brilliant.
But working under one brand makes it easier for people to understand, and easier to grasp what’s going on, and most importantly, where the money is going.
Also it shows a joint thinking and a collaborative way of working. You only have to look at all the different events under so many different titles, all with ‘in aid of the floods’ on the posters. People are confused about how money goes into the flood funds, by who and what it will be used for.
It helps to market the whole concept as one big package – ‘Calderdale helps itself. You can help too, by looking out for products labelled WATERMARK’.
The national media and government officials have already shown great interest.
a. The fund will be available at times of flood for emergency grants to businesses, community / charitable organisations & households, to get them through the first stages of any future crisis.
b. To allow a fund that is immediately ‘open for business’ following another major flood incident.
When the pot grows there will be a meeting of representatives from each area. As the pot grows CFFC will convene meetings with representatives from each area to help decide if the money goes into research into flood prevention for our valley, a scheme, or if it sits there and keeps building in case of floods.
If Calderdale floods again, the money is immediately released to help people.
The massive amount of giving after the 2015 floods was incredible. But if floods occur again we need to be more resilient.
We need to help ourselves!
We need to build up a significant pot of money for future flooding or for flood prevention.
The easiest way is by Bank transfer but we accept cash and cheques too.
when you join the Watermark Fund we will give you a unique reference number for you to use and the Bank details of the fund.
Watermark FloodSave Frequently Asked Questions
Flood Save is a match funded savings scheme for business and homes not covered by the FloodRE scheme in Calderdale. The Community Foundation for Calderdale have invested £500,000 from the flood fund, in the event of a flood this money will be used match fund *100% of savings made by members up to the value of £5,000.
Your FloodSave account is with the Calderdale Credit Union and costs £1 to open an account.
The scheme is available to those businesses and homes that are not covered by FloodRE.
The eligibility of businesses and householders becoming members of the scheme is expected to be primarily determined on previous experience of flooding and location.
You can invest up to £2,500 when you open your account then you will pay regularly into your FloodSave account with cash or monthly standing order up to £150.
£10, £25 or a maximum of £150 a month (savings will be covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme)
Up to £5000 will be match funded.
If you have saved £5000 and there is a major flood incident you can withdraw £10,000. It’s very simple, any amount up to £5000 will be match funded.
This is not a problem, you can withdraw your money at any time but please note if there has NOT been a flood your monies will not be match funded.
Copy and paste the following link into your browser window http://www.cffc.co.uk/floodsave