Corporate Social Responsibility
Due to its nonprofit status, the bank controls the largest charitable foundation in Spain, and one of the largest in the world. This foundation makes major investments in such public welfare causes as care of the aged and infants, curing Alzheimer's, technologically advanced classrooms, old-age centers and the like.
Through its Social Programme, La Caixa funds social, environmental and scientific, cultural and research programmes. The La Caixa Foundation is Spain’s leading private foundation, the second in Europe and the fifth in the world in terms of budgetary volume (550 million Euro for 2008), according to data from the European Foundation.
In 2007, the La Caixa Social Programme undertook specific programmes to combat poverty and social exclusion (the CaixaProinfancia programme and the Incorpora employment integration programme) and the creation of MicroBank, a social bank whose primary activity is to award social and financial micro-credits to people who are at risk from social or financial exclusion and to groups with limited resources. It also promotes access to rental apartments to sectors of the population who have difficulty in accessing the property market and care programmes focused on dependency, for individuals in advanced stages of illness, child vaccination and international cooperation.
The La Caixa Social Programme also provides resources for education and research programmes, environmental protection and the dissemination of culture through its centres, such as the recently opened CaixaForum Madrid.
In 2005, the bank received the Gold Medal of the Generalitat de Catalunya for these efforts.
Read more about this topic: La Caixa
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