Nationwide is proud to extend its involvement in sports sponsorship by supporting the Nationwide U15 National Club Championship during 2008.

Nationwide has mutual status, which means that it is owned by and run for the benefit of its members and is the largest building society in the world.

Nationwide is currently the UK's second largest mortgage lender - following the merger with Portman and the second largest savings provider.

Nationwide's approach to providing financial services is straight-forward - aiming to offer a broad range of great value mortgages, savings and other financial products, while charging as little as possible for day-to-day services.

The building society estimate that since 1996 this 'mutual' benefit amounts to over £5 billion.

Nationwide takes pride in doing its very best for its members and championing the rights of all consumers. The organisation has fought for honesty and transparency in the credit card market and Nationwide's cards also offer commission-free use abroad.

Nationwide has over 150 years of expertise and experience at being a building society, looking after the interests of its members and intends to deliver great value to members as a modern, mutual building society for many years to come.

Nationwide announced in August 2006 that it was continuing its relationship with the four home nation football teams - this latest agreement will take the partnership between Nationwide and UK football sponsorship to 14 years.

As part of the deal with the England team , Nationwide will also become England's Disability Football Partner, backing all seven of England's disabled teams and building on their work with disability sports events.

As the world's biggest building society and a growing business, it is very important for Nationwide to continue to find powerful ways of communicating the benefits that we can offer to our members and
to potential new customers. As a very large player in financial services, Nationwide need to consistently emphasise its brand difference.

Sponsorship forms a very important part of that communication process and is a great way to promote the Nationwide brand to a huge audience. Almost 30 million people in the UK watched England's football games at World Cup 2006 and approximately 25 million people in the UK watch football on a regular basis - all potential Nationwide customers.

Nationwide has over 700 branches in towns and cities across the UK and is engaging with their members by recently introducing 'Sponsored by you' which is passing back all benefits of its sponsorships to its customers.

Nationwide is also committed to supporting local communities throughout the UK, the environment and charities. Not only is the commitment good for the community - research has shown that it's good for business, helping to attract and retain talented employees and loyal customers. Some of that activity includes:

Cats' Eyes for Kids - 11 million life saving reflectors have been distributed to UK primary school children. To date it is estimated that up to 12,000 child pedestrian casualties have been avoided.

Nationwide Awards for Voluntary Endeavour - more than 13,000 groups and individuals recognised and rewarded for their work with communities.

Environment - since 2005 Nationwide has purchased all of its electricity from renewable sources such as wind, new hydroelectric and biomass. To date, some 330,000 members have opted to forego paper statements, reducing both cost and environmental impact. All marketing literature is printed with vegetable inks on recycled paper.

Charities - the Nationwide Foundation (Nationwide's associated registered charity) works in partnership with a number of charitable organisations to deploy resources, funding and expertise where and when they are most needed. Donations to date from the Society to Nationwide Foundation exceed £26 million.

Over 14 years, corporate donations, employee fundraising and member donations have generated £4.3 million for Macmillan Cancer Support.

Building upon a successful five year partnership with Disability Sport Events, we announced a seven year, £1 million package leading up to the Paralympics in 2012.

In November 2006, the Nationwide Board reviewed and approved its strategy for 2007/08. The strategy included seeking members' approval to achieve the Business in the Community PerCent Standard (formerly PerCent Club). This is a voluntary benchmark run by Business in the Community which measures the contributions made by companies through cash donations, staff time, gifts in kind and management time, shown as a percentage of pre-tax profits. Nationwide members were given the opportunity to indicate their views on this when they voted at the Annual General Meeting in July 2006.

The resolution was passed enabling the Society to donate at least 1% of its pre-tax profits to charity, community and environmental activities each year.