Community

Community Donations and Sponsorship

Each year we receive many requests for support for local projects. Many organizations look for our help with donations of equipment, sponsorship or practical support from employees.

A small team of employees, our community donations team, meets monthly to discuss all the requests. Priority is given to requests from local groups and the team tries to make sure that any donation we make helps as many people as possible and has a long-term benefit. Here you will find some guidelines one what we are able to consider as part of our donations policy.

We will consider requests that meet the following criteria:

• Projects that are local to the Barry, South Wales site and benefit people locally with preference given to requests from Barry and Sully areas and then the Vale of Glamorgan
• We prefer to make donations to properly established organizations rather than to an informal group
• Donations must have a wide benefit ensuring a good number of people can be impacted by the funding

If the above broad criteria can be met then requests must meet the following more specific criteria:

• activities that will help young people learn more about science, math and technology, or skills that they will need in their future careers, or to make them better citizens
• ideas that will help organizations or communities to improve safety or the local environment 
• activities or projects that help improve the local community's health and wellbeing
• projects that help improve the local biodiversity (nature, wildlife, etc)
• projects that promote good citizenship
• projects that can help the elderly

The types of projects we cannot support are:

• raffle prizes
• support for individuals (such as sponsorship for travel or individual fundraising)
• donations to central funds of charities, political or religious groups
• contribution to an organization's running costs or funding for someone's salary
• one-off events such as fetes, parades, shows, tournaments, concerts, awards ceremonies (even if any of these are annual events)
• group travel expenses for excursions or overseas adventures
• medical research
• general fund-raising appeals where Dow Corning funding is not used on specific projects or purchases
• uniforms or kits for sports teams
• national or international appeals
• advertising
• requests that make Dow Corning a 'corporate sponsor'.

How to make your request

If you have a request for us to consider, please write to us explaining what the request is for, who will benefit, how much you are requesting and any other supporting information. Postal letters should be addressed to the Community Relations Coordinator, Dow Corning Ltd, Cardiff Road, Barry, Vale of Glamorgan, CF63 2YL. Only written requests can be considered.

Your letter will be screened against the criteria outlined above. Those requests that appear to meet our criteria will be reviewed and discussed by our donations team.