Each award-winning organization will receive EUR 42,190 thanks to the contributions of Banco Santander employees to the Euros From Your Salary programme (in which the bank matches each euro donated by the employees) and to the extraordinary contribution made by Ana Botín, executive chairman of Banco Santander.

The number of winning organizations increased from 12 to 16.

Since the launch of this initiative, 13 years ago, €4.1 million has been distributed among the 110 winning NGO projects in Spain and around 190,000 people have been helped.

Madrid, 21 September 2021.
This morning, HM Queen Letizia, along with the executive chairman of Banco Santander, Ana Botín, presided a ceremony in the Nouvel room of the Reina Sofía museum, to present the awards of the 13th edition of the bank’s Euros From Your Salary programme to the sixteen social projects chosen by employees in Spain. As a new development this year, the number of award-winning organizations increased from 12 to 16, out of the 349 projects submitted.

Each winning NGO received €42,190 from the Euros From Your Salary fund, which is financed by donations made by the employees who participate in the programme. These donations are then matched by the bank. For each euro donated by an employee, the bank donates another. In addition, this year the fund received an extraordinary donation from Ana Botín, which the bank also matched. This edition has raised a total of €675,042.

Her Majesty the Queen expressed her gratitude “for the invitation to participate in something that I am excited about each year and which demonstrates that the will to change things actually works. Because today we are celebrating how words are put into action. Sixteen projects that address what is truly important: development cooperation and education, the integration of young people, disability, paediatric cancer research, children in vulnerable situations, the eradication of violence against women and girls, and the loneliness of the elderly.”

She also expressed her “thanks to those who work at Santander and its management, thank you Ana. Sixteen institutions will today receive a strong boost to further improve and transform the lives of many people. I believe that, as a society and as a country, we should be proud of your achievements, the achievements of those who continue to work every day, for many years now, to make us fairer, more inclusive and more responsible.”

Ana Botín, executive chairman of Banco Santander, thanked the Queen for her participation and the commitment she has always shown to social causes and stated that, “as a company, we have to contribute to a better world and with everything we do, and with initiatives like this, we are playing our part.”

Since the launch of this programme 13 years ago, more than EUR 4.1 million has been distributed among 110 NGOs, helping close to 190,000 people.

Winning projects

Out of the 349 entries, a panel of experts comprising representatives of the bank’s various divisions and companies selected 35 finalists. From these finalists, Banco Santander’s employees voted to choose the winning projects in each of the five categories: international cooperation, disability, health, social exclusion and primary education.

In the international cooperation category, the prizes were awarded to the Pablo Horstmann foundation, whose winning project aims to rebuild the preschool and nutritional centre in Nadunda, Kenya, and to set up a mobile medical SUV, which would regularly visit all schools; Educo, which seeks to improve the quality of life and future prospects of female victims of violence and abuse in El Salvador; and the Ramón Grosso foundation, whose project aims to provide the basic equipment needed during labour in three rural hospitals in Chad, to improve the training of midwives and to provide rural hospitals with more tests to be able to rule out certain illnesses.

The prizes in the disability category were won by El Arca de Madrid foundation, which is going to set up a home to be shared by people with and without intellectual disabilities, so that they are able to form genuine family units and to achieve real emancipation and full normalization within society; Ela España, whose project will provide therapy to those affected by leukodystrophy in specialized centres or at home; the Lukas foundation, for its “Smiles on wheels” project, for buying and maintaining various models of bicycles and tricycles adapted to different types of disability; and the Talita foundation, which will create a new multidisciplinary space to complement the support already provided by teachers in mainstream schools for children and young people with special educational needs.

In the health category, the prizes were awarded to CRIS Contra El Cáncer, whose project aims to finance the second phase of adapting an infant cell therapy treatment for Covid-19 patients, achieving hospital discharges in record time with less toxic treatment and no side-effects; El Sueño De Vicky, which aims to rehabilitate children with brain tumours; and Pequeño Deseo foundation, which will provide emotional support to 65 children suffering from cancer by granting them a wish.

In the social inclusion category, the winning organizations are Altius foundation which, through its initiative to provide “one kilo of help in the Covid-19 social crisis”, aims to distribute 70 tonnes of essential items per week to more than 7,500 people affected by the social crisis caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, and to combat food waste and unemployment; the Grandes Amigos en Acción foundation, which seeks to address loneliness among the elderly, through its programme to provide companionship to seniors; and the Nuevo Futuro association, which works to help young people formerly in foster care in their transition to adult life.

Lastly, the prizes in the primary education category went to Aldeas Infantiles SOS, which will use its donation to address the social, emotional and economic crisis caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, by preventing an increase in the poverty and social exclusion gap affecting many families and children; the ANAR foundation, which has a project to help children and their families in their digitalization process, by providing an area of protection, training and education, where they can seek help in cases of child or teen violence; and the Acrescere foundation, with its 24X7 nursery school Guardian Angel project, for preventing the neglect of children aged six and under by their parents in situations of social difficulty or exclusion.