Members of Nationwide Building Society and Dunfermline Building Society are now able to vote for the charities they want the organisations to support in 2013, thanks to their new Community Match initiative.

The Community Match charitable giving scheme has been launched at 60 of the Nationwide and Dunfermline branches throughout Scotland. The scheme enables members to be directly involved in deciding how much money three chosen charities will receive by using tokens to show their support.

Tokens will be available throughout the branches and members will place them in a Community Match box to make their votes. Members will be able to vote for each organisation for a period of three months until the winner is revealed. There are currently 24 charities involved, including Alzheimer's Scotland, Marie Curie Cancer Cure, St Andrew's Hospice and Help for Heroes.

The scheme forms part of Nationwide's Living on Your Side initiative, which has seen it commit to investing and unlocking £15 million for local communities over the next five years.

Stephen Uden, Head of Citizenship at Nationwide, commented: "As a mutual organisation, it is important for us to support the local communities where our members live and work.

"Community Match is a fantastic way for us to give our members a say in who we support in their areas. Being a member owned organisation, we felt it was right to enable our customers to vote for the charities that mean the most to them."

To nominate a charity and for more information, please visit http://your.nationwide.co.uk/livingonyourside to fill in an online form or visit one of our participating branches to complete a nomination form in person. Organisations eligible include local charities and relevant community groups. For more information on Nationwide's Living on Your Side initiative, please visit http://your.nationwide.co.uk/livingonyourside, email citizenship@nationwide.co.uk or call 01793 656 145.

Notes to editors:

Nationwide is the world's largest building society as well as the second largest savings provider and a top-three provider of mortgages in the UK. It is also a major provider of current accounts, credit cards, ISAs and personal loans. Nationwide has around 15 million members.

Customers can manage their finances in a branch, on the telephone, internet and post. The Society has around 16,000 employees. Nationwide's head office is in Swindon with administration centres based in Northampton, Bournemouth and Dunfermline. The Society also has a number of call centres across the UK.

Please see below the full list of branches participating in the Community Match scheme: