Rabobank does not have any shareholders to whom it pays regular dividend. As a cooperative association with members, we set aside part of our profit for sustainable social, economic and cultural initiatives in society. We refer to all these investments together as cooperative dividend and they may comprise money, manpower, means, mass and media (Meijs & Van der Voort, 2003). Money represents financial contributions made from local cooperative funds in which local Rabobanks deposit part of their profit, which is then allocated to specific social initiatives in the local community by a delegation of the members. Manpower refers to staff volunteering initiatives, means to the provision of accommodation, computers or money-counting machines and suchlike, mass to the deployment of banking networks and media to offering third parties access to the Bank's communication tools.
In 2007, 86% of the local Rabobanks had a cooperative fund. But financial support is not the most important thing. The idea is to combine the various investment methods as successfully as possible within the phenomenon of cooperative dividend, focusing on improving the social environment. There is no strict policy for cooperative dividend: the local Rabobanks themselves determine whether and to what extent they use it. Most of the activities to improve the environment, the local economy and the social environment can be distilled into one of the following six themes:
- financial schooling,
- education and career development,
- districts and neighbourhoods (including economic and cultural development),
- health and welfare,
- rural renewal, and
- the environment.