Helping make the world a better place through community service.
We believe that being involved in our communities is not only the right thing to do, it’s also good business. Year after year, our partners (employees) and customers inspire and amaze us with how enthusiastically they come together to make the world a better place.
Starbucks has created a variety of programs to facilitate community service and giving. And we keep looking for innovative ways to do this, as we did in January 2009 when we saluted customers with a cup of brewed coffee for their pledge of five hours of community service.
It’s our goal that by 2015, we will contribute more than one million hours of community service each year.
What we’ve been doing.
V2V – connecting volunteers through social networking
Starbucks launched the V2V (Volunteer-to-Volunteer) online social network in 2008 to extend and encourage human connections beyond our stores. The site, which now has more than 10,000 members in more than 60 countries, promotes direct connections among Starbucks partners and customers to share community experiences and opportunities to improve our local communities.
Starbucks™ Shared Planet™ Community Service Grants – encouraging volunteerism
Starbucks community service grants (formerly known as Make Your Mark) is our volunteer program in the United States and Canada that brings partners and customers together to work on projects that directly affect their communities. Our partners organize projects – such as park cleanups, AIDS walks and reading events – in conjunction with local nonprofit organizations. In fiscal 2008, partners and customers volunteered 246,000 volunteer hours in community service events.
In addition to the hands-on help from Starbucks partners, we make a donation in correlation to the number of hours volunteered – by partners and customers alike – up to $1,000 per project. Since it was started in 2000, our community service program has inspired our U.S. and Canadian partners and customers to volunteer 1.7 million hours for thousands of community organizations.
Hurdles.
Make Your Mark participation has declined the past two years, and we’ve heard anecdotal examples from partners that participation may have declined due to competing business priorities. But we know that giving back to our communities isn’t a distraction from our business – it’s an essential component of our success.
To reach our global goal of more than 1 million hours of community service each year, we will develop a global strategy with input from our NGO partners. We hope to encourage and record community service activities, encourage store managers to promote volunteerism and leverage V2V. The Make Your Mark program only captured activities in the United States and Canada. We know there are many community service projects going on around the world that are not yet systematically tracked.
What we’re working on.
Starbucks is committed to being actively involved in our communities. By 2015, it is our goal to contribute more than one million hours of community service each year and engage 50,000 young people to take action in their communities.
