Annie’s Homegrown uses its community involvement programs to build trust between the company and its customers. With the mission to respect all of earth’s inhabitants, its product respects customers by providing natural and organic comfort foods. And its approach to community involvement respects people by informing them and giving them the power to make a difference.

The company supports three main causes: the environment, women and children, and Stand for Peace. Most activities it supports within these causes promote education to the public, such as educating children on nutrition and the merits of eating more natural foods. On top of supporting education programs, Annie’s also uses its packaging to educate consumers everyday. This packaging is the first main portion of Annie’s cause marketing initiatives. By not overwhelming consumers with a lot of explicit marketing of the product and the company’s philanthropic endeavors, customers trust the company’s intentions as genuine and pay attention to information provided. The result is happy customers aware of the issues that Annie’s finds important.

 The second pillar of cause marketing at Annie’s takes place during the events it supports. Annie’s has two of its 35 employees devoted to cause marketing, and tries to have strong public relations during its community involvement programs. For example, with gluten free rice pasta recently launched, the company donates product to and speaks at meetings for the phyliac community to educate them about the product and its health merits.

Trust, loyalty, and cohesiveness within Annie’s have been the main advantages of these programs. Through trust of the Annie’s brand, customer loyalty for the company has remained strong and been one factor in its ability to move into general grocery stores across the country. And in these times of growth and evolution, the approach to giving has been inspirational to many employees and encouraged them to work together on projects.

Actual events and support for the causes comes in the form of product donations, monetary donations, and services. Two of Annie’s biggest initiatives are ‘Cases for Causes’ and the Environmental Studies Scholarships. ‘Cases for Causes’ is a program that supports unique nonprofits with donations in kind every month. Annie’s will not support any organization more than one month of the year, which allows them to learn about many different nonprofit projects each year.

The Environmental Studies scholarships are also smaller and more widely spread, with at least 35 $1,000 scholarships to college and graduate environmental studies students per year. This larger number of smaller donations allows the company to have more exposure, meanwhile keeping overall giving appropriate to the company’s size. This is actually one of the main pieces of advice that Chelsea Simons, Cause and Event Marketing Manager, gives to those starting a community involvement program: rather than letting your company’s small size prevent you from getting involved, simply think through different approaches to giving that will allow you to have an impact without necessarily donating the same amount of money and resources as larger companies.

By Louise Doyle Based on interview with Kathrine Koslowski and Chelsea Simons, both in event and cause marketing for Annie’s Homegrown, conducted by Susan Hyatt.

More information on Annie’s Homegrown can be found at: http://www.annies.com/

Gary Erickson, founder of Clif Bar, works hard to make sure that his business is sustainable; he treats business as an ecosystem and stresses the necessity to balance the fragile nature of the world. Thus the community involvement programs for the company work to make this ideal come true. This means being profitable meanwhile being a good steward to the brand, community, people, and planet.

Clif Bar’s corporate responsibility programs focus mainly on environmental causes. These include fundraising drives for ‘Global Cooling’ and donating 1% of net sales to organic farming as part of the ‘1% For the Planet’ movement. But Clif Bar also supports health related causes: its largest single partnership is with the Breast Cancer Foundation, which it supports with its Luna Bars. Erickson explains that this is not only health-related, but also indirectly tied to the environment because of the impact that environment has on health and disease. Both of these causes are also tied to the health and out-doors focused Clif Bar products.

As part of its support for the environment, Clif Bar also tries its best to minimize its own ecological footprint. It has moved from 0 to 70% organic products in Clif Bars, started using recycled paper products and organic cotton, minimized the environmental impact of its packaging, started purchasing wind energy to offset the office energy usage, and has set the goal of having zero solid waste.

The combination of internal and external support for the environment helps to ensure that philanthropic giving at the company is strategically aligned to company values. In many of these projects, Erickson has let employees take the initiative rather than driving every program. Thus employees themselves have been the inspiration for community involvement at the company and have provided Erickson with an example to look towards.

Clif Bar donates money, product, and employee time to support its community involvement. Financial donations come primarily from the 1% initiative, a hefty promise as it’s 1% of sales rather than profits: ‘Clif Bar is on the hook,’ says Erickson. Employees are also paid to volunteer, totaling more than 2,000 hours per year of paid volunteer time. One advantage to this approach is the ability to promote team volunteering, and bonding within the Clif Bar community.

For Clif Bar, all of these community involvement programs have been ‘win/win’. The company is not only able to build a community for the employees, but it is also able to help maintain its ‘ecosystem,’ and build trust and loyalty among consumers. In turn, Clif Bar increases awareness of the nonprofits and helps to financially support them. Because of the breadth of programs, these causes can be very specific and local as well as national.

For example, it supports many grassroots organizations from different areas, and has one partner that is just ‘a one man band’ working for his cause. Not writing off these small organizations is important for Erickson, as they can often have as much, if not more, impact than national causes. In short, both national and local grassroots organizations have their place, and should be recognized.

The one lesson-learned that Erickson shared about his community involvement experience is to make sure that programs are well thought out and sustainable before initiation. He has had to go backwards and pull donations previously given to nonprofits because he did not do this, and would not wish that experience on anybody else. Even though it has sometimes been difficult, and advantages are not easily quantifiable,

Erickson closes his interview by stressing that benefits are indeed there. The company is stronger and better because of its community involvement and sustainable approach to business.

By Louise Doyle Based on interview with Gary Erickson, founder of Clif Bar, conducted by Susan Hyatt.

More information on Clif Bar can be found at: http://www.clifbar.com/

As a loose conglomerate of 10 different neighborhood pubs, the Little Pub Company uses community involvement as a central business tool to market to and attract local consumers. Founder Mark Berzins first decided on this approach when he realized how unrealistic traditional marketing avenues are for pubs that truly want a community feel with mainly local customers. So in lieu of a marketing budget, he established a community involvement budget.

Pubs in the group get their name out through local involvement. And inside pubs there are often informational hats on the tables showing what community causes the pub is supporting. Berzins explains that this ensures that customers in the communities know that the Little Pub Company is giving back to those communities.

The Company has chosen to focus primarily on causes related to arts and culture. This is in part because these causes are less glamorous, and often have more trouble raising money. But it also has the benefit of contributing to the culture and unique feel of many of the neighborhood pubs. However, this narrow focus was not always the case.

At first the company had no guidance on which causes to support, and no screening mechanism. As a result, the community involvement program was overwhelmed, and Berzins was forced to reevaluate the process. One of Berzins’ greatest lessons learned is that targeting community involvement programs before starting them is much more efficient.

There are four main resources the company uses to support its cause: money, product, leverage with suppliers, and time. The company gives grants to nonprofits in arts and culture. These are targeted to both adults and children. It strongly encourages employees to help out as well during their free time. The response to this is generally strong, as Berzins explains that employees want to help out in the community. He chose not to financially support employees volunteering because he wants them to do it out of desire to help, not because of external incentives.

For events and general community support, he also leverages his power with vendors for additional aid. In fact, he refuses to do business with organizations that don’t help support his causes. In order to help nonprofits not under the arts and culture umbrella, individual pubs often make donations of gift certificates.

A crucial quality in business and community involvement, Berzins truly leads by example in all of the programs his company offers. He is on the boards of various nonprofits and community organizations, and even organizes a program for his son’s kindergarten class to make arts and crafts gift baskets for underprivileged children.

For him, ‘getting involved is like working out,’ invigorating and addictive after the first time. He also recommends that people take programs or seek education before embarking on these projects, something which he himself got a lot out of.

One of the main challenges that he, as an involved individual and as a business owner, has faced is dealing with the money and politics in nonprofits. Education has helped him deal with some of these fundraising difficulties. When in need of motivation, he ironically goes back to the nonprofits, as their hard work and pure mission can be very inspirational despite these difficulties.

As far as the Little Pub Company is concerned, the business advantages of this program have included attracting customers and employee loyalty. Local customers appreciate that the pubs try to cater to the neighborhood and give back to the local community. And in the especially high-turnover bar and restaurant industry, feeling a sense of belonging and need can help retain employees by making them feel valued.

By Louise Doyle
Based on interview with Mark Berzins, founder of the Little Pub Company, conducted by Susan Hyatt.

Little Pubs Company’s Colorado Locations include:

Don’s Club Tavern
723 E. Sixth Ave., 6th Ave and Washington, Denver, CO 80203

The Elm
5001 E. Colfax Ave., Denver, CO 80220
(303) 336-5763

Firehouse Bar & Grill
1525 Blake St., Denver, CO 80202
(303) 820-3308

Irish Hound
575 Saint Paul St., Denver, CO 80206-4338
(303) 996-0709

Salty Rita’s
200 Quebec Bldg. 300101, Denver, CO 80230
(303) 344-4404

Spot Bar & Grill
98 S Pennsylvania St., Denver, CO 80209
(303) 733-1299

The Spot Bar & Grill 111 Rubey Dr., Golden, CO 80403
(303) 271-9310

Three Dogs Tavern
3390 W. 32nd Ave., Denver CO, 80210
(720) 854-1277

Wyman’s No. 5
2037 E 13th Ave, Denver, CO 80206-2003
(303) 996-0842

Rock Bottom Foundation, the giving arm of Rock Bottom Restaurants, has a community involvement program strategically aligned with the business goals of the company. And it’s working to further integrate the programs within company activities.

The Foundation has three main operating funds to cover its giving programs: a fund for hunger and homelessness, an internal HOPE fund to help employees in crisis situations, and a general fund for events et cetera. All three of these help to support the company mission to ‘run great restaurants for the benefit of its guests, communities, and employees.’ HOPE (Helping Our People in Emergencies) is a unique fund in that the foundation sets aside money purely to help employees, rather than giving to charitable causes. This can be especially helpful to young employees just starting out on their own.

Jessica Newman, Executive Director of the Foundation, stresses that this helps build a community of employees and increases retention: Rock Bottom averages about an 80% turnover when its primary competitors in the notoriously difficult restaurant industry average between 100 and 110%. Furthermore, the HOPE program serves as an internal mechanism for encouraging employees who’ve been helped by the company to help out other people in the community.

Rock Bottom helps out with money, percentage of sales campaigns, awareness building, events, and food. While employees must volunteer on their own time, the company strongly encourages them to help out, and usually gets a good turnout. Some events have more than 500 volunteers. It chose to target just one external cause with its giving programs because it wanted to have a deeper relationship with partners. This cause is hunger and homelessness, which is linked to the restaurant industry; the restaurants even donate food to food banks and shelters at the end of the day. This allows them to prevent wasting resources and help people in need at no cost.

The foundation is currently working on finding a national nonprofit that can help them have a standardized nation-wide program for giving unused food. With the combination of employee focus and funds for giving to charitable causes, Rock Bottom has the ability to custom tailor events to employee needs. Newman gives the example of the opening of the Denver Chop House many years back. The purchase and renovation of the building required displacing many homeless people using the building as a home. After employee concerns were voiced, the restaurant and Rock Bottom Foundation decided to sponsor a Christmas dinner for hungry people. The event has since become a tradition for the restaurant, which now serves dinner to about 6,000 people on Christmas in Denver alone. These ‘Mini-Miracle’ days have now expanded to serve 12,000 people nationwide on various holidays.

Newman recommends using other resources out there to guide development of these programs. For her, these are Boston College research and the Points of Light Foundation. She is currently using them for pointers as she works to further integrate the giving programs, implement education about the giving programs into employee training and marketing, and to be a vehicle for helping others get involved. She emphasizes that it was difficult to integrate these programs into the company as a whole after-the-fact.

The foundation was started as a side-project for the company, without fully thinking through how it would be aligned to the strategic goals of Rock Bottom Restaurants. By thinking through programs and what one needs from a partnership with nonprofits, the process can be much more efficient.

By Louise Doyle
Based on interview with Jessica Newman, executive director of the Foundation at Rock Bottom, conducted by Susan Hyatt.

More information on Rock Bottom Restaurants Inc. and Rock Bottom Foundation, can be found at: http://www.rockbottom.com

Front and center on Seventh Generation’s homepage is a quote from the Great Law of the Iroquois Confederacy: “In every deliberation we must consider the impact of our decisions on the next seven generations.” Its name comes from this quote, and the company does everything possible to ensure that its product, business, and community involvement embody this tenant. This idea, and name, holds the company together as it “reflects not only [its] philosophy but [its] dream of restoring and protecting the earth for our children and all who will follow in our path.”

Seventh Generation is now the leading US brand for non-toxic and environmentally friendly household products. Seventh Generation’s 50 plus products are offered online and in retail stores across the country, in both natural focused stores as well as national chains. By providing non-toxic, recycled, environmentally friendly products the company has already saved 327,800 trees, 233,000 pounds of greenhouse gases, 1.3 million gallons of petroleum, and 124 million gallons of water.

For this exact reason, the company recently received the ‘Pioneer of Precaution’ award from the Center for Health, Environment and Justice, the Environmental Research Foundation, and the Science and Environmental Health Network. It also gives grants to local community organizations, consistent with the mindset of focusing on the future. Grants are approved on a case-by-case basis, and the company has chosen to focus on environmentally and family oriented community organizations. These grants have also helped the company in its goal of being a community based business.

But it’s not stopping at that. Seventh Generation is trying to get even more involved, and taking time to think critically about how its involvement can best affect the next seven generations. As it evaluates opportunities for nonprofit and peer business relationships, it’s making sure to engage in internal dialogue, so as not to over-commit and to maximize its influence. By considering a wide variety of options and extensively internally collaborating, it is a rather slow process of change. Despite the fast-paced focus in business today, Seventh Generation believes that this approach will prove to be a long term advantage.

To this end, it’s bringing in a ‘regenerative strategic planner,’ looking at research from the Center for Corporate Citizenship at Boston College, and planning on hiring a consultant (as the company is only 42 employees strong) once it crafts a solid vision for the involvement. This thoughtful approach is linked to one piece of advice that Director of Corporate Consciousness, Gregor Barnum, gave: focus internally first. This means making sure that there is a strong internal dialogue, transparency, and real community between employees at the company. By understanding the purpose of the company all employees, and thus community programs, are more likely to be aligned and successful.

The company admits it has forgotten this at times in the past, and failed to follow up on grants given to nonprofits. Changes in the program will seek to prevent this lapse in the future, as Seventh Generation wants to support sustainable and long term relationships. Barnum describes the changing mindset as an epistemological change, trying to move away from traditional linear thinking to a more holistic approach.

Even in how the company has chosen to change its approach to community involvement, it is embodying the mission it laid out for itself. This is perhaps the most important lesson from the Seventh Generation case: not losing sight of your true values in times of change.

By Louise Doyle
Based on interview with Gregor Barnum, Director of Corporate Consciousness at Seventh Generation, conducted by Susan Hyatt.

More information on Seventh Generation, Inc. can be found at: http://www.seventhgeneration.com/

State Farm Insurance is by all measures a behemoth. But what distinguishes its community involvement program from other corporate philanthropy programs is its deep integration in the company. This is why Clayton Adams, Vice President of Community Development, claims that the company’s program is ‘beyond checkbook philanthropy.’

The mission of State Farm as a company is to help people mitigate risk and recover from disasters. As such, the company has had a deep connection to its communities since its inception. It does everything it can to show that its famous logo, “Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there,” is much more than just a logo. Causes supported by State Farm are chosen because of a strategic link to its business and mission, and potential to help build a reputation of trust. These are: auto safety, education, and community development. Auto safety is a natural as the nations top auto insurer. It supports awareness in this arena as well as research at hospitals into child passenger safety. Both education and community development, however, are not so clearly linked to the business.

Adams explains that the company looks at these with a very long-term view. In order to help build better communities, and thus have more informed and affluent consumers, it must now invest in education and development for the future. These are also closely tied to the mission of being there to help communities in times of need, like a good neighbor. Involvement in causes is not variable.

The company takes pride in saying that in good times and bad it will try to be a good neighbor. For example, in 2005, the company actually suffered an underwriting loss and a net income one fourth that in 2004. This was in part due to the plethora of natural disasters that year. Yet State Farm did halt its community involvement programs, opting to continue as usual and help the communities recover from hard times even if it meant a blow to the bottom line. This is an example of how the company can use its considerable size to weather times and uphold commitments made.

State Farm supports its causes with many different programs. These range from scholarships and grants to volunteer days and swaps between employees and local teachers to give teachers a chance at professional development. State Farm also encourages employees who might not want to donate to volunteer by giving grants to charities at which employees volunteer for more than 40 hours. For State Farm this is a ‘triple-win’ because it helps the nonprofit with volunteers and funding, it helps State Farm encourage its employees to be involved, and it helps the employees learn from volunteering and become empowered.

Community programs are chosen using a central structure, where the community department lays out a game plan and then seeks feedback and ideas from the field. Thus central might decide that education is a long-term strategic decision for the future of the company and the country, and different divisions would then come up with methods of supporting education initiatives. In approving partners, State Farm is fairly strict. It has five general requirements for any charity to be considered: 1) the nonprofit must have an economic and social impact, 2) its mission must meet the mission and serve the potential customers of State Farm, 3) it must have a successful track record, 4) it must have committed leaders, and 5) it must allow State Farm employees to volunteer. Although these requirements sound demanding, there are still many nonprofits that meet these.

The company tries to then tailor community development programs to the specific needs of communities through selecting local and relevant charities, and letting the communities determine the best solutions, whether they be financial education or commercial and retail development. The community involvement department at State Farm had three main pieces of advice for those getting involved in similar programs.

First, make sure that you are treating the relationship as a partnership rather than just philanthropy. The philanthropy mindset is dangerous, and will prevent you from getting the most out of the program. Second, be patient at the start of the partnership. Relationships evolve, and many programs might need time before they are really functioning optimally. Finally, make every effort to understand the nonprofit you are working with and try to make sure that they also understand your expectations. This will help prevent miscommunication and increase efficiency. Internally, Adams has made sure that State Farm is striving to understand the partners by acting as a constant internal reminder of the purpose of partnerships and hence need to approach them with this desire to understand and learn.

By Louise Doyle
Based on interview with Clayton Adams, Vice President of Community Development at State Farm Insurance, Tony Woller, and Mike Williams, Manager of Media Relations at State Farm Insurance, conducted by Susan Hyatt.

More information on State Farm Insurance can be found at: http://www.statefarm.com.

EILEEN FISHER’s clothing is designed with the intention of improving and simplifying life for women, and so are its community involvement programs.

As a medium-sized company, EILEEN FISHER has over 30 stores and revenues of $177 million in 2004. And it uses some of these resources to support two principle causes: women’s wellness and women’s empowerment. It does what it can to ensure that women receive good health and wellness care, achieve emotional, physical and spiritual balance, have help in standing up against violence, and have the tools to become financially independent.

The company has three different types of programs to support these causes. First, it gives grants. Grants range in size from $500 to over $20,000 for long-time partners; and grants support both nonprofits and for profits being run by women entrepreneurs. Second, it gives donations in kind. These are most often gift certificates for charity fundraisers given by stores to local nonprofits. Finally, EILEEN FISHER has in-store events twice a year with new product lines. Each store sponsors a local nonprofit for the day, donating a portion of sales from that day to the organization and allowing them to come to the store to market their organization to customers. The event often helps boost sales for that day as well, making it a mutually beneficial experience and helping ensure the sustainability of the partnership itself.

Interestingly, EILEEN FISHER does not participate in any cause-marketing with this wide range of programs, nor does it attempt to quantify the benefits of the programs. The company believes that this is inconsistent with the philosophy of giving. It doesn’t even designate an amount to be given away each year, choosing instead to evaluate grants and partnerships on a case by case basis.

This helps EILEEN FISHER ensure that it is giving to truly deserving programs, rather than striving to give out enough to meet its quota, or withholding money from truly deserving organizations because it has reached its quota. That being said, the company does admit that social responsibility helps boost customer satisfaction when customers learn about programs, and helps the company recruit and retain employees.

EILEEN FISHER has put in place a relatively comprehensive and centralized structure in order to carry out these programs. First, the company has a Director of Social Consciousness, Amy Hall. Hall has four main responsibilities in supporting this involvement strategy: community partnerships, supply chain overview to ensure human rights are upheld in production, wellness programs, and environment programs.

In order to make sure that the company is choosing programs that are consistent with its philosophy of giving, Hall also oversees an employee committee to approve grants. Hall has three main suggestions for any company starting an employee committee: 1) have tangible guidelines 2) set a schedule, and 3) have employees from all divisions (finance, marketing, etc). These three simple rules have changed the committee from a ‘free for all’ to an efficient approval mechanism by providing a framework for members. The guidelines for approval also help dealing with one of the principle challenges the company has in working with nonprofits: a lack of clarity in goals and future plans. By having strict application guidelines, nonprofits have clear guidance on how exactly to frame their future plans for EILEEN FISHER.

The company also makes good use of social education networks available to it. In starting up programs, Hall contacted many people in the BSR (Business for Social Responsibility) network to seek guidance. She is also a member of various local organizations designed to link people supporting certain causes with organizations seeking grants. By utilizing these networks Hall helps to ensure that they are ‘not just writing a check, but rather creating relationships with greater depth.’

By Louise Doyle Based on interview with Amy Hall, Social Consciousness Director at EILEEN FISHER, conducted by Susan Hyatt.

More information on EILEEN FISHER can be found at: http://www.eileenfisher.com/