Molson in the Community

The second annual WaknRoll for Variety Village in Toronto was held Sunday September 21st. My family and I were proud to have the opportunity to join with about 400 folks who decided to participate in the 5K or 1K jaunt. We chose the 5K and had a wonderful walk through the neighbourhood surrounding Variety Village in Toronto. (Danforth and Birchmount).

The official master of ceremonies for the day was Tom Brown of CTV who got the crowd rolling with great rousing cheers of joy and celebration. Nice work Tom…great that you and CTV could be there to support this terrific event.

The morning held a special treat for those gathered with recently returning Paralympians from Beijing donning their silver medals in basketball. Adam Lancia and Abdi Dini Fatah were on hand to mix and mingle with the crowd. We salute them for their oustanding achievement.

Along the route neighbourhood supporters cheered the walkers, rollers, police escort, staff participants, families and friends of Variety and a special honour guard of motorcylce enthusiasts. Along Natal Avenue we were treated to fresh slices of oranges to keep us nourished along the route.

Our family is delighted to report that through friends, family, business associates and acquaintances that we were proud to exceed our $10,000 target and at last tally we were able to raise just over $12,000.  I’m posting this here because a number of colleagues at Molson stepped up with support and Molson matches employees charitable giving up to $5000 when an employee supports a non profit. So, to the Molson employees that supported us…a big thanks…and to the Molson Donation Fund…a double big thanks.  Cheers everyone and thanks for supporting Variety Village. If you’re interested in participating next year check in with Variety.

Employees of Molson took to the streets of Toronto on Toque Tuesday. We were enthusiastically led by our President and CEO Kevin Boyce, who was selling toques at Toronto City Hall and around Nathan Phillips square with his team. Kevin’s first sale took place 720 am to Anita in front of City Hall in Toronto.

The Toque Tuesday tally is in and the results are phenomenal ! Our goal for Toque Tuesday was to raise $50,000.00. The total tally of funds raised for Raising the Roof’s Toque Tuesday as a result of the Molson Volunteer initiative is $90,557.26. This number is built on the successful efforts of the volunteers selling toques that raised $54,557,26 (exceeded target of $50,000), Molson purchased toques for volunteers $11,000.00, an employee donation of winnings from off track event on Monday night of $4,000.00, Molson Matched employees’ donation $4,000.00, Heineken Partner Brand donation of $10,000.00, The Keg Restaurant donation of $5000.00, Molson Quebec employee’s jersey purchase of $500.00, Molson matched employee’s jersey donation $500.00 and $1000.00 in follow up sales on Wednesday, We are still getting requests from employees and the public on where and how to buy toques. You can go to the Raising the Roof site to purchase on line. Hats off or should I say Toques off to a successful Volunteer event. Molson and our employees…Proud to Play our Part !

Molson employees from across the country will be taking to the streets of Toronto on Toque Tuesday February 5th. Toque Tuesday, a national effort by Raising the Roof, will be supported by the volunteer efforts of Molson employees attending their national conference in Toronto this week.

Molson heritage, history and culture has always involved a commitment to community. Kevin Boyce, President and CEO of Molson in Canada put forth the challenge to have a community activity as part of the national conference. With Feb 5th already designated as Toque Tuesday for Raising the Roof, it was a natural fit for Molson to offer up 1100 toque salespeople to hit the streets of downtown Toronto, to help raise money and combat homelessness.

1100 salespeople will sell thousands of toques in one hour on Toque Tuesday, the largest volunteer effort in Molson’s history.

Molson teamed up with Volunteer Toronto and Volunteer Canada and Raising the Roof to pull this massive deployment of volunteers together to demonstrate what one hour can do in making a difference in our community.

The Molson Community Blog will be covering the events in the early hours of February 5th and we will post the clips of the event throughout the day.

In the meantime…watch locally for opportunities to buy your toque for just $10 on Toque Tuesday and find out where you can at the Raising the Roof website.  We salute Raising the Roof and their national sponsors, GLOBAL, RBC Foundation, Direct Energy, Ecentricartsinc, Grey Worldwide, The Bargains Group, Canadian Traffic Network and Home Depot; for their ongoing efforts to combat homelessness.

This question comes up all the time – how do you apply traditional marketing metrics to community investment? How can you actually measure the impact of time spent volunteering or the impact of a one-time donation to fight AIDS or a clean water drinking initiative in Africa?

Well, skeptics, there is hope. Aside from measures like employee satisfaction, positive press, and all the stuff one normally looks at (all valuable information), sites are offering cause-specific calculators that give you more drilled-down, and some might argue, more socially impactful information.

Take, for example, the Calvert Foundation. They have a “calculate your impact” tag at the top of their website, different from the much hyped Zero Footprint calculator. This one attempts to calculate the actual social return on your investment. For example, when I punch in a $5,000 donation, one-time, to a micro-lending organization in the domestic U.S., my social return on investment would finance 15.6 micro-enterprises and create 31.13 jobs – a calculation everyone understands.

A growing body of evidence suggests that a company’s role in its community can be a factor in increasing profitability, strengthening company brand and reputation, elevating employee morale and customer loyalty, increasing market knowledge, attracting and retaining employees, and encouraging product innovation, among others. These factors are already measured by a series of stringent factors, like actual amount donated per employee, amount of volunteer hours, and end results.

But as the advent of these online calculators continues to pop-up, the calculations and metrics that are applied to these initiatives will surely increase. And accordingly, so will everyone’s ability to measure their impact.