Molson in the Community

Our internal United Way champions have kicked off another year of support for this oustanding charitable cause - United Way. Molson reaches out to our employees and engages them in activities coast to coast in Canada, at our breweries, offices and in the work place. The other really compelling factor is that leaders within our business, rather than senior managers, embrace the opportunity and take this to the general employee population.

This year at 33 Carlingview Drive in Toronto, the employees will be engaged in volunteering in a special series of “Days of Caring”. Our employees recognize what a privelege and honour it is to contribute to the communities in which we live, work and play. Molson employees are “Proud to Play our Part”.

The days of caring initiatives this year include the Davenport Perth Neighbourhood Centre, where we will work with youth in educating them about the benefit of trees in urban environments and the proper tree care in school grounds and parks.  At the YMCA Cedar Glen Camp we will help with some general maintenance of the facility. Employees will also engage at Food Share to help sort and pack fresh food in support of the field to table initiative conducted by Food Share.

Congratulations and a toast to our employees leading this national effort in support of United Way and the thousands of agencies that will be positively affected by this work. Cheers !

What is your favourite United Way agency and how have you  helped make a difference ?

It was really neat arriving home from March break and opening up an email from a neighbour inviting the family down the street for a neighbourhood celebration of Earth Hour next Saturday. My neighbour writes for the Toronto Star and I think it is great that employees at participating companies in Earth Hour are banding together to raise awareness on this important date. And as reported in The Toronto Star, Canada is leading the way.

Our family will be shutting down the power at our home and wandering down the street to join neighbours for a fondu dinner with an eventual trek over to the Leaside Bridge over the Don Valley to witness what we hope will be a visible change in the downtown Toronto skyline…lights off folks !

Our Molson breweries across the country will be focussed on energy savings initiatives.

What are you doing to raise awareness and participate in Earth Hour between 8 and 9pm on March 29th ?

Who benefits more from a well thought out, well-executed (much hyped?) community investment program? The company, charities/different organizations or the employees from which the investment originates?

The 2004 Cone Corporate Citizenship Report discusses how some companies have recognized the positive impact of supporting social issues and the additional benefits of aggressively communicating these efforts to as many people as possible. The report describes how more and more folks south of the border want businesses to discuss what they do in the community, however few actually do it (well) for fear of being seen as too self-congratulatory.

Boastful or not, “an overwhelming majority of Americans (86%) want companies to talk about their efforts, yet only 4 in 10 are actually doing it well.” Some of those companies are engaged in voodoo marketing efforts, an opinion expressed in yesterday’s NYTimes by Ron Jarvis, Home Depot senior vice-president.

Despite their desire to know, employees of a particular business stand to benefit just as much (maybe more) than consumers from a well-publicized community investment campaign. The difference between posting something internally and boasting about community investment in a public space is tremendous – primarily because it demonstrates that a company stands behind a particular (employee driven) initiative and that they’re willing to stand up and shout about it.

Some may ask, “how do we know that our corporate contribution is making a difference in the lives of people?” My response - perhaps it’s just a case of asking all those involved.