Molson in the Community

The National Mentoring Program participants attended a very imformative luncheon at the Toronto Board of Trade at First Canadian Place on Friday February 8th. Paul Godfrey, President and CEO of the Toronto Blue Jays and Rogers Centre was the guest speaker. In this photo Paul Godfrey is joined by Amir Remtulla of Molson, Director of Government and Public Affairs - along with Queen’s University Student Bangsil Cho who has chosen a project with Volunteer Canada.

Paul Godfrey reflected on many of his pursuits in life ranging from City Alderman, Chairman of Metropolitan Toronto, Publisher and CEO of the Toronto Sun and most recently the Toronto Blue Jays and Rogers Centre. He also referred to the importance of networking and being open to listening and learning through life. The Queen’s University Students, who are all enrolled in the Corporate Social Responsbility Certification program,  and their Molson Mentors attending engaged in dialogue with Paul Godfrey over lunch where they inquired about insights that he could provide in pursuing their goals and engaging in charitable work in the community. Paul spoke of his personal commitment to contribute a day a week to charity. He reflected upon the tremendous efforts that he and his wife Gina have accomplished through the Herbie Fund in association with Sick Kids Hospital in Toronto.

The students and their mentors are embarking upon a program that will result in meeting a challenge that has been brought to them by a chosen non profit/charitable organization. The Queen’s Students and their Molson Mentors will work on solutions for the non-profit organizations which will involve in a summer job for the students, funded by Molson, whereby the students will put their learning into action to assist the chosen non-profit organizations.

The National Mentoring Program has been designed by Mary Donohue, The Donohue Group. As a founding partner of the project, Molson is Proud to Play our Part in supporting the inaugural mentoring project from its concept stages through the summer of ‘08. Stay tuned for more features of the individual projects that are being undertaken by the National Mentoring Project.

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 !

You will notice that Tonia will be blogging for Molson in the coming days. She joins us from Humber College and is an intern for the next four months. Tonia will be covering a number of our community activities and is off to “Meal Exchange“ tonight at Black Betty’s to cover this new Molson partner in the community.  Welcome Tonia and stay tuned.

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.

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.