In November 2014, Living The Dream Brewery Co. had been open for four months. Owners Carrie Knose and Jason Bell recipes were successful and serving the demand for craft beer in the southern suburbs of Denver. Yet, despite its success, the brewery faced a few challenges. In particular, it needed to gain awareness in its Littleton and Highlands Ranch, Colo., communities. Knose consistently heard from patrons that they were visiting the brewery for the first time, but had not known about it despite living 2 to 5 miles away. Word-of-mouth seemed to be the most successful form of marketing for Living The Dream. The only other planned marketing initiatives for Living The Dream were through social media, beer blogs and occasional events.
Looking to grow his own business at that time, Brian Phipps, founder and strategist of Confluence, arrived at Living The Dream Brewery. Phipps saw the potential in the brand and with a customized corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategy in hand, he set out with the brewery make an impact in both issues important to the local area and the budding beer business’s bottom line.
What does corporate social responsibility (CSR) mean?
CSR encompasses three functions that focus on how a business affects its environment:
Environmental sustainability — This is the business’s impact on the environment, such as its usage of all of the materials it takes to make, distribute and serve its products/services. The goal of sustainability practices is to limit a business’s imprint on the earth by creating more efficient processes to limit resources needed or finding ways to replace resources.
Community engagement — This is the business’s impact on the community. These are the company’s interactions with the community such as paying taxes, providing jobs, fulfilling a demand and donating to schools/charity. It also includes negative impacts. For example, if a bar were over-serving customers or serving to minors, the bar has put the community at risk. The goal of community engagement practices are to limit the negative impacts through education, services, corporate giving/philanthropy and volunteering.
Employee engagement — This is the business’s impact on the people in the organization. These mostly include human resource issues such as low engagement, turnover, burnout and difficulty in hiring quality talent. The goal of employee engagement is to motivate and retain staff by connecting them to the successes and positive impacts the business makes in the community. Examples are volunteer programs, employee donation matching programs and joining a board of directors for a charity.
Essentially, each of these three CSR pillars involve the resources a business requires to operate, and all of these resources involve the community to some degree. This is the concept of shared-value, the interdependence between business and its environment.
Building CSR into a brewery
Living The Dream had already, in its first four months, implemented several community initiatives including its recent launch of a collection drive of jackets. Living The Dream was a dog-friendly brewery, most evident by Knose’s brewdog Otto who was always present. Bell was involved with a local program that helped at-risk youth participate in outdoor programming where they also received mentorship; the brewery already had a small fundraiser for this program. Prior to moving to Colorado to open the brewery, Knose had been a volunteer for a program in the Lake Tahoe area that helped people with disabilities with adaptive skiing. Clearly activism was important to the brewery, but it needed a plan to bring its service and business together in the eyes of the community.
Planning the fundraiser
Phipps constructed a CSR strategy for Living The Dream and presented it in December of last year. The strategy included recommendations for the next 12 months, as well as a three-year plan. First on the docket: Knose chose to hold a fundraiser at the brewery and wanted the fundraiser to be for a nonprofit that helped people with disabilities participate in outdoor activities.
In Colorado, several nonprofits, including the National Sports Center for the Disabled (NSCD), offer outdoor recreation opportunities for people with disabilities. The NSCD offers therapeutic services year-round with its largest programs taking place at Winter Park Ski Resort. The goal of each activity is to help athletes of all disabilities achieve a goal they set each time. The NSCD served several participants and numerous volunteers who lived in the Littleton and Highlands Ranch areas.
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Phipps reached out to the NSCD in January to see if they were interested in being the beneficiary of such an event. After hearing the details, coordinating schedules and agreeing to help market the event, the NSCD was set to join. The fundraiser date was set for Wednesday, March 4; a date during the week when the brewery was not normally busy was important to help drive new traffic and be mindful of the taproom’s capacity.
To raise money for the NSCD, Living The Dream was willing to donate 20 percent from each pint sold during the event. This was a key factor in also attracting people to attend the event. In addition to the pint sales, a silent auction would be held that was made up of items from local businesses recruited by Confluence as well as prizes the NSCD had from donations from other sponsors.
Confluence knew that in order to make the maximum impact for the NSCD, as well as show Living The Dream these events can be beneficial, a detailed marketing campaign was necessary.
The marketing campaign was designed to find three audiences:
- People with disabilities (or associated) in Littleton and Highlands Ranch;
- People affiliated with the National Sports Center for the Disabled; and
- Visitors at Living The Dream for the three weeks prior to the event.
These audiences were marketed through social media and press releases, as well as posters and postcards. Brian created an online communications schedule where all social media and newsletter messaging were pre-written for the three parties (Confluence, NSCD and Living The Dream) who would send the messages. To advertise at the brewery, a large adaptive sit-ski from the NSCD was placed in the taproom with event information nearby. Here’s a quick rundown of how Phipps and the brewery executed the marketing plan:
- The press release was picked up by seven sources including Westword, PorchDrinking.com, Fermentedly Challenged and YourHub.
- Posters were placed in seven locations in Littleton and Highlands Ranch at silent auction sponsor locations, the NSCD Winter Park program location and recreation centers where numerous programs for people with disabilities are held.
- Fifty postcards were distributed at a Special Olympics basketball tournament.
- Twenty Facebook posts and 15 tweets were originally sent from Living The Dream, the NSCD and Confluence creating at least 1,500 impressions.
- The Facebook event reached 772 people.
- The event was also mentioned in Living The Dream and NSCD newsletters.
The big event
Confluence and Living The Dream arranged the taproom for the event. The NSCD and Confluence setup the auction area to look inviting to all attendees. Confluence created a video to recognize all sponsors of the event on the televisions around the taproom. In addition, Confluence created a playlist that included two videos from the NSCD, as well as several winter adaptive sports videos. Phipps emceed the event that consistently reminded people to visit the silent auction. The NSCD had athletes, volunteers and staff tell their experiences. In addition, Phipps informed people of other community events Living The Dream would be doing in the near future.
In addition, to help track some of the participation and effectiveness of the event, Confluence sampled 43 people at the event to see where they lived, if they had visited the brewery before and if they were affiliated with the NSCD.
Creating shared value
For all parties, the event was a win. Most importantly, the NSCD received $1,500 which is vital to the organization being able to provide its programming. For Living The Dream, they were able to help a cause they were passionate about, get people exposed to the brewery and inform those people that the brewery does care about being a good corporate citizen. For Confluence, the opportunity to link the Living The Dream to a great cause and create a successful fundraiser became a great launching point for its business.
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Here are some of the notable outcomes from the event:
For the NSCD:
- The event raised $1,500 which helps 15 athletes participate in ski lessons or 60 athletes participate in kayak lessons;
- Numerous people signed up to volunteer or receive more information; and
- Relationships were created, renewed and deepened with attendees by sharing positive, life-changing experiences their programs provide.
For Living The Dream:
- Significantly higher revenues generated compared to average Wednesday;
- Acquisition of new customers from nearby community visiting the brewery for first time. Of sampled 43 attendees, 39 attended the brewery for the first time.
- Connection made with the disabled community of Littleton and Highlands Ranch;
- Increased number of social media followers on Facebook and Twitter;
- Significant increase in the number of social media posts from Living The Dream around its CSR — Confluence found this to be the highest number of CSR-related posts in its geographic area during the three-month span from when Confluence presented the CSR strategy to the event strategy presentation to one week past the event;
- Twenty-one people signed up for the Living The Dream newsletter;
- Introduction of business partnerships in community through silent auction;
- Gained knowledge of organizing and running a fundraiser at the brewery including layout, materials needed, staffing required, event communications and promotion techniques; and
- Connected Living The Dream staff to positive impacts their jobs and the brewery can make toward the community.
Brian Phipps is a Colorado native and passionate about helping the community. He learned the importance of volunteering and giving back through organizations, friends and family and has worked in the nonprofit world for 10 years with several corporate partners to obtain donations, as well as publicize and report returns on those contributions. For more information about Confluence LLC, be sure to check out the company’s website.
