Home / Archive / Case Study: Starbucks

Case Study: Starbucks

Challenge

Global coffee leader seeks to create and integrate a philanthropic strategy to satisfy multiple objectives.

  • Generate Partner (employee) interest and involvement.
  • Establish core foundation giving priorities while providing local managers with the flexibility to support local causes.
  • Incorporate diverse and competing stakeholder interests (customers, vendors, growers, employees, charitable organizations, etc.).
  • Ensure strategic fit with long-term business and financial objectives.

Solution

Five-year strategic plan to maximize the growth and impact of newly formed corporate foundation.

  • Architecture to guide all facets of charitable contributions and corporate philanthropy.
  • Generate earned income through sale of exclusively licensed merchandise through retail locations.
  • Form strategic partnerships (UPS, ABC, Random House, Scholastic, etc.) to increase program scale and efficiency.
  • Establish key metrics to measure charitable impact on business.

Results

Starbucks Foundation and related charitable programs now regarded as standard-setting model for corporate philanthropy.

  • Partnership model
  • $12 million to more than 700 youth-focused organizations in the United States and Canada since its founding.
  • Earned-income model remains core to Foundation’s success, utilizing proceeds from Ethos Water