Starbucks Month of Service Joins Partners and Customers in an Extra Shot of Good

Like many other companies who take advantage of National Volunteer Week, Starbucks celebrated a Global Month of Service during April. They are not only mobilizing their partners (employees) to participate in community events, they are partnering with other business such as Fidelity Investments and Alaska Airlines. They also invite customers to participate in the estimated 2,000 projects planned for 55 countries across the world. Projects include providing job search assistance and hygiene kits to individuals in need (Seattle, Washington), participate in outdoor restoration projects (Atlanta, Georgia), organizing art supply drives for Harry Van Arsdale Educational Complex students (New York, NY), helping at charity walks, and numerous other local events.


Announcing the initiative, Blair Taylor, chief community officer and executive vice president of Partner Resources at Starbucks, remarked, “Since Starbucks opened its doors more than four decades ago, we have always set out to be a different kind of company. Our hope is that through service, individuals, businesses and others will be inspired to come together to help build stronger communities. It’s a powerful example of how Starbucks is using its global scale for good, inspiring and nurturing the human spirit – one person, one cup and one neighborhood at a time.”

Participants have been encouraged to tweet about their experiences using #extrashotofgood. Utilizing social media to publicize the events as well as to connect events in dispersed geographic locations seems common. Twitter is the most frequently used platform, but Instagram is in play as well.

Community service is a key goal for Starbucks, and in their CSR report, Global Responsibility Report Progress and Goals 2013, they announced a goal of giving 1,000,000 employee (and customer) volunteer hours a year by 2015.

Like most events of this nature, Starbucks' employees seemed to have enjoyed the event based on their contributions to Twitter. IT is likely that the events promoted teamwork and provided networking opportunities that benefited the partners. Since some of the events included other businesses, partners may have been able to network outside their organization and possibly identify areas of potential synergy. Partners would also experience the happiness and meaning that comes from giving.

It is somewhat unusual to have customers involved in employee volunteer events. This variable could moderate the outcomes of employee volunteerism. A positive aspect could be the sense of community building that would come from various stakeholder groups working together. A potential negative consequence could be that the sense of identity and commitment that comes from volunteering with peers in the organization would be diluted. As far as I know, no academic research has been done on this question. I am also very curious how Starbucks will measure customer volunteer hours. These couldn't be collected through an internal employee volunteer management system, so customers would need to manually login (as in sign in on a piece of paper) or Starbucks partners would need to monitor participation. This metric seems like it could be problematic. It's the first time I've seen employee and customer volunteer contributions combined in a CSR report.

Close to Home
My local Starbucks partnered with the Cancer Resource Center of the Finger Lakes during the month of service. They displayed promotional material, solicited donations of items, hosted a knit-in, and assembled comfort packages for clients.

My knitting group took part, knitting hats, headbands, and wrist warmers to distribute to the CRC. Starbucks set aside a table for us, and we had a fun time together knitting for the good of the community.

This is one of the hats I made to donate:

As with most coordinating month/week/day of services, local branches are able to select the community non-profit with which to partner. Since many employees have been affected by cancer in their own families or through friends, giving to the Cancer Resource Center was very rewarding for them and appreciated by the center.

(Screenshot from the CRC April Newsletter)