THE BREWDOG UNICORN FUND
Today we are proud to make an announcement that will change our business forever. From this day, we are committing to giving away 20% of our profits, every single year. The BrewDog Unicorn Fund is destined to become central to our business, as we look to democratise positive impact, and use craft beer to make the world a better place. For everyone.
We are going to share 10% of our profits evenly with our entire team, and furthermore, we are going to donate 10% of our profits each year to charities directly chosen by our team members and by our Equity Punk community. In addition we are formally committing to reinvest the entire balance of our profits each year, for at least the next 7 years, into the two things we care about most - our beer and our people - in order to fuel further growth.
At BrewDog, we want to make the best beer on the planet, and we want to build a radical new type of business; a business that all of our amazing team members and all of our fantastic Equity Punks are proud to be a part of.
This is not about altruism. It is about impact.
This is not about profits. It is about purpose.
We want to create a new blueprint for a 21st century business.
If we hit our targets, we will give away more than £45million over the next 5 years via the Unicorn Fund. And it is our 57,000 Equity Punks and our 1,000-strong BrewDog crew who have made that possible.
This is the biggest community-fuelled, crowdfunded charity contribution in history.
James, Martin and the team x
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Comments (155)
Perhaps you could consider sponsoring a puppy for charity Hearing Dogs for the Deaf, who do fantastic work.
I agree with others who say smaller, local charities make a pound go a long way without paying inflated salaries for chief executives. Can I suggest you check out Street Assist in Edinburgh. A great little project run by volunteers who support revellers in Edinburgh every weekend. I'm sure they would put any money to good use to purchase useful equipment and keep their support vehicles on the road. Cheers!
I founded BRAVEHOUND - we support veterans with dogs and training, and would be very happy to send you information about our work www.bravehound,co.uk and to meet you with some of pur Bravehounds !
Others try to use craft beer as a way of doing something good for people: The new brewery People Like Us, is a project that aimes to create jobs for people with autism and asbergers. It would be wonderfull to se that brewery on the list of project that could recieve a donation from Brewdog ??
Small group of volunteers who go out into Edinburgh city centre every weekend 10-4am to support the night time economy dealing with intoxicated, vulnerable individuals. Have dealt with countless individuals picked up from the Edinburgh branch of Brewdog alone and we could benefit hugely from this funding.
You beat me to it!
I'd like to nominate The Passage, the UK's largest homeless day shelter. Am about to do some volunteering for them, I know they'd really benefit from a look-in.
Great Dognitiative, thumbs up from me :)
I'd like to put forward Waverley Care, a Scottish charity providing support to people living with or affected by HIV or Hepatitis C.
Just a thought, that I've been meaning to email since shortly after Brewdog opened in Cardiff . . .
Although a lot of customers pay by card, there's still a lot of cash goes over the bar, and with prices ending in 95p, lots of unwanted 5p coins find their way into our pockets.
For those with discount cards it's usually odd copper coins as well.
Is it time each outlet had a charity jar for small change, either identifying a local (changeable?) charity, or for the national drive?
Cheers
Out of curiosity what is difference between "the team" versus "the crew" that you refer to??? Is the 10% to the team a bonus to the crew?
If you want to stick to the dog theme you could not do better than to support the European Guide Dog Federation. We are a small charity doing a big job, trying to bring the standard of British Guide dogs across the whole of Europe. It's not easy in places like Romania and Turkey, but we're getting there. We also work closely with all assistance dog charities in Europe for the benefit of dogs and their disabled partners. Please visit our website to find out more: www.egdfed.org
How about UK homeless charities? ????
Agree with the small charities comments, this could have such an impact for them :)
Improve the community's access to justice by supporting the school mooting competition www.mockcourt.org.uk. Send school kids to be taught by lawyers how to run their own court actions, right up to appearing as Solicitors in a Trial before a real Sheriff, and all run by a charity in need of funds.
If you want more info, feel free to get in contact! I'm an Equity Punk so you have my details.
Being a ballsy brand yourself it would be great for you to partner with Testicular Cancer Awareness charity Cahonas Scotland and help support their education and awareness programme.
www.emergemanchester.co.uk
small not very glamour charity looking after the night time economy of the city centre.
ran purely by volunteers. Who turn out every weekend to care for people who become vunrable. Working from 10pm- 4am.
Would be fair for a beer company...
Thanks for sharing with people Punks!
My shout out is for Street Assist Edinburgh, who support the nighttime economy in Edinburgh.
The volunteers provide, social welfare support, first aid and refuge to people who become vunrable because of excessive alcohol or other crisis.
Street assist help prevent admission to hospital and the need to use NHS resources simply by being on the street during the peak hours on a Friday and Saturday night. Even the police benefit as they can leave people in Safety rather than keeping them in a cell.
This group and the volunteers that work so hard don't get ANY funding and could do with a break.
Every week we deal with minor injuries to broken bones and drug and alcohol related incidents. This funding can help street assist edinburgh replenish the equipment we use every week and also help with keeping our vehicles on the road that help the volunteers to transport patients to our base and to their own home and also to hospital if hospital is really need.
I would advise that we look at charitable movements such as effective altruism to make sure that every £1 we spend with the charitable donations is used in a way that maximizes Brewdog's positive impact on the planet as a global brand.
Some organisations associated with the effective altruism movement seek out the most effective causes to donate to, backing up their recommendations with rigorous evidence. The largest of these is GiveWell, which conducts in-depth research into promising causes and charities, and recommends those that it feels represent the best opportunity for a donor to have a bigger impact.
GiveWell’s top charities are all within global health and development. They recommend Against Malaria Foundation, which distributes bednets to protect children from malaria; GiveDirectly, which makes unconditional cash transfers to very poor individuals; and Schistosomiasis Control Initiative and Deworm the World, both of which treat people for parasite infections.
Another important charity evaluator — though much smaller than GiveWell — is Animal Charity Evaluators, which focuses on finding the most effective animal charities.They recommend Animal Equality, Mercy for Animals, and The Humane League, all of which do outreach to encourage people to reduce their meat consumption.
Unfortunately, there’s currently no organisation that makes recommendations for the best long-run future charities for typical donors. Some organisations that those in the effective altruism community donate to in this category include the Future of Humanity Institute, the Machine Intelligence Research Institute, Cool Earth, the UPMC Center for Health Security and the Ploughshares Fund.
Our charity provides supports to the night time economy in Edinburgh by providing welfare and first aid to people who become vulnerable through circumstance between the hours of 10pm to 4am every Friday and Saturday night. The project is delivered entirely by volunteers. We deal with everything but the majority of people we help have unfortunately over consumed on alcohol and issues surround that like losing friends, possessions, injured or victims of assault are issues we assist with every weekend. We make sure the people we assist get home safe and free from further harm so any new initiative to potentially fund our work is very welcome.
I love the thought that we can say every single bottle, pint, growler, mouthful is supporting tremendous causes.
I would recommend keeping the charities local where we have presence, proportionally split on sales/profit/headcount. Keeps it in the community as such and more real....
Steve
As an EFP 2 Member I will be giving 10% of my payout to charity as well.
You might want to consider a tattoo removal fund for your staff in a few years....
:-)
In my area there is a good voluntary organisation, Blood Bikes Cumbria, who are always looking for funding.
A good worthy cause
Some charity cash has to go to a dog charity in whatever guise, where would Brewdog be with dog?
Thanks again for all your doin!
Lynn
A BD Charity of its own is a good idea, certain tax breaks etc...
Initially I ask that you consider The Alzheimer's Society, 43-44 Crutched Friars, London, EC3N 2AE
If you want some suggestions of charitable organizations that can be helped in the US and in the UK and/or International charity perhaps you should run a contest or so! I hope you DON'T fund just the big ones, and you put a real limit on how much would be taken from the donation for administration and fees, (like less than 4%).
Good Luck
http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/crockfitburpeeworldrecord
We are not anti-drink, believing that individuals should enjoy their pleasures responsibly and in moderation. We work with hundreds of clients, young and old every year. Demand is greater than ever, but funding gets tighter than ever and the waiting lists grow....We badly need to train extra counsellors to provide quicker help to our clients. But this costs money which at present we don't have......
Can the new fund assist us?
I'd be happy to volunteer to assist in any way possible. Your own charitable fun could help a massive amount of people who have a very poor quality of life.
With the funds then available, try to focus on a low number of beneficiaries, preferably long-term relationships with high Brewdog visibility. Bring in the Brewdog attitude and do something different than the old dragons:
- http://www.carlsbergfondet.dk/en
- http://www.theheinekencompany.com/sustainability
I really agree with the statements:
"This is not about altruism. It is about impact."
"This is not about profits. It is about purpose."
With high impact, well either we do as with the brewing (set a new standard) or just deliver great results :-)
Keep up the good work
May I also put forward the Brain Tumour Charity to receive whatever donation small or large that you see fit.
1) Avoid the megacharities: your contribution will make little difference to them. Consider a rule along the lines of not giving to an organisation unless you'll be doubling their income for (say) two years. Something like that could be transformative for the people you engage with.
2) If you do want to give to "big" organisations, then take look at Giving What We Can, and the effective altruism movement — GWWC continuously look for the charities which will have the most impact on human/animal suffering per £ donated, and aim to support them. Malaria has been top of their lists for a while since prevention is so cost effective, but those involved also offer advice looking at animal welfare and future threats to humanity (!).
Excellent news!
Given the importance of good water to the product, I hope to see at least one charity that seeks to provide clean drinking water to those not lucky enough to get theirs via Eldon or Columbus.
And perhaps a way of giving a bit back to Brewdog's roots, by investing in microbreweries to help them gain scale and develop new ideas and products. After all, despite huge growth, craft beer is merely a drop in the gigantic steel brewing tank of piss poor fizzy yellow stuff...
Support for the Arts seems like a good idea. In Portsmouth, a long way from you guys, each year there is something called the Portsmouth Festivities which is a charity that lays on 10 days of 'cultural
Activities' only made possible by donations to the charity. It also focuses on young people. Such ventures exist up and down to country and could be ripe for charitable support with high impact on large swathes of the population.
We are also trying to achieve the same!
Please check out spotlightbrewing.co.uk and see if the unicorn find may be able to help us!
Very proud of you guys.
No doubt you'll receive thousands of requests, but here's a worthy cause:
https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/maggie-osborn
:)