Funder Focus: Judy McClelland and the Molson Donations Fund
July 7, 2003
By Nicole Zummach
This month in our Funder Focus, we feature the Molson Donations
Fund, Molson Canada's philanthropy and community investment program.
CharityVillage spoke with donations officer Judy McClelland about
the important causes that the company chooses to support, its dedication
to responsible funding, and the evolution of corporate philanthropy.
CharityVillage: Molson's corporate investment program has three components: the Molson Donations Fund, the Local Heroes program, and your Don't Drink and Drive campaigns. How much do you distribute annually?
Judy McClelland: We just launched year six of our Local Heroes
program. In the first five years we gave away $3.5 million and funded
2,200 to 2,300 projects nationally during that time. For the Molson
Donations Fund, our annual budget is usually about $1.5 to $1.6 million
a year.
CV: How did the Local Heroes program get started and what
feedback do you hear from communities?
JM: Local Heroes is a grassroots program, so it takes place much
more in small rural communities. The purpose of it is to help people
fix up, refurbish, or facelift old sports and recreation facilities.
So, when we look at what we have accomplished, certainly from a business
point of view we've obviously invested in a lot of communities since
we started it. That was really the main reason we did it. We never looked
at it as selling beer; it is more of a community investment program.
And it is a way for us to get in touch with the smaller communities.
On the PR side, once we know that someone's project is about to start,
we always try and get one of our local reps to visit them, so that they
can put a face to the Molson person in their community. That is sometimes
good for relationship building as well. And it makes them feel good.
We send them Local Heroes t-shirts made up especially for the volunteers
that are working on the project. We also make every effort to get a
local paper out to cover it, and we have been very successful that way.
That makes people feel good too because they are looked upon as leaders
in their community. And they really are; they're champions.
CV: The Molson Donations Fund was established in 1973 to manage
Molson's philanthropic giving. Since that time you have funded a variety
of programs and organizations, including hospital trauma units, United
Way, and campus leadership programs, to name a few. What are some of
the things you are focusing on right now?
JM: We are extremely interested in any kind of volunteer or retraining
program that gets kids off the street, gets them retrained, and while
doing so, gives them food, shelter, and safety. We have funded some
amazing initiatives. There is a place here in Toronto called Eva's Initiatives;
we have also done Serve Canada and quite a few in the west as well.
We were really proactive in seeking out some great charitable organizations
that were making a difference and had measurable results.
It is incredible to see what these charities do. Their success rate
is up in the 80% range. When you think about how it starts and how it
finishes, they take these kids who are living on the street, hungry,
dirty and cold. They take them off the street, give them a safe place
to live and train them in a trade or whatever. It's a great story. These
kids at the end of the program are paying for their own apartment. They
are out there working in a trade, making their own living and they feel
incredible about themselves. We have four committees across the country
plus a national committee and everybody really liked the idea and we
thought, 'here is how we can make a difference'.
CV: Though it doesn't fall under the Molson Donations Fund, you also have a commitment to AIDS/HIV. Tell me a bit about your involvement in this area.
JM: Molson has been a leader in the fight against AIDS. We have
been involved for about 14 years and we started our involvement way
back then by sponsoring a few of the major fundraising events. It was
like the little project that grew. We are now the national founding
sponsor for AIDS Walk Canada, which has 140 affiliate walk sites across
the country. Through our sponsorship, we help the local sites cut down
on costs and anything they raise in their community stays in their community,
whether it is for care, research or whatever they choose to use that
money for. We also support the large urban centres across the country.
We sponsor the Vancouver AIDS walk, we do Toronto, and we also do Montreal.
This is where we thought we could help the most because any sponsorship
that we give is helping all these 140 walk sites, plus the three large
urban centres.
CV: Do you involve Molson employees in your community investment initiatives?
JM: We have a great Employee Matching Gift program for our employees
that comes under the umbrella of the Molson Donations Fund. That has
become very successful. Our employees make a donation to a charity and
if it is $25 or more we will match it. The participation rate is really
fantastic. What we also do is recognize those who volunteer for the
charitable sector. So, if for example, you volunteered for Big Sisters
and also made a donation of $50, we would double match that and send
a donation for $100.
CV: Do you see any trends in corporate philanthropy today that didn't exist 30 years ago when the Molson Donations Fund was first introduced?
JM: Well, I have certainly seen some changes in the last few
years. I mean, it used to be purely altruistic. We really never had
a focus, and tried to be all things to all people. What we recognized
was that we weren't really making an impact. Anything I read, and certainly
my own personal experience, is that we are all now aligning things more
with our business. It is the smart thing to do.
CV: Do you anticipate any changes to your philanthropic activities?
JM: No, certainly not in the near future because we have just
gone through the whole process. It took us about 18-20 months to pin
down what we really wanted to do. In our business it was a little bit
more difficult because we are a manufacturer of alcohol. So, we have
to be careful about some of the things we do. Probably 90% of people
would say, 'What a great thing for Molson to do to help the Boy Scouts'.
But you would get one or two people who would say, 'Why is a beer company
giving to kids?' So, we had to think long and hard and look and things.
That is where we came up with the focus on disenfranchised young people.
We obviously do it for young people mainly 19 years and older, but you
catch some in there who are 17 or 18. But we are not doing this to sell
beer; we are doing it because we want to make a difference and to get
these kids off the streets.
Another program that I should absolutely tell you about is one of our
flagship programs, Frontier College Students for Literacy. We have partnered
with them for nine years. What we like is that it's really demonstrative
of leadership. Here are these university students who have a full plate,
but they are still taking time to volunteer and go out and tutor in
their communities. It is a great program, so I would be remiss if I
didn't mention it.
CV: What advice might you give to other corporations that are interested in expanding or starting a community investment program?
JM: Obviously you have to decide on a clear set of criteria,
and you need to make that known. I think we struggled with that for
a few years, and I remember just after I started doing the donations
fund we finally produced a brochure that we could send out to people
- this was long before the Internet. That helped a lot. You have to
know what your focus areas are going to be, and you always need to have
some flexibility. Things come across my desk that don't always fit but
we look at 'what is the need?' We give to a lot of food banks - it's
not really listed that it is what we do, but we consider it part of
the disenfranchised component. Also, I can't say enough about having
a good software package to track all of this stuff, because I have an
incredible database of history. It gives us all the history we need,
and I think for tracking purposes it is a great thing to have. So I
would certainly recommend that to people who are just starting too.
I have talked to a lot of different people who are trying to start up. They come in and talk to me, and I provide them with some of our materials, and so on. It is always good to talk to other people and get some background information from different sources so that you can put it together and come up with something you think is going to work for you. And most of us are quite willing to spend that time with others to do that.
Judy McClelland has been with Molson for almost 19 years and has handling its charitable donations since 1990. For more information about Molson's community investment program, visit
www.molson.com.
