Starbucks is a global company with a real dedication to the communities it serves. Since its founding in 1971, the firm has expanded its corporate responsibility umbrella to include Diversity, Community, Environment Wellness and Ethical Resourcing.

Under its Community initiatives, the company has a created a program to motivate partners (employees), customers and young people to come together for the greater good.

Starbucks’ stated goal is to encourage employees and customers to contribute more than 1 million hour of community service per year by 2015. With an employee base of 150,000 worldwide, they have a built-in volunteer force ready to be mobilized for change.

One way Starbucks helps is by providing Youth Action Grants to inspire young people to take action and find solutions to problems in their neighborhoods and communities. The company is working toward a goal of engaging 50,000 youth to innovate and create action in their communities by 2015. Starbucks makes grants to organizations that provide training to young people to help them develop skills and knowledge to identify community needs, create and execute action plans, evaluate outcomes against goals, build ongoing leadership skills and communicate success stories.

One grant recipient was an Argentina-based program called Strengthening the Youth for Health Network, which trains young people to produce and communicate prevention messages to their peers through theater, film and other artistic genres.

The Starbucks Foundation, first started to fund literacy programs in the U.S. and Canada, now works around the world to help support the communities in which their coffee and tea is grown. Funds from the foundation also help finance sustainable water-access programs, foster education in China, and rebuild the Gulf Coast of the U.S. after the devastation of Hurricanes Rita and Katrina.

Starbucks involves its customers through initiatives like (STARBUCKS) RED, a program that allows customers to choose to buy products like a special African coffee blend or pay for their usual coffee drinks and other Starbucks items with a RED card. So far, they have funneled enough money to help purchase 14 million days of medicine for HIV-positive people in Africa.

Examples of Starbucks’ commitment to community:

• Number of employees who helped rebuilding efforts in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina: 9,000
• Number of employee volunteer hours in New Orleans: 36,000
• Total employee and customer volunteer hours in 2009: 186,000
• Total Youth Action Grants awarded in 2009: $2 million
• Number of youth engaged in community activities through grants: 20,000
• Total cash and in-kind contributions toward community-building programs in 2009: $17 million

Not only does Starbucks increase awareness of the need for community building worldwide, the company also provides the means for people to get involved and make a difference themselves—working in communities to provide a hand up, not a hand out. For Starbucks, it’s all about sustainability and creating partnerships that last.