BrewDog commits to giving away 20% of profits a year
Melanie May | 31 August 2017 | News
Scottish craft beer brewer and bar owner BrewDog has announced that it is to give away 20% of its profits annually, split between its team, and charities.
BrewDog has created the BrewDog Unicorn Fund, which it says, is to become central to its business and will see it share 10% of its annual profits evenly with its entire team, and donate 10% to charities with 5% to those directly chosen by its team members and 5% to those chosen by its Equity Punk community. It has also committed to reinvesting the entire balance of its profits each year, for at least the next seven years, into its beer and its people to fuel further growth.
The commitment to giving away 20% of its profits annually means that BrewDog could give away more than £45million over the next five years alone through its Unicorn Fund if it meets its projected targets.
BrewDog Co-founder James Watt said:
“At BrewDog, we care about two things above all else; our beer and our people. We want to make the best beers on the planet, we want to be the best company to work for, and we want to build a radically new type of business that we can all be proud of. Giving away 20% of our profits – forever – is not about altruism. It is about impact. It’s not about profits. It is about purpose. This is the biggest community-fuelled, crowdfunded charity contribution in history.”
“Outdated CSR policies have zero consideration for their real-world impact, existing merely for the purpose of an oversized cheque and an awkward photo shoot. This is a call to arms for businesses to democratise the impact their charitable contributions can have on their community, their people, and the world.”
“In our tenth year, we hope to inspire a new kind of business with the Unicorn Fund; one that doesn’t measure profit in purely monetary terms. Our mission for the next decade at BrewDog is not simply to redefine the beer industry, but to redefine industry itself.”
BrewDog launched in 2007 with two employees. In 2009, it launched Equity for Punks, which gave people the opportunity to buy shares in the company online – more than 1,300 invested. It launched its first craft beer bar in Aberdeen in 2010, and in 2016 had grown to have 750 employees, 55,000 shareholders and 46 bars, with a profit of £7.1m. It also set two world records last year: for the highest ever equity crowdfunding raise, and for the most consecutive years in the Sunday Times Fast Track 100, and gives away the recipes for every beer it brews.
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About Melanie May
Melanie May is a journalist and copywriter specialising in writing both for and about the charity and marketing services sectors since 2001. She can be reached via thepurplepim.com.