Have a great idea to help your community but don’t exactly have the cash to execute it? Your friends at Pepsi just might be able to help — to the tune of $20 million.
On Monday, the cola company launched an awesome corporate responsibility program dubbed the Pepsi Refresh Project.
What is it? In short, Pepsi is inviting individuals, businesses and non-profits to submit ideas that will help their communities. Any idea. Then, folks like you and me can browse the ideas and vote for up to ten favorite ideas in a day. Winners are chosen every month and grants are available in increments of $5K, $25K, $50K, and $250K and they have split the grants into six categories: health, arts and culture, food and shelter, the planet, neighborhoods and education.
Pepsi is so dedicated to the cause they are even forgoing their annual Super Bowl ad, which, as Tonic told you in Dec., had been an annual tradition for the company since 1987. (Of course, beverage wars being beverage wars, Coca-Cola has their own spin on giving back tied to Super Bowl ads.)
“Curious minds and creative spirits have always fueled this country’s angels,” PepsiCo Chief Marketing Officer Jill Beraud wrote recently on The Huffington Post in regards to the ambitious campaign. “Our role as a corporate citizen is to provide the fuel additive to allow those angels to take flight. We want to see the optimism in which our citizens so believe be put into tangible action. We believe in that optimism, too, along with the possibilities it will yield and the communities they will enhance.”
Celebs have already gotten into the optimistic spirit. Kevin Bacon and Demi Moore both appeared on the Today show Monday to promote their causes — Sixdegrees.org for Bacon, and GEMS: Girls Education and Mentoring Services for Moore.
But you don’t have to be a big-shot celebrity to come up with a brilliant idea, nor do you need to be connected to a well-established non-profit. The beauty of the Pepsi Refresh Project is all great ideas, large and small, are welcome.
“You’ve always known that a ‘good idea,’ can happen at any time, and given the right circumstances, could change everything and make the world a better place,” Beraud wrote.
So submit those ideas to Pepsi and vote for your favorites, and maybe together we can change the world one great idea at a time.
Photo courtesy of Lukas Stavek via Wikimedia Commons
