Exciting New Cause Updates for 2014

From our Director of Social Impact

Hi, my name is Melissa, I am the Executive Director of the ONEHOPE Foundation as well as Director of Social Impact for ONEHOPE Wine and I’ve been with the company for just over a year and a half. I came to ONEHOPE with the goal of increasing transparency within our charitable giving, quantifying the impact that we are making through donations, and tightening up the process of our giving (along with expanding the Foundation to work with other companies as well).

As of January 2014, the ONEHOPE Foundation has given $1.2M to our partner nonprofits, which has funded 1,000,000 meals for children, 1994 mammograms for women without access to health insurance, 33,016 trees planted in American forests, 2,669 pet adoptions, among many other things. We are so proud of the social impact we’ve been able to create in just over 6 years, and we owe it all to our customers and supporters for purchasing our products and allowing us to donate so much.

We are asked on a daily basis how new causes can be supported by a wine varietal, and while we believe passionately in the causes that we currently support, we also feel that other causes also deserve a chance to be highlighted through our wine pairings. We have worked with our current nonprofit partners for many years and we feel as though the time is right to make a few changes with our cause pairings. We are always trying to improve ourselves and our impact, so we are changing some of the organizations we are partnered with to those where we can make an even bigger impact with our donations.

In the spirit of transparency, here is how we determine our cause partnerships. All of our nonprofit organizations are thoroughly vetted through our 13-point criteria system and each of our wines has a “cause category” associated with it:

Sparkling – hunger causes
Sauvignon Blanc – environmental causes
Chardonnay – women’s causes
Pinot Noir – animal causes
Zinfandel – veterans’ and troops’ causes
Cabernet Sauvignon – children’s causes
Merlot – international causes

When we have a partnership that we are establishing, we comb through our portfolio of over 250 nonprofits that fit our criteria, we research some that may not yet be in the portfolio but that fit our criteria, and we narrow down the best fit for the varietal based on the impact ratio. The impact ratio is the key piece of information that allows us to quantify our impact. From there, we work closely with the organization to hone messaging, creating a commercial co-venture agreement, and hit the ground running.

With that information said, we are SO excited to announce our newest partnerships for 2014!

Thank you so much for your ongoing support for both our wines and our nonprofits. We are constantly trying to improve our impact and transparency and we look forward to continuing to communicate openly with all of you!

All of the best,

Melissa Lake