At the core of the Starbucks-America SCORES partnership is the transformation of one person's ideas to meet a community need into a beautiful collaboration of many, interpersonal connections and relationships.  America SCORES was started by a DC public school teacher who also worked as a barista at Starbucks. It came to her attention that her students didn't have a safe place to go after school. So one day, she decided to invite her students to play soccer and participate in creative writing activities after school. Seeing that her kids didn't have access to simple sports equipment, she convinced co-workers at her Starbucks night job to donate their tips to buy equipment for the students. The afterschool program became an instant success with the students.

In 1994, she left Starbucks and public school teaching to start a nonprofit organization. Today, the organization, called “America SCORES,” is a national program serving children in eight cities across the country. Through the program, students in urban schools participate in writing and soccer activities on alternate afternoons. The experience provides these children an opportunity to play a team sport and translate this teamwork from the playing field to the classroom through poetry and community service.

In 1997, the Starbucks Foundation provided America SCORES one of its first grants. Cathie Bachy, Starbucks Foundation program manager, explains the innate affinity between the two organizations: “For us, there was a natural relationship with the SCORES program because the program's founder had been a Starbucks barista, there was a link to improving literacy, and other Starbucks partners (Starbucks employees) in the stores could get involved. She knew and understood the Starbucks culture. From this, she was able to talk about her program and bring in support from Starbucks partners.”

Since then, the partnership between Starbucks and America SCORES flourished—on both the local level and national level. In fact, success in their local partnerships pre-dated national collaboration. On the local level, Starbucks partners, who lived in communities served by SCORES programs, led collaborative efforts by providing store space for the children's poetry leagues, coaching soccer, helping in creative writing workshops, aiding the program's marketing and fundraising efforts and even serving on SCORES' advisory boards. As it provided a wide variety of ways for partners to interact, this homegrown model worked and continues to work very well for both Starbucks and America SCORES.

The local models were so successful that Starbucks and SCORES used its key learnings to develop a three-year national partnership to grow SCORES programs across the country. The three-year partnership kicked off in December 2002 and will help grow SCORES programs in ten new cities. Starbucks will continue to support SCORES programs on the local level.

Poetry Slams
“We will hold about twenty ‘poetry slams' at Starbucks stores this spring. Poetry slams are tournaments that give our kids a way to perform their own poetry in front of people and to compete (as they do in soccer). It is an amazing accomplishment for kids to expose what they have to say to other people. And most people don't realize that a kid in urban America has a lot to say about what's happening in our community, our nation, and our world. It's really amazing to see an adult at one of our poetry slams get completely captivated by a kid who's sharing a poem about the environment, or about the impact of terrorism, or about other problems in their community. And for a kid at age eleven to perform this expression in front of absolute strangers—it's a very powerful thing.”

—Paul Caccamo, President, America SCORES

Reaching More Children
“On the program side, we know that SCORES programs reach hundreds of children through each of the affiliate programs around the country. Through this partnership, we see this program becoming available to more and more children who usually don't have such enriching after school opportunities. By working together we have seen amazing connections being made between both teachers and children in urban areas.”

—Cathie Bachy, Program Manager, Starbucks Foundation

Inspiring Employees
“This kind of benefit is one of the things that many don't think about when looking for a job, but ultimately it really makes a difference once they are here. What we've found is that when partners (employees) come to work at Starbucks and learn more about partnerships with organizations like America SCORES, it really helps to inspire and encourage retention. This partnership creates a direct link between partners and the community—and that means a lot. 

—Sanja Gould, Senior Specialist, Public Affairs

Employee Involvement
“Employee involvement has been the basis for Starbucks' community partnerships. This involvement determines the right fit. If our partners (employees) can't be involved directly in a potential program, we just can't provide as much support for it . . .Starbucks partners bring value to the table and they carry that value throughout the partnership. It makes such a difference in how successful the partnership ultimately becomes.

—Sanja Gould, Senior Specialist, Public Affairs

Structural Similarity
“One factor that has enabled success is that Starbucks and America SCORES are structured very similarly. For both of us, our philanthropy and community efforts happen on both the national and local level. In addition, we're both about local ownership. So there are parallels between us in the way our ownership is structured. Lastly, we're both very decentralized. All of these similarities have allowed for the partnership between us to blossom into what it is today.”

—Paul Caccamo, President, America SCORES

Success at the Grassroots Level
“We select programs that have local success. As in the case of America SCORES, if a partnership between a nonprofit organization and our local partners (employees) is successful at the grassroots level, we know that it has deep roots among our partners. If we pick a program at the national level, the partnership won't work unless there is genuine interest and engagement among our local Starbucks partners.” 

—Cathie Bachy, Program Manager, Starbucks Foundation

Opportunities for Interaction Between Corporate and Nonprofit Partners
“People are the agents of every sector, whether business or nonprofit. So everything is about people and interaction between people. The success of a relationship in the long-term is the amount of exposure each side has with the other—in terms of quantity, quality, and scope. The more people can encounter their sponsor and the greater scope of people they try to encounter—from the person who serves the coffee at Starbucks to the head of the foundation—the greater the number of opportunities there are to building and nurturing the relationship. And the quality of those activities is just as important, whether it's in the form of someone showing up to volunteer or a Starbucks store manager setting aside a section of the store for a SCORES event. A combination of all three things is what really sustains a relationship. I don't think that having one of those things is enough. And once you have all of those things, you can keep taking the relationship to the next level.”

—Paul Caccamo, President, America SCORES

Finding Cultural Fit
“A partnership like this doesn't work with everyone. In order for it to work, there needs to be a strong cultural fit. There needs to be shared affinity, a set of common values, a common way of working—when there is a cultural fit between us and our partner organization we embark on a new dynamic and successful partnership.”

—Cathie Bachy, Program Manager, Starbucks Foundation

For more information about the Starbucks-America SCORES partnerships, visit: www.starbucks.com/aboutus/americascores.asp.

Page last updated: March 2003