Thank you for taking the time to comment and vote on My Starbucks Idea for Starbucks to consider “Penny for PKD.” We’ve taken some time to review the comments you’ve made and have had many conversations around this idea. Early on in the commenting and voting, our Idea Partners chimed in and shared Starbucks community investments focus areas which include young social entrepreneurs, social investments in coffee, tea and cocoa communities; and helping children get clean water through the Ethos Water Fund.

As you can probably imagine Starbucks receives thousands of requests for so many worthy causes and we wish we could support all of them, but we are continually challenged to stay focused. There are many disease-related causes, such as PKD, that our customers and partners (employees) are personally involved with and passionate about because they themselves or a family member are unfortunately affected. This makes it extremely difficult for us because we do not want to select specific disease related causes to promote at a company level and exclude so many others. Many of you also commented on the rotating disease-related charities idea, but again we are trying to remain true to our focus areas and would also exclude so many worthy disease-related causes that our partner and customers are passionate about and personally affected by.

We do support some disease related organizations through our partner (employee) giving programs. One of these programs is called Make Your Mark and it provides $10 for every hour that the partner (employee) volunteers with the organization. If an employee is passionate about supporting *** cancer research, they can volunteer with a *** care related nonprofit organization and $10 for every hour they volunteer will go to the *** care research nonprofit organization. Some disease related organizations have also been supported at more a regional or local level.

We do encourage you to create some action around PKD in an online community we created called V2V, http://www.v2v.net/starbucks. We mentioned this a couple weeks ago on My Starbucks Idea and some of you have already checked this out. This online network allows you to connect with people who are interested in a specific issue within your specific community. We encourage you to also use this tool to create involvement opportunities and get the word out about PKD or whatever cause you are interested in.

We are very proud of all of our Starbucks employees and especially proud of what Sandie did for one of our customers who was suffering from PKD. We shared Sandie’s story at the Starbucks annual shareholder meeting this last spring and she continues to work for Starbucks and see the customer she donated the kidney to almost every day. Thanks again to all of you who commented on this idea! We appreciate your thoughts and voting around a Penny for PKD! My Starbucks Idea is all about sharing your ideas and creating conversation about ideas that are important to you.