“ACTIVISM WITH BEN & JERRY’S” | RELIX LIVE MUSIC CONFER… — Transcript

[Music] [Music] Hello, hello everyone. How's it going out there? I'm Jake Curley. I'm from Ben & Jerry's. I run the consumer marketing in the US, and then I lead the communication side of the global activism and advocacy work that we do. I'm gonna give you guys a real quick, about 10-minute overview of what that actually means: an ice cream company that is trying to do real activism in the world. And then I'm gonna be joined by some of my friends and collaborators and partners: Beth Montori Roles from Waterwheel, Andy Bernstein from HeadCount, and then Brody O'Brien, who I work with at Ben & Jerry's. And we're gonna kind of talk a little bit about how each of our organizations have done that. So that's the plan. We'll leave some room at the end for some Q&A. So I'll just run through a quick couple slides if we can get those up. This is a talk of actually a very abbreviated version of a talk I've given a decent amount, and I usually do it for business leaders, usually digital marketers or CPG marketers. And the idea is to get brands and our, excuse me, businesses and brands to understand how they can use not just their philanthropy but their actual organizations, the work that they do every day, to grow social movements and to create change in the world. And so what I wanted to do is just tweak it ever so slightly to say not just, you know, brands but add in bands and artists and festivals and venues and try to, as best I can, make it relevant to the music industry. You know, Ben & Jerry's has a great long history with music going back to 1988 when we launched Cherry Garcia and 1998 when we launched Phish Food. But for the most part, even in the US where we've been around for 40 years, we actually said fortieth anniversary last weekend. Yeah, it's pretty impressive. Oh, and I should just clear up right now, Ben and Jerry are still around. They are great guys. They are still best friends, so clear up some of the Q&A for later. But still, this is how most people still know Ben & Jerry's: just an ice cream brand, and that's kind of it. But there's a lot more to what we do, and even in just some of the flavors like Phish Food. So, show a quick video of

[Music] [Music] So that's actually just a preview of a little seven or eight minute mini documentary we put together a few years back. So go to the Ben & Jerry's YouTube channel later today and you can check out that full film. But it really tells the story about how the band Waterwheel and Ben & Jerry's have been working together for 20 years to really raise money to help Lake Champlain and clean it up. So I think that's the thing about Ben & Jerry's: while most people know us as an ice cream company, we've been doing this activist work really, you know, almost since the very first day. And what that means to us is that we stand for something. We act on our values. And I think the part that's relevant and can be really transformative is we ask all of our customers, all our fans, to join us. Because us as a singular business, I, you know, we're growing and things are great and we've been around 40 years, but if we disappear tomorrow, a lot of people would miss their Cherry Garcia and Chunky Monkey, but the world would go on. But if we can use our place in culture, in our business operations, to help grow broader social movements, that's where we can have real impact. So what do I mean by that? How do we actually do that? So for us, what we try to do: we're not making up social movements. We're not building campaigns or strategies to solve climate change or racial equity in America, right? We're going to the progressive leaders in that space and we're saying to them, what are you trying to achieve and how can we as an ice cream company help you? Right? So that's really what we try to do: we try to connect with progressive leaders to understand what their strategies are, and then we bring things to the table that NGOs and politicians don't have. Right? We're a lot, hopefully, more fun and we can draw a crowd. We bring free ice cream and we can bring people together. If you think about the power that bands and venues and festivals have in that regard to connect with their deeply loyal fan base and bring them into social movements, the power can really be transformative. And I think, you know, the idea of cause marketing, purpose-driven marketing, and corporate social responsibility, it's a real, it's a real kind of hot topic, a buzzword these days. And don't get me wrong, that's a really great thing. Businesses need to be doing better in the world. Well, we try to differentiate though our approach. At the end of the day, what it looks like in the world may look very similar, but how we approach things is different. So a brand out there trying to do cause-related marketing will often start with, what do my customers care about? How can I get a part of a movement that is aligned with that so that they can like me more? And that's fine. Good things come from that. But our approach is very different. Our approach is, what are our core values as a business? What's the change we seek in the world? And then how can we unlock our fan base to achieve that change? Right? And again, if you think about approaching things as a band, as a venue, that way, you have such deep relationships with your fans that there's so much that you can unlock. And I think the last bit to think about, and again I'll use the Ben & Jerry's example, but really think about your work and what you do. What we try to bring to the table is who we are. We happen to be a fun, optimistic, a little bit quirky, irreverent ice cream brand. So we take those tools, we take our little cartoon cow and our, you know, cow puns, and we bring that to social movements. So when we show up and we're talking about climate change, we're doing that with a Save Our Swirled flavor, right? And not the approach that, say, Greenpeace would take. And what that allows is a doorway for people to join movements that may, you know, put a hand up to an organization like Greenpeace, right? And so that's the role that we can play in these social movements. And I think again, if you think about your venue, your festival, the artists you represent, how can they use their unique personalities to bring more people into social movements? So I'm just gonna really just give a quick snapshot of some of the issues we've been working on just in the last couple of years. They really kind of range from climate justice to social equity, and I have a lot in the last couple years focused on racial equity and voting rights. That was that. There it is. So in marriage equality, and you know, the marriage equality is just used as a quick example because in 2009, when Vermont legalized same-sex marriage, we were one of the only companies that had been involved in that fight, and we were one of the only companies that celebrated the moment. And in 2009, that was very controversial. Thank you. [Applause] But fast-forward just six years, just six years, and marriage equality became the law of the land, and we were there and we were there to celebrate it. But at that time, it felt like every major corporation in America changed their profile to a rainbow, and that's fantastic. I'm not knocking that, far from it. I think that's fantastic. What that speaks to though is how fast progress can come when we grow social movements, right? And again, we're not in any way claiming that we've resolved marriage equality in America, right? But we were one grain of sand, right, on that pile that finally tipped the scale. Right? And so I think again, you think about your venue, the artists you represent, the festivals that you're producing, how can you be part of those movements and do a little bit more? I'm gonna close my little bit before I bring my friends out here just with a quick two-minute video that we did with Sankofa down at the Many Rivers Festival a year and a half ago, I think it was, which was a fantastic festival, and we worked with HeadCount there to reg...

and partners Beth Montori roles from water wheel and fish Andy Bernstein from head count and then Brody O'Brien who I work with at Ben & Jerry's and we're gonna kind of talk a little bit about how each of our organizations have done

that so that's the plan we'll leave some room at the end for some some Q&A so I'll just run through a quick couple slides if we can get those up this is a talk of actually a very abbreviated

version of a talk of given a decent amount and I usually do it for business leaders usually digital marketers or CPG marketers and the idea is to get bands and our excuse me businesses and brands to understand how they can use not just

their philanthropy but their actual organizations the the work that they do every day to to grow social movements in to create change in the world and so what I wanted to do is just tweak it ever so slightly to say not just you

know brands but add in bands and artists in festivals and venues and try to as best I can make it relevant to the music industry you know Ben and Jerry's has a great long history with music going back

to 1988 when we launched Cherry Garcia and 1998 when we launched fish-food but for the most part even in the US where we've been around for 40 years we actually said fortieth anniversary last weekend yeah it's pretty impressive oh and I should

just clear up right now Ben and Jerry are still around they are great guys they are still best friends so clear up some of the Q&A for later but still this is how most people still know Ben and

Jerry's is just an ice cream in that and that's kind of it but there's a lot more to what we do and even in just some of the flavors like like fish food so show a quick video of

[Music] [Music] so that's actually just a preview of a little seven or eight minute mini documentary we put together a few years back so going to the Ben & Jerry's YouTube channel later today and you can check out that that full film but it

really tells the story about how the band waterwheel and Ben & Jerry's have been working together for 20 years to really raise money to help Lake Champlain and clean it up so I think that's the thing about Ben & Jerry's is

while most people know us as an ice cream company we've been doing this activist work really you know almost since the very first day and what that means to us is that we stand for something we act on our values and I

think the part that's that's relevant and can be really transformative is we ask all of our customers that our fans to join us because us as a singular business I you know we're growing and things are great and been around 40

years but if we disappear tomorrow a lot of people would miss their Cherry Garcia and chunky monkey but the world would go on but if we can use our place in culture in our in our business operations to help grow broader social

movements that's where we can have real impact so what do I mean by that how do we actually do that so for us what we try to do we're not making up social movements we're not building campaigns or strategies to solve climate change or

racial equity in America right we're going to the progressive leaders in that space and we're saying to them what are you trying to achieve and how can we as an ice cream company help you right so that's really what we try to do is we

try to connect with progressive leaders to understand what their strategies are and then we bring things to the table that NGOs politicians don't have right we're a lot hopefully more fun and we can draw a crowd we bring free ice cream

and we can bring people together if you think about the power that bands and venues and festivals have in that regard to connect with their deeply loyal fan base and bring them into social movements the power can really be

transformative and I think you know the the idea of cause marketing purpose driven marketing and corporate social responsibility it's a real it's a real kind of Hot Topic through a buzz word these days and don't be wrong that's a

really great thing businesses need to be doing better in the world well we try to differentiate though our approach at the end of the day what it looks like in the world may look very similar but how we

approach things is different so a brand out there trying to do cause related marketing will often start with what do my customers care about how how can I get a part of a movement that is aligned with that so that they can like me more

and that's fine good things come from that but our approach is very different our approach is what are our core values as a business what's the change we seek in the world and then how can we unlock our fan base to achieve that that change

right and again if you think about approaching things as a band as a venue that way you you have such deep relationships with your with your fans that there's so much that that you can unlock and I think the last bit to think about and

again I'll use the Ben and Jerry's example but really think about your work and what you do what we try to bring to the table is who we are we happen to be a fun optimistic a little bit quirky

irreverent ice cream brand so we take those tools we take our little cartoon cow and our you know cow puns and we bring that to social movements so when we show up and we're talking about climate change we're doing that with a

save our swirled flavor right and not the approach that say Greenpeace would take and what that allows is a doorway for people to join movements that may you know put a hand up to an organization like Greenpeace right and

so that's the role that that we can play in these in these social movements and I think again if you think about your venue your festival the the artists you represent how can they use their unique personalities to bring more people into

social movements so I'm just gonna really just give a quick snapshot of some of the issues we've been working on just in the last couple of years they really kind of rate range from climate justice of social equity and and I have

a lot in the last couple years focused on racial equity and Voting Rights that was that I there it is so in in marriage equality and you know the marriage equality all just used as a quick example because in 2009 when

Vermont legalized same-sex marriage we were one of the only companies that have been involved in that fight and we were one of the only companies that celebrated the moment and in 2009 that was very controversial thank you [Applause]

but fast-forward just six years just six years and marriage equality became the law of the land and we were there and we were there to celebrate it but at that time it felt like every major corporation in America changed their

profile to a to a rainbow and that's fantastic I'm not I'm not knocking that far from it I think that's fantastic what that speaks to though is is how fast progress can come when we grow social movements right and again we're

not in any way claiming that we we've resolved marriage equality in America right but we were one grain of sand right on that pile that finally tipped the scale right and so I think again you think about your venue the artists you

represent the festivals that you're producing how can you be part of those movements and do a little bit more I'm gonna close my little bit before I bring my friends out here just with a quick two-minute video that we did with

Sankofa down at the many rivers festival year-and-a-half ago I think it was which which was a fantastic festival and we worked with head count there to register voters [Music] [Music] [Music] and culture is what makes people of hearing favorite artists talking about

criminal justice reform talking about economic justice racial justice this is how you get people know that isn't working the way that it could and stop working where this and so this is a very happy [Music] [Music] [Applause] come on up friends Beth

Andy Brody [Applause] welcome thank you guys for joining me it's gonna be much better now because it means I'm not just up on a stage talking by myself but better for them too if that's what I mean that's what I mean

so if you guys could just real quickly introduce introduce ourselves and and head count water wheel and we can go from there do you want to start Beth I'll start my name is Beth Montori rolls I've been working for fish for 23 years

this year we started the waterwheel foundation in 1997 so I was there from the very beginning and I've been involved since day one water well came about three different things kind of happening at once one of them was Ben & Jerry's had worked with

the band to create this ice cream flavor and the band had decided that they wanted to support something locally that was meaningful and they chose the cleanup of Lake Champlain which in all honesty we had almost no idea what that

meant at the time but we figured it out and also the band had been giving money locally within our community and this formalized it by creating water wheel and the third thing was that at the time we had had Greenpeace on the road with

us and they had just told us that they were no longer going to be supporting a touring initiative and so we sort of decided collectively that it would be great just to create our own touring initiative so instead of having

Greenpeace be the one cause that we were supporting we decided that we would support the local communities that we visited while we were on tour and all of those three things came together and pretty much that's what water will still

continues to be we do have some other things that we do as well but we're still moving directions still 21 years later cool Thank You Beth the waterwheel is an amazing organization I've known of them for 21 years now but gotten to work with

them for the last 10 it's been fantastic Andy you please introduce yourself in headcount although I'm sure hopefully everyone knows headcount here well thank you and I want to thank everybody for this amazing weekend and the event we had last night that was

just so off the hook and people were so generous and I want to give Gryba a shout out and KP I don't know if he's here but we're it was really incredible so thanks so much I can't started in 2004 and the build-up

to the presidential election myself and Mark Brownstein were both like just kind of really amped up about what was going on in the world and we had this idea for kind of channeling what we knew about grassroots marketing in the jam scene to

try to get people out to vote I had written a book about fish called the Farmers Almanac mark is in the Disco Biscuits and we've just kind of learned a lot on fish lot about how to kind of

kind of sell an idea and we said well let's let's make that idea of voting and it really took off that very first year we registered almost 50,000 people we were on tour with fish and the dead and

Dave Matthews and and just kind of created a whole organization out of that and then I think a key turning point that's really relevant here is in 2013 after doing our third presidential election we kind of looked out what we

were and said well alright we're very relevant every four years we're sorta relevant every two years and and the off years we kind of struggle but we feel like we have so much more to offer we we've always aspired to be the

community organizing arm of the music scene and not just a voter registration group and at that point we really started looking at what we were capable of from having all these great volunteers and all these great relationships and we started something

called participation row at the lock-in Festival basically it's all peachy Pierro everything we do is somehow related to peachy Bureau and we created a whole area where people could engage not just around headcount but all the different nonprofits and we

created some cool incentives you could win a guitar signed by all the artists and from there we've grown that to involve Ben and Jerry's as a partner we've taken it out on Dedinje company tour and we really started thinking

about how we work with brands and how we are kana motto is everybody wins we want it to be a win for the bands we wanted to be a win for the fans and also the corporate partners and it's been a big

part of how we think about headcount is creating all these partnerships so people can engage with us like we did on Phish tour a couple years ago where not only did we register voters but we gave out free ice cream and worked with Ben

and Jerry's to just make it bigger and more meaningful and then took that to lock-in so it's been a real real fun ride this particular part I really enjoy and I've gotten to know people like leave these fine folks and I think we're

just we're always trying to push the envelope always make it more fun and in the end get people to be active citizens in the music scene and it takes it takes everybody and sometimes it takes free ice cream speaking of free ice cream

Brody why don't you introduce yourself a little bit about how we work well so I'm Brody O'Brien I sit on the US marketing team with the Bennet Jerry's and Jay did a really nice job introducing the company and all the things that we do so

I'll spare you guys those details being repeated I figured I'd just tell it quick personal anecdote about how I ended up on the for-profit side trying to create change with business as a vehicle I started my career actually as

a as a raft guide in Alaska about as far away from New York City as you can imagine but I would take cruise ship passengers into the woods on these boats for a lot of times the first time they'd

ever been out in real nature and I carried a picture of a glacier in my in my life best I would show them this glacier in 1960 that we were rafting past and said you can barely see it back

up that drainage now and if I could get one you know every 20 people who's in my boat to go back home and think a little bit differently around climate change and maybe take some action get involved in their community in addressing climate

change then that was a big success and so I've had kind of a meandering path to get to where I am now at Ben & Jerry's I worked for a while on the nonprofit side and I think got a real appreciation for

how much organizations do with how little but when you're driven by passion you can accomplish an amazing amount and so for me now to be at Ben & Jerry's I'm in a really fortunate and very unique position where I can use our digital and

experiential marketing capabilities to hopefully amplify the work that organizations like headcount and waterwheel are doing and so having been on both sides of that equation I hope it gives me some understanding to help further our work together but one

thing it's really driven home for me is that we all on the the for-profit side if you will have an enormous opportunity to help elevate the work that our partners are doing thanks everyone let's start talking a little bit about

the impact that an organization can have like an engagement organization like head count or essentially a philanthropic arm like the waterwheel so Andy how do you how do you think about measuring success what is what is having an impact mean - head count well we we

pay a lot of attention to numbers for sure voter registration is is obviously a really big number but when we do participation row that's honestly not even on our radar it's really about overall fan engagement how many actions

get taken so it locked in this year 10,000 actions got taken a participation row that was the highest number we'd ever done and that I don't remember how many voters we registered but I show us how to remember that and that's I we

just all have so much pride in that and we want to see fans come to an event and they're gonna have fun they're gonna see music they may party but if we can get people to just do a few things that

make the world better then I sure feel good about the work we're doing you talked a little bit about the kind of touring arm of waterwheel so when fish is on the road and you guys are coming into a community

you know it always feels like there's a lot of great organizations there how does how does the waterwheel you know either connect with those organizations or and think about you know how you can have an impact with them well there's a couple of things

there one is that finding the organizations it's a couple they they come to us in different ways people reach out to us directly fans who know that water will exist suggests organizations that they either work with or know about sometimes there are larger

organizations that will send us when the band announces a tour they send us here are all the people all the different groups and all the different cities that you're going to be in the water Keepers do that for example and we have having

been out there for a really long time and the fact that the band used to tour a whole lot more we have some long-standing relationships with some organizations out there as well one of the most important things I would say

for the organizations to know coming to work with us is that they have to have like a 30-second impression time because the fans who support waterwheel are very important to us but they are there to see the band and so the message that the

organization gives out has to be extremely small and very understandable in that amount of time they're the ones who are the most successful yeah it's it's it's interesting we talked about you know being at a concert at a

festival and I think you know take something like participation row you know you're you're out on the festival grounds I think that's part of the part of the cool part about partnering together right like we can use ice cream to draw people in whatever

it might be and I'm Brodie you want to kind of talk about that a little bit how how we kind of use that as an anchor yeah sure so I mean I think even coming from the nonprofit background I think

we've all had the experience where you see somebody walking down the street with a clipboard and my first reaction oh you know how do I look at the ground or keep moving and try to get on with my

day and for Ben and Jerry's you know our secret weapon is free ice cream you know not every company has that in their portfolio but we're really fortunate that we can set up somewhere in partnership with a water wheel or with a

head count or another organization and we say hey guys you know come on in grab some free Ben & Jerry's and pretty quickly align forms and that creates an opportunity for the organization there to engage in a deeper conversation with

the organization or with the the fans who are there and you know we may only get baths 32 seconds instead of 30 seconds because somebody's they're gonna get their ice cream but it invites people in a positive frame of mind you

know as you think about your business and and how you might create some of that magic yourself that draws people in I think we all have opportunities you know I think about what Andy has done with participation row and they've done

a really nice job bringing artists into participation row and saying hey come on in have this intimate experience with Jared or somebody else you really look up to and so you've created that nucleus of energy and it allows a really

memorable experience to come out of that but also this opportunity for decent for deeper engagement with the organization you know one of the things that that this guy did was last year when we were headed to participation row it was a new

set up it was a big tent and he started sending emails about like woodwork and like all these like technical Spurs were like what does this guy have in his head and I get down there and he has built a

like vintage ice cream shop out of what do you call those things old pallets yeah out of pallets and if we like them didn't have the food inspector come it was so cool it just looked awesome and and it was a

big reason why we had our highest numbers ever so one of the things that's great about a brand like bread in general is there's a lot of creativity everything looks super sharp and it elevates us as an organization and I'm

sure the Beth you've had a similar experience of waterwheel where you're dealing with pros and you're dealing with people who were very mission aligned and that's not always gonna happen with a corporate partner and that's why I like Ben & Jerry's as Ben

and Jerry's because they have a level of creativity behind the causes that other brands might only use for selling a product the exact same experience with Jerry's we water wells mostly a volunteer driven organization I'm the only full-time year-round employee and I

don't take any income from waterwheel so and I also run jump records and who is she music and I am the general manager of the company in Vermont so I'm pretty busy and when I can go to these guys and

say hey I have this great idea that maybe we can do next year on tour and then they bring their entire professional staff and to support the whole thing from the graphics to just how great they are at events it's really

a great partnership for me for sure it's it's fun for us because Beth will have an idea like let's break the world's record for the largest cowbell ensemble ever I'm pretty sure Fishman will lead the band do you guys want to do that

so yes yes we do and we will have our designers do the posters and we'll work on the permitting and all that good stuff and and I think that's that's a fun way to you know create really memorable things and in in in doing so I

think we raised $25,000 for Hurricane Irene relief and had a blast so it was a very memorable thing for the fans to I want to share something that's that's coming up that we haven't told anybody so we not too long ago I got introduced

to somebody who's a big fish fan who happens to be the chief marketing officer for celestial Seasonings and he told me the whole history of their brand and I think probably everybody knows celestial Seasonings or herbal tea whatever you don't think about it all

and he told me about how they've actually always been very environmentally conscious they've had the same person blending their teas for 40 years they're like the original hippie company but they'd never really told that brand story and that they

really admire Ben & Jerry's for what a good job Ben & Jerry's had done that on the outside as well as the inside and they had just been doing it quietly and he had an idea of doing a ginseng

Sullivan tea which is a fish cover song and also a ramble on rose tea and so we got head count got Jim Pollock to do a ginseng Sullivan art and AJ masley to do ramblin rose and this summer at the

shows at curveball and Dick's and dead and Coe and Locke and we're gonna be giving out these teas for free to come and engage and register to vote and sign up for a local election alerts and it was like you know you got it was another

brand really trying to model what you did and also the fact that the guy was a Phish fan didn't hurt see us this summer we got some free tea for everybody yeah I mean I think just a quick note that

the authenticity matters you know like the music scene in general the jam scene in particular like you can tell an impostor from from a mile away and so I think it's important that your intentions are coming from the right

places we're gonna get to Q&A in just a sec but one of the questions that I have and you know I think both organizations are really accounting waterwheel fish really entrepreneurial in nature thinking about starting out right back

in 2005 back in 1997 any advice you know to your former selves or to someone thinking thinking about how you know the artists they they represent can get more involved in movement movements like what advice would you give to folks well I'll

just say that I know what was very helpful for me when we started waterwheel we really didn't have when it became very public when it all came together in 97 we really did not know what we were doing you know no one in

the management company at the time had any experience with running or being on a non-profit board we came up with this really crazy idea not crazy idea but it was a good idea but it was one that had

crazy lofty expenses behind it we were like well we know how to do marketing you know so why don't we create this marketing entity that markets Lake Champlain and that will help get people more involved and ultimately once we sat

down and put a bunch of numbers to it we were like well we're gonna be spending most of the money that Ben and Jerry's is generating for us from this flavor on paying overhead costs so we backed off

of that and then I said you know what I I'll go on a board or something I'll try to get on someone's board and see you know what it's like and so I still actually am on bloomery boards are you

only on three right now I chair two of them and I'm on a regional board and a city board and in a New England wide board and that has been very helpful and I volunteered for you know the the state

always has money that they're giving away or federal money that's giving away in grants and you can volunteer to be on a review committee that kind of a thing so I I would say that that has been really very helpful to me my experience

that I often tell people is that you'll never accomplish more in a shorter amount of time than you will in the first six months when you something there's just something magical and there's an energy and I look back at

the first six months a head count it's like how did we do that like with no people and no experience and no staff no office we went from launching it in February to we were doing 25 shows a week in April

and we're still about that level of 25 shows a week and you know I think for anybody who's entrepreneurial or doing a start-up it's like when I tell people it's capture those early moments because you'll never relive them and I see it

now with parkland I see it with the March for our lives movement and these amazing kids or just getting so much done and it's so incredible and eventually it'll be processed and there'll be staff and there'll be more

lawyers and more of these things it's like just just blast through everything right now and don't slow down because it is a magic time when you when you're taking something off the ground can you can you talk to us for a sec about how

head count is working with those students there yeah sure like well it started interestingly Cameron Kowski who is the kind of leader of the student movement his father is the lawyer for Jam Cruz so it all comes back to this community and and our what

we have here and he reached out to us four days after the shooting and said hey this is what's happening here's who's my son is you guys should get involved and our our whole team kind of pulled together we started doing some

research or sharing what we knew about underage pre-registration 16 year olds registering we tweeted it out it got twenty three thousand retweets and we started moving toward approaching them about doing voter registration at the March and we ended up running it in 30

cities including DC it was the most incredible day we registered 5,000 people around the country it was just DC alone was our number one event in our history and now we've got a few other things I can share we're gonna have

March for our lives on dead end company tour this summer we haven't announced that yet very very exciting and we're also the day after their March we announced the goal that 90% of high schools in America would have a voter registration drive

this academic year and our hope was that David Hogg and Cameron Caskey would take this up as a cause and put that idea into the universe and then we would support any school that wanted to do it and as of this morning we've had 425

schools around the country sign up to do these voter registration drives and there's thousands more doing it without us so this has just been such a wild ride and be able to kind of just see the opportunity to really change things and

so much bigger than us like we'll never know how many people get registered through that and we don't need to know we just we're creating on norm and this notion that there's an inequality that some schools had voter registration and

some didn't and because of these amazing kids and this platform they have we're gonna fix that and we're fixing it right now and I am so proud of this and I'm so proud of our team and it all started

because Jam Cruz's lawyers kid is genius like and because let me just stop one thing and because of a very serious tragedy also and I I never want to talk about it without talking about that but it it has been a truly wild ride and Ben

and Jerry's came out to March for our lives and gave out free ice cream and I just want to share I thought from the from the business perspective both around what Beth was saying about getting started and then how it relates

to the value of partnerships with organizations like these you know I would concur Jenny buddy who's thinking about doing this just to go and take a first step just go show up you really can't fake showing up and once you're in

that room listen and you're gonna see opportunities you're gonna start building those relationships but that's really that's all you got to do you don't have to have it all figured out the pieces will come together if you take that first step and once you have

those relationships those connections are gonna pay off for a long time and I think about March for a lot so you know Jay talked a bit about some of these issues that Ben and Jerry's has been an ad

get four for a long time and you may have noticed that common-sense gun legislation is not up there it's not something that historically we've taken on we've always thought about it but it hasn't been the right time and so after

parkland happened we felt this real urgency so this is something we have to have a point of view on but you know where do we start and to have the opportunity and the relationship with head count who said you know what we're

going to DC and we're gonna register the voters at the March that was a really natural opportunity for us to then step into this new issue set and benefit from the knowledge and the partnership that Andy had to help us start exploring that

space so it's just the beginning for us but I don't know if we could have taken that step if it weren't for the support that we got from our partner so I think about that too as you're selecting

organizations you might be collaborating with great thank you all I think the good news is we have about 9 minutes and 28 seconds left for some Q&A if there are any questions from the audience hey guys how we all doing a great

presentation thank you all very much Dave rack our game of Zonk sabbatical life question I had for you guys actually flew here to ask you guys this question because we do similar things and we provide value-added components inside music festivals we do pavilions

meet and greets things like that within that we have a product line in the cannabis industry and we bring all our candidates partners into these pavilions and we do educational outreach and we do exposure what can you guys speak on in

regards to monetizing the process because obviously we have we all have you know value added components to help each other about the festival side and our side but at the end of the day how do you guys speak on actually funding it

because at the end of the day we all run out of money yeah I think at least from you know from the for-profit perspective we don't do it to make money in no no it's but it's we end up benefiting from

it as a business in the sense that we build deeper relationships with our fans and you know to a degree we can measure the ROI on that but to a degree like that's why we've been around for 40

years is because we're not just you know a pint of ice cream on the shelf and I think we're very very conscious when we're doing the activist work that that work is the only goal now when we do

that right we get a lot of other benefits right and let me let me just point out the question I want to know is just in regards to funding the efforts now profiting from it yep so it comes

out of our marketing budget it's in our P&L and that's that's where it comes we have a totally separate foundation that does philanthropic giving but that is not often in similar issue sets but not coordinated with the work of the

business okay and on our end what works do is create value for partners so that they'll come back year after year and we're this year we've already raised about a hundred and seventy five thousand dollars from corporate partners

and I think it's because we actually you know like the celestial Seasonings example like they part of it as kiss the guy's a fish fan let's be honest and but part of it is because they have a story

they want to tell and show the community that they're part of the community and for a huge brand like that there's real value and we're an authentic place to support and so we I spent so much time thinking about this how do we structure

these agreements so that everybody wins and these partners will keep coming back I mean we're in I think our fourth year with you guys and I someday will stand up here when we're old men and talk about our 40 year partnership because

we're gonna keep providing value and that's that's you have to approach it that way that we're really giving something it's not just getting something back we're really giving something well we'll have 95% voter participation at that point - absolutely

a question up front oh yeah I'm glad I don't have to yell but my name is Renee Vogel saying I'm an environmental and climate activists and I just first wanted to say thank you to Ben and Jerry's and waterwheel and headcount

they've been picking Andy's brain a lot about his success and but I've worked with national state and local grassroots groups for 15 years now and the environment many of them have benefited from waterwheel foundation and Ben and Jerry's specifically worked on the

campaign to ban fracking for five years in here in New York State and we collected more than half a million petitions many of them from concerts and festivals at fish shows other you know festivals here in New York so I

firsthand seen the power and we banned fracking in December of 2014 here in New York so just it wouldn't have happened without support from groups like yours on stage and the work that you're all doing I had a question for the

festival's Pam yesterday that I didn't get to ask about environmental impact that we have at our concerts and festivals so reducing plastic also powering up something I'm working on as a group called rock for renewables with my eight friend John

modeski - you know power up our events offer renewables but also promote renewables and build the political will and to you guys what our partnerships you know kind of outside of just doing concerts and festivals and outreach there what kind of partnerships do you

think that we could have with the music community whether it's you know online other types of events you know special comps events in concerts you know for fundraisers I mean what are different types of partnerships that you've had

outside of directly at like a concert or festival you know things we could do to promote causes I think from a from the Ben & Jerry's perspective again we historically aren't going out and trying to figure out what the moments are but

we have great partnerships I think and we've done this twice now where we've worked with an organization called pathways to Paris they just recently did a concert at Carnegie Hall with flea and telev quali and Patti Smith and we

partnered with them in Paris during the cop on the UN's climate conference and that was more of a standalone event where they came to us and we're looking to looking for a partner and it was the kind of event that was you know

headlined both by flea and Bill McKibben right so it was a it was a moment where kind of activists and artists were had similar billing the other thing that happens is that when an artist is you know doing something that is authentic

to them you know they may come to us when when Dave Matthews did the concert in DC for Standing Rock it was something we were working on too so we reached out we have a you know we use to have a

flavour with them we've relationship with them and we ended up working with them to help fund the live stream so that that one concert could then reach you know hundreds of thousands of people I got what one more here I just want to

give props to everybody there up on the stage today and say thank you very much for everything that you do I want to just mention something on the smaller side of things that you guys do that's really really helpful just to perhaps

bring some more awareness to it or punctuate what you do a little better in Nelson County where we have Locke and unfortunately about 21% of the county has had need to go to the food pantry at least once a year

and so we Andy through participation row we approve you know we get the local little not-for-profits together and they really suck at promoting themselves there they do really good work you know they're getting food they're feeding people and their and their booth no

one's ever there so Andy finds volunteer to put in their booth and you know and then we have a check presentation they've never shown up to accept the check ever they can't even do that but they do really good work so the fact

that participation row is there to come in and support these locals that don't know how to do that don't know how to plug into all this stuff it's just when such a I'm just so proud of what you've

done so I want to say thank you for that and I also want to say that it's been five years since any started participation Rohit Lakhan and we've raised close to a hundred and ninety thousand dollars we've done a canned

food drive that's brought in almost fifteen thousand cans of food and I think nationally what's the number a million four because you've taken it elsewhere yeah through the dead like huge numbers and David a warrior five years okay let's hear it

for these guys thank you thank you very much and I I I is Laura here Lori lenninger because Lori lenninger is the person I think Lori's here who has treated each and every one of those nonprofits like they are rock

stars and you know like everybody knows headcount as the voter registration people and will probably never change that but a huge part of what we do is like just trying to pay it forward and trying to treat every other nonprofit

like we want to be treated and lock-in helped us do that and Ben & Jerry's has helped us do that and waterwheel has been doing that for a long time these guys have been bringing these type of local groups out to fish shows and

that's how we got to do it like I'm I'm such a believer in the values of this community and the values of P chip hero and this whole thing that we just keep kind of passing it around and we just

keep helping each other out and lifting each other up and we just get bigger and bigger and better and it's real it's been happening in this scene for a long time and we it's gonna keep happening because of of just the values that the

music kind of it's it's the underbelly of it all we've unfortunately run out of time I just want to take a second to thank you all for for for listening most importantly Thank You Beth thank you Andy for your years of partnership and

all the fun that we get to have together thank you Brodie for kicking ass on the team and we'll see you out of the concert soon [Applause] you [Applause]