DPS Scores Big for United Way

In early October, Dr Pepper Snapple Group brought together two of its proudest traditions – college football and our history of giving – to benefit United Way.

The United Way is our flagship fundraising drive, and each year we participate we raise the bar on donations and employee engagement. Our 2011 campaign, dubbed “DPS Super 8” internally, brought the excitement of college football to the cause of United Way.

We divided up our DPS sites into eight teams, each led by a member of our executive leadership team and a locally-selected United Way champion. We further encouraged friendly competition among our sites by giving the DPS location with the highest percentage of employee participation and per capita giving in the top performing team region a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity: the chance to douse DPS President and CEO Larry Young with a cooler of All Sport. The award went to our team in Lubbock, Texas in recognition of achieving the highest per capita giving rate.

DPS’s goal was to raise $1.1 million in the U.S., Canada and Mexico in 2011 through the DPS Super 8 and other programs. With more than 75 percent of our locations participating across the business, we surpassed our goal, raising a total of $1.7 million for the United Way. This is more than double the contribution we made just three years ago.

United Way is just one of the many programs DPS conducts each year to give back to the communities in which we operate. For the full story of our activities over the past year, read our 2011 Corporate Social Responsibility Update.