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MyspaceAlready home to an impressive number of nonprofit organizations, Santa Barbara is now headquarters for one of the more inventive philanthropy tools on the planet: Cultivate Wines, a company that sells fine wine from all over the world, sets aside 10 cents off every dollar earned, and then distributes $100,000 each quarter to the charities that get the most votes via cultivatewines.com. Though open to nonprofits everywhere, the Teddy Bear Cancer Foundation, Santa Barbara Aquatics Club, and Storyteller Children’s Theater are Santa Barbara organizations that have participated in the past. Right now, Child Abuse Listening Mediation, or CALM, is one of the 30 groups vying for this quarter’s cash, with $50,000 going to first place and $10,000 going to each of the five runners-up.
Courtesy Photo
Ali and Charles Banks, of Cultivate Wines
The Give, as this program is called, is the brainchild of Ali and Charles Banks, who moved to Santa Barbara in 2000 when they purchased Jonata Winery but stuck around after selling that property a couple of years ago. The globally sourced wine selling part was inspired by the exotic apparel-finding J. Peterman catalog of the 1980s, but the philanthropy side is an example of “conscious or connected capitalism,” explained Ali, and she hopes the idea, which started last November, is contagious. “Our country as a whole needs entrepreneurs to take responsibility for the future and the revival of the American economy,” she explained. “If we can be successful and be a responsible exercise using wine, hopefully we inspire other businesses to do the same thing.”
The response from the nonprofit community has been “incredibly positive,” said Banks, but she warned that it does require a full-scale campaign. “You cannot wine depending on just the public to choose your cause and vote,” she advised. “You have to spread the word.”
And it’s turning heads in the wine world too, with more than 100,000 visits to the site each month. “There’s not a lot of wineries getting that kind of traffic,” said Banks. “Every winery tells the same Mad Libs — your aspect and your soils and your stainless steel tanks — but, really, every winery story is almost the same. With Cultivate and The Give, we put a story in the glass, but we really want the story of Cultivate to happen after. What do you do with those wines? What does The Give inspire in other lives? It’s much more of an ongoing story of us and our wine.”
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To vote for Child Abuse Listening Mediation (CALM), see cultivatewines.com today.
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Comments
So, the only way people will show up and donate to children's charities is if they are lubed up with alcohol in the process?
This is no different than the local bar opening up to these nonprofits & donating 10% of its sales made that night to the designated children's charity.
It's still a bar, it's still about alcohol, and it's still ironic that children's charities use booze to raise money.
The wine industry has done an incredibly effective job of dressing itself up in sheeps' clothing and pretending its product is something other than what it really is (alcohol) in order to appeal to a segment of society with more money than brains. These people are convinced that the special language and scripted culture of the wine industry somehow raises them (and it) far above the wino in the doorway with the screw-top bottle of wine, and the wine industry laughs all the way to the bank.
My personal belief is that we should all be free to drink, eat, and take whatever we choose. As long as you are of age, if you want to pour poison down your throat, it's your body that pays the price, and as long as you are aware that the product IS in fact, poison, then go for it. Just don't drive or expect the rest of us to pay the price for your choice.
You can't polish poop, nor can you make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. As unpopular as this fact is, alcohol IS poison, whether a "taste" or a bottle (which can easily be the amount consumed on a "tasting" tour), and the clever, effective marketing of the alcohol industry doesn't change that any more than the clever marketing of the tobacco industry made cigarettes healthy and "refreshing".
Do you REALLY want your children's charities fundraisers to be held in the equivalent of a bar? Have we completely lost our ability to have fun and raise money unless we're getting hammered in the process?
Evidently, the sad answer is "yes".
Holly (anonymous profile)
June 4, 2012 at 11:43 a.m. (Suggest removal)
So much for the "altruistic" (my emphasis) nature of these donors. If these people were truly interested in the well-being of a cause, they wouldn't need to be loaded up with booze to give the needed $$$. The irony is that Santa Barbara has many excellent food caterers and these folks could have a great time with the many culinary offerings at these fundraisers without having to get sauced.
The mentality behind liquering (sp?) people up at fundraisers is no different from guys getting their girlfriends drunk so they will "put out" sexually; it's truly disgusting.
billclausen (anonymous profile)
June 4, 2012 at 7:54 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Amen billclausen! There is some incredible food there in SB... 2 words...Chef Michael....just for starters! :-)
Holly (anonymous profile)
June 4, 2012 at 8:39 p.m. (Suggest removal)