Painting It Forward: Pinot’s Palette Promotes Art of Giving
One of the Pinot’s Palette company values is commitment to community and partners. And one of the most notable ways this paint and sip franchise system lives that value is through Painting It Forward. Nationally and locally, Pinot’s Palette partners with nonprofits to host charitable paint nights as fundraisers and awareness raisers, often with custom paintings for participants to create.
Pinot’s Palette has hosted charitable paint nights for most of its nine-year history. Each year it designates a charity for company-wide fundraising efforts. For the past two years, the franchise partnered with St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and presented the hospital with over $50,000 in donations.
The meaningfulness of Painting It Forward hit home in September. Hurricane Harvey devastated Houston, the city where Pinot’s Palette was founded and where its headquarters are located. While members of the corporate team and Houston studios tried to keep their heads above water, franchisees stepped up with their own flood relief efforts. Naturally, that meant Painting It Forward events, this time featuring a custom painting called “United We Stand.”
Nationally, the hurricane relief Painting It Forward events brought in 750 painters and contributed about $20,000 to 501(c)3 hurricane relief funds. When Hurricane Irma hit, many studios offered a second event to raise funds for Florida relief efforts. Additionally, donation add-on buttons through the Pinot’s Palette website raised an extra $11,000 for Global Giving‘s disaster relief efforts.
Corporate Culture of Giving
Pinot’s Palette headquarters supports charitable efforts at the corporate and local levels. They work with the St. Jude corporate team to create messages that align with the partnership. Headquarters also gives studios marketing tips and tools to further their outreach. Local studios are encouraged to get involved with their local St. Jude chapter and participate in St. Jude walks. In turn, St. Jude gives participating walkers information on Painting It Forward events.
In addition to the charitable donations from these Painting It Forward nights, studio owners are encouraged to contribute in diverse ways. Many franchisees put together gift baskets for silent auctions in the community. And others look to use their sample paintings in a productive way. Some studios donate paintings to children at the Ronald McDonald House, hoping the artwork will help brighten their challenging days.
Community Connections
Charitable paint and sip events are not restricted to company-wide initiatives. Individual Pinot’s Palette studios make a monumental impact with fundraising for a variety of organizations in their communities. Painting It Forward guidelines are broad, and studio owners have the flexibility to adapt the program to their studio’s schedule and their local community’s needs.
For example, five Kansas City metro studios banded together in April to host a largescale Great Plains SPCA fundraiser. Each of the studios hosted a paint-your-pet Painting It Forward event on the same day, and each of the studios sold out weeks ahead of time! Hundreds of people turned up to paint their pets, knowing a portion of their seat price went to the Great Plains SPCA.
All this equates to lots of money —from $10 to $50+ a seat— for charitable initiatives large and small. But it also means significant revenue generated for individual studios. Since Painting It Forward events are usually held on slow nights where the studio is otherwise unoccupied, they make a positive contribution to the studio’s bottom line.
And on top of the one-time dollars generated by the Painting It Forward events, reaching out to help the community promotes good will and word of mouth marketing. And those effects transcend any ad campaign. If the community sees the studio owner as an invested member, the community rewards it with loyal business.
