MadTree’s Purpose is to Connect People to Nature and Each Other. When you work for a company that lives and breathes their purpose through the actions they take, it feels like a dream. For two years, the company has been a proud member of 1% For the Planet, with a commitment to donate 1% of our sales to non-profits focused on environmental sustainability. The majority of our giving centers around our 1% commitment, however there are times we believe we need to step outside of that boundary to grow our impact.  

The opportunity to partner with Cincinnati State’s Brewing Technologies program is a great example. MadTree’s partnership with Cincinnati State has a strong history; we currently employ four graduates of the Brewing Technologies program, one of our team members teaches BREW160 – Sensory Evaluation of Beers, and our head brewer and our Production Manager serve on the brewing advisory board too. To further extend our commitment, we are excited to announce the MadTree Brewing Technologies Scholarship of $10,000 for the 2021-2022 school year, with 50% of the allotted monies heading towards a full-time degree seeking student identifying as a woman or person of color and the other 50% of the monies heading towards the sustainability component of the Brewing Technologies degree.  

It’s no secret that the craft brewing industry lacks diversity, and we aren’t unique relative to our peers. To reference a forest metaphor – a diverse forest is a healthy forest. When we look at the diversity of our MadTree family, we have some work to do.  This is what our staff stats look like at this moment in time; 3% of our staff identify as people of color and 41.4% of our staff identify as women, with our production team composed of 14% women. By taking this foundational step in supporting the students of the Brewing Technologies program, we are hoping to build our own pipeline of candidates for the brewery as well as influence all of the students heading through the program with our sustainability ethos.  

We have a lot of work ahead of us, with the realization that this is a marathon, not a sprint. The strategic decisions we are making around our giving today are working towards our long term goal of supporting a groundswell to make our community greener and more equitable. We could not be more excited to start this work with Cincinnati State and watch the impact unfold.

Click Here to apply and for more details on the scholarship.

–Rhiannon Hoeweler, Director of Strategic Impact at MadTree