Dear Friends of FINNEGANS-

For those who may be new to FINNEGANS, we are a social entrepreneurial company that sells FINNEGANS Irish Amber (our first product), merchandise and host events. All of our profits go back to the community via our 501©3 nonprofit company; The FINNEGANS Community Fund. After eight- years, we have donated over $118,000 to programs whose mission is to alleviate poverty. We have one full-time employee (me!), three part-time interns and a bunch of fabulous volunteers.

This will be the first of what I hope to call, a series of blogs about items and issues that strike me as important from sitting at the helm of FINNEGANS International Headquarters. Our first piece of news, I have moved out of my sister’s basement to a new FINNEGANS office! You will find us at: the Hinkle Murphy Mansion, 619 South 10th Street SE, Suite 100, in the Elliot Park neighborhood of Minneapolis. I am very excited to have a home for FINNEGANS and our volunteers!

As I sit back and think about what we accomplished in 2008, I feel content with our success. Although we did not hit our sales goals, we had important achievements along the way.

We met our FINNEGANS Community Fund donation goal of $30,000! I this is the first time we have ever achieved our donation goal. We funded important programs through these valuable donations; to see the 2008 programs list visit: www.finnegans.org. This was possible not only through beer sales, but through volunteer efforts and events.
• Largest St. Patrick’s Day pub crawl -- over 290 people  in the Twin Cities and we raised over $3,000;
• Largest ShamROCK concert event -- we raised $10,000 for Heading Home Hennepin;
• Largest Irish Fair sales -- we sold 195 kegs of FINNEGANS and over $2,000 in merchandise;
• For the first time ever we raised money for our nonprofit via volunteer hours – e.g. River Rocks and the Autumn Brew Review were staffed with FINNEGANS volunteers, and friends of FINNEGANS, One Brick folks;
• We kicked-off our on-line community, www.finnegansfamily.org and now have a cutting edge presence on the web.

If you have been thinking about getting involved, make 2009 the year! The FINNEGANS Volunteer Brigade is focused on community service and raising funds for innovative programs in need of funding. I want you to become a member of our on-line community and meet new people that are making a difference where they live and have a great time doing it!

Below is our revised our mission/value statement. I invite all feedback and encourage you to become a part our team by helping us live out this mission!

FINNEGANS Mission Vision and Value Statements

Mission Statement
To be a self-sustaining and inspirational social business that creates positive social change in the community

Vision Statement
To be a leader in social entrepreneurism with multiple revenue generating streams funding Finnegan’s branded projects which aim at eliminating poverty and serving as a catalyst for social entrepreneurs.

Values
We believe that we are all responsible for creating healthy communities.

Creating awareness and action about critical community issues through projects that are fun, social and a win-win for our volunteers, pro-bono partners and business partners.

Share our ‘lessons learned’ and our FINNEGANS story with other organizations and businesses in hopes of inspiring others to engage in making a difference in their community.

As economic times continue to become more challenging, we need more community members to engage and help out. We can no longer rely on nonprofits and the government to do this job – it takes every single one of us.

I am naming 2009 The Year of Abundance. I have the intention of abundance for all and we at FINNGANS are going to do our best to make this a reality.

Wishing you all an Abundant 2009,
Jacquie

Rock On!