The concept is simple: For two bucks you and a few hundred of your closest friends spend the first Tuesday night of every month at a well-known Portland location to raise awareness for a local non-profit. There, you will meet young professionals like yourself that share the same passions as you do, and make new and exciting connections that could lead to your next big break in the city. And did we mention the beer? Oh yes, there’s beer from some of the top micro and craft breweries in the state ready to fill your favorite pint glass, ironic coffee mug or sippy cup.
It might be hard to believe in its sheer simplicity but this is the concept for Portland Greendrinks — one of the most successful grassroots fundraisers for non-profits in years for Portland.
Getting its start in the summer of 2008 as a casual, environmentally focused social event by Elliott May, the main inspiration for Portland Greendrinks came from his on-again-off-again hometown of Seattle, WA where he was involved in the cities successful Greendrinks program before moving to Portland and founding a branch in the urban-center of Maine. “Bringing it to Portland was just an excuse for him to meet new people in the city,” said Sean Sullivan, the acting board president of Portland Greendrinks.
While the first Greendrinks only had a modest turnout 35 people by Sullivan’s estimations, it wasn’t until over a year later at a December 2009 event highlighting the Gulf of Maine Research Institute that Portland Greendrinks had its first big turnout. Although that will be remembered as a defining event for the organization, Sullivan said the turnout of an event fluctuates month-to-month depending on the featured non-profit. “On a month-by-month basis it fluctuates because people want to see new spaces or hear about new non-profits they may not have before,” said Sullivan. “People might simply want to know what happens inside these non-profit locations that they might not have had a chance to otherwise.”
Although in its initial form Greendrinks simply served as a social get-together in the Portland area, in 2010 it began to partner monthly with a different local non-profit to help raise awareness and funds for a myriad of different projects in the Portland area focused on environmental and sustainability causes. Featured non-profits that Greendrinks has worked with include The Portland Music Foundation, the Maine-based architecture firm SMRT and The World Affairs Council of Maine.
Today, the roster of partners for Portland Greendrinks is expansive, featuring both local breweries and restaurants, as well as non-alcoholic beverage companies like the Brunswick-based Green Bee Soda. While the products might differ, the sponsors all share a passion for independently growing the local community and sustainable-green efforts.
One Greendrinks long-time partner in sustainability is Allagash Brewing Company, who considers green initiatives as a vital part of their mission as a company. “Reusing a bunch of bi-products from our brewing process is one of the things we concentrate on,” said Dee Dee Germain, who works at communications and marketing at Allagash. “We give it all to local farmers for cattle feed and other various uses. We also use 100 percent wind power here at the brewery from a big wind-farm in upstate New York.”
While a large draw to many attendees of Greendrinks might be the large, inexpensive selection of beer from Maine craft and micro breweries, Sullivan remains steadfast on the ultimate reasoning behind the monthly event. “Our focus is more on the networking than the actual drinking,” said Sullivan. “By no means are we trying to cut back on beer, but to us it’s just a way to use the ultimate social lubricant. We don’t want the opportunity to meet new people to be as awkward as freshman orientation, but we also don’t want it to turn into an all-out party.”
To keep this fine-balance, which Sullivan estimates to be between two to three drinks for each attendee, he and the rest of the Greendrinks board works one-on-one with local breweries like Allagash to gauge exactly how much beer they should bring to an event by the location of the evenings event, the featured non-profit and the most-recent trends of the events before. “Sean contacts us ahead of time and gives us a general idea of how much we should bring to an event,” said Germain. “But I sort of think a little below that number. We don’t want people to get too crazy, or else it would become a whole different atmosphere, which really isn’t the point of the event.”
The success of the monthly events has lead Portland Greendrinks to start a pilot program in February called Portland Greendinner, which Sullivan sees as an extension of the Greendrinks experience. “In 2012 we will have two to three restaurants lined up with a $15-$25 menu. We go to these restaurants and say that we can help give them a busy Tuesday night if they serve local, farm-to-table food for that night.”
Events like Greendinner and similar one-off-events to Sullivan are key to continue the growth and impact of the event in the city, and will allow for the same fun networking that Greendrinks offers to become even more profound. “Ultimately, it’s really all about reaching the broader goals of the creative community and to help support it as an independent, sustainable community.”