Athletic Brewing, the country’s largest dedicated non-alcoholic craft brewery, will match the first $100,000 donated to the Michael Jackson Foundation for Brewing & Distilling’s (MJF) second annual fundraising campaign.
Founded by Brooklyn Brewery brewmaster and MJF chairman Garrett Oliver in 2020, the MJF provides scholarship funds for Black, Indigenous and People of Color to further their education in brewing and distilling. In its first three years, the organization has awarded scholarships to 29 people, who have either begun or advanced their careers in the beer and spirits industries.
“The impact that these MJF scholarships are having are both immediate and enormous,” Oliver said in a press release. “For example, one $40,000 donation put 10 brewers of color through Siebel’s WBA Concise Course in Brewing. That’s massive.”
Scholarship recipients have prominent roles at breweries including Russian River, Aeronaut, and Notch and some have founded their own companies.
“Our awardees have told us that not only have they been able to put their new knowledge to work immediately every day, but they are now able to dream bigger than they had before and to join the industry leaders of the future,” Oliver continued. “We are grateful to our current donors who’ve stepped up and hopeful that the big breweries will get more involved this year as well. A diverse industry is a healthy industry with a big customer base — and that’s what we all want to see.”
About 8.2% of brewers in the industry are people of color, according to the Brewers Association’s (BA) 2018 Brewery Operations Benchmarking Survey. While brewery owners are overwhelmingly white (88.2% of respondents), the only employee group with a higher percentage of white people is brewers (89%), according to the survey.
By comparison, the population of the U.S. at large is 40% people of color, according to U.S. Census Bureau data cited in the release.
“The brewing industry has historically lacked diversity, and it’s critical that we continue to support education and career advancement opportunities while building a more inclusive community for everyone,” Athletic co-founder and CEO Bill Shufelt said in the release. “We have an opportunity to make a significant difference with this campaign, but only if enough people take action.”
Athletic will match all corporate and individual donations made to the MJF through May 8.