Pizza hut

With corporations spending millions of dollars each year on a spectrum of nonprofits, Pizza Hut uses its national footprint to maximize its charitable impact.

Literacy is the Texas-based company’s primary philanthropic cause. Pizza Hut’s efforts include its long-standing BOOK IT! program, which provides pizza and other rewards to motivate children to read.

Earlier this year the Yum! Brands subsidiary launched its 2018 literacy project in partnership with nonprofit First Book. The campaign aims to increase access to books and educational materials for children in need, with the ultimate goal of reaching 100 million people in 10 years.

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“Literacy is a critical, foundational life skill that can have a profound impact on quality of life, yet it is an often overlooked social issue,” Artie Starrs, president of Pizza Hut's U.S. division, said in a prepared statement. “The reality for many children growing up is that they do not have access to books in their home. Working alongside our 150,000 team members in the U.S., we are committed to help millions of children start a new chapter by providing books and educational resources they need to reach their full potential.”

Pizza Hut wants its initiatives to have wide-spread reach and leverages its roughly 2,500-restaurant footprint, asking each location to choose local organizations that would benefit from its literacy efforts.

“That gives us an opportunity to reach a broad base of organizations that would be hard to reach otherwise,” said Natasha Collins, Pizza Hut’s manager of social impact.

In addition to its literacy efforts, Pizza Hut has a Harvest Program that partners with nonprofit Food Donation Connection to offer left over food to the hungry.

She talked with Bizwomen's sister publication, the Dallas Business Journal, about Pizza Hut’s literacy and other philanthropic efforts.

Why is literacy an important cause for Pizza Hut?

Ultimately, when we look at the impact we can have in our communities, we want to see the communities we serve thriving and having a strong local economy. We feel like literacy is a social issue that can be overlooked, but it has a profound impact on other social issues like hunger, crime and poverty. When you look at an issue like literacy, which can often be a cyclical issue with parents at home who aren’t literate and are raising children, supporting literacy ultimately helps create stronger economies and communities, whether is providing a stronger talent pipeline or a stronger economy for the restaurant business or any business.

How do you decide which organizations to benefit?

The filter that we use is if an organization is eligible to receive First Book resources, they’re approved as a beneficiary. An example might be a school that has 70 percent of students on reduced or free lunch. Ultimately, what that eligibility check box does is make sure our resources are going to where they’re needed most.

How do you work with your parent company, Yum Brands, on your nonprofit work?

A couple of years ago, Yum looked at the brands and said we knew best what we wanted to focus on and told us to take the ball and run with it. That was a trigger for a broader commitment to literacy. But in terms of the overarching Yum structure for corporate citizenship, there are three pillars we focus on as a company: people, the planet and food. If you think about the Harvest Program, that falls under the planet pillar. Our focus on literacy falls under the people pillar.