Panera Bread, a national restaurant chain, wanted to create awareness that 1 in 6 people in America don’t know where their next meal is coming from. Panera believes people are good, they just need someone to give them a way to help.

Rather than just give money, we did what Panera Bread does best and helped feed the nation by getting the community involved.

Locally, Panera Cares Cafes opened and operated on a “pay what you can” model – people in need can pay nothing for a meal, others can “overpay” to help those in need.

Nationally, the ‘Food Chain Reaction’ app made it into a social activation idea. Users could invite friends to join their circles. Every time 5 people got together, Panera donated a meal to that 6th person in need via a partnership with Feeding America.

All of the Panera Cares Cafes are completely self-sustaining. Proving people really are good.

In its first month, the Food Chain Reaction app had 81,176 unique visitors who sent out 505,736 invitations. And helped donate specially developed nutritious soups to people in need through Feeding America. All without any advertising.

It also gained national media coverage, created a buzz during a SXSW presentation on socially conscious capitalism and most importantly, more people became aware of the problem of hunger and got involved in a solution.

The biggest barriers to change are awareness and local involvement. So we created a program that was at its heart about rallying local communities and organically spreading awareness. Helping people spread the 1 in 6 statistic by working it into our activation idea and helping people do good in their local communities was the key to the success of this program.