{"id":469,"date":"2010-04-01T16:28:21","date_gmt":"2010-04-01T16:28:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/?p=469"},"modified":"2017-06-20T20:29:29","modified_gmt":"2017-06-20T20:29:29","slug":"connecting-the-dots-for-good","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/2010\/04\/01\/connecting-the-dots-for-good\/","title":{"rendered":"Connecting the dots for good"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Jacquie
Jacquie Berglund ’87, founder of Finnegan’s<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By Bryan Barnes<\/p>\n

\u201cI read this article in Time magazine, interviewing all of these 80- and 90-year-old people,\u201d said Jacquie Berglund \u201987<\/strong>. \u201cThe overwhelming feedback from their question, \u2018If you could change one thing, what would it be?\u2019 was that they all wish they had taken more risks.\u201d<\/p>\n

That was 1983, when Berglund was in her first year at Augsburg College. Since then, she has faced many risks on her way to building one of Minnesota\u2019s most successful social enterprises\u2014an enterprise that uses beer sales to fund its community foundation.<\/p>\n

One of her first risks? Backpacking through Europe during her sophomore year in the face of parental disapproval.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy parents didn\u2019t want me to do it,\u201d Berglund said. \u201c[My English professor] said, \u2018Jacquie, you should absolutely do it. Let\u2019s come up with a way for you to get credit for it here.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

With that, Berglund ventured across the Atlantic for six weeks under the banner of an Augsburg creative-writing course. Her experience fostered a travel bug that would lead her back for a seven-year stay in France after Augsburg. \u201c[Backpacking] helped me to think globally and really changed my perspective,\u201d Berglund said. \u201cThat was a powerful turning point for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Graduating from Augsburg in 1987 with a degree in communication studies and a minor in political science, Berglund combined an interest in nonprofits with her travel experience to pursue work in international development. By 1990, she had taken an internship in Paris at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the same group that helped administer the Marshall Plan after World War II. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, Berglund found herself working with the best entrepreneurial minds at OECD to develop regional economies in former Soviet bloc countries.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were training government officials, and these guys were all communists\u2014they didn\u2019t want to learn [about how to build free markets],\u201d Berglund said. \u201cI felt like we went in and did all of this work and spent all of this money, and I don\u2019t know what impact we really had. Then I thought, \u2018You know, I think the real work is done at the grassroots level.\u2019 I would see the people at the grassroots level in these countries and they were really making a difference, and I thought, \u2018That\u2019s where I have to be. I\u2019ve got to get there.\u2019 I just didn\u2019t know how I was going to get there, but that\u2019s where I wanted to go.\u201d<\/p>\n

While at OECD, Berglund earned her master\u2019s degree in international relations from the American Graduate School in Paris. However, by 1997 Berglund found herself needing expensive back surgery, so she returned to the Twin Cities to work as marketing director for her old friend, Kieran Folliard, restauranteur and owner of Cara Irish Pubs LP.<\/p>\n

One of Berglund\u2019s duties as marketing director was to help Folliard distribute charitable gifts in the Twin Cities. They found themselves giving grants to any organization that asked. Eventually, their CFO put the brakes on their charity bonanza and told them they needed a better strategy. Berglund agreed; she recognized from her OECD days that the Cara Pubs money wasn\u2019t making the desired impact. Berglund had also just attended a conference in Washington, D.C., on self-sustaining nonprofits.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s when I thought: we sell beer all day,\u201d Berglund said. \u201cWhat if we create our own beer, and we choose to give all of the profits from this one beer to our own foundation, and then we pick one cause, and we really make a difference? It took me a little while to sell Kieran on the idea.\u201d<\/p>\n

With that, Berglund and Folliard set about creating Finnegan\u2019s Irish Amber, named in reference to James Joyce\u2019s final work. They contacted James Page Brewing Company in Minneapolis to help them create the beer, eventually selecting one recipe from more than\u00a040 options provided by the brewmaster.<\/p>\n

At this point, Berglund and Folliard realized that running Finnegan\u2019s and its community foundation would consume all of Berglund\u2019s time. That left one choice: quit Cara Pubs and focus on Finnegan\u2019s, or let the idea die.<\/p>\n

Berglund bought the Finnegan\u2019s recipe for $1 from Folliard.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was kind of scary, leaving that job, from having a good salary to no salary,\u201d Berglund said. \u201cIt was very scary. It was rather terrifying. I\u2019ve had a lot of terrifying moments\u2014I must handle stress well. I\u2019m still walking and talking and not in a straitjacket.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"JacquieStarting in 2000, Berglund created for-profit Finnegan\u2019s Inc., which donates all of its profits from beer sales to her nonprofit creation, which is now called Finnegan\u2019s Community Fund. She taught herself the beer trade. James Page produced Finnegan\u2019s on contract, but she was responsible for selling it to distributors.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t even know what a keg fee was,\u201d Berglund recalls.<\/p>\n

Finnegan\u2019s community focus sold the beer. Distributors, liquor stores, bars, and restaurants in the Twin Cities were sympathetic to Berglund\u2019s cause \u2014 and it helped that the beer was popular during the burgeoning craft brew craze. Though she wasn\u2019t turning a profit yet, Berglund was able to make a $2,000 donation in her first year of operation.<\/p>\n

Then, James Page Brewing Company shut down in 2002.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was a mess\u2014I was totally a mess,\u201d Berglund said. \u201cI started to panic, \u2018If they go out of business, I\u2019m going to go out of business.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Thinking quickly, Berglund contacted Mark Stutrud, founder of Summit Brewing Company in St. Paul.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey really didn\u2019t do contract brewing, but I think that [Stutrud] appreciated the community-mindedness of what I was doing,\u201d Berglund said. \u201cPlus, I already had a list of accounts, so I already had a proven track record that I could make this thing work.\u201d<\/p>\n

To this day, Finnegan\u2019s is produced at Summit. In 2003, Finnegan\u2019s made its first profit. By 2009, Finnegan\u2019s was selling 4,300 barrels per year to 475 restaurants and 600 liquor stores in Minnesota and beyond, which translated into $30,000 for the Finnegan\u2019s Community Fund. That money, in addition to direct donations, is being used to fund local grassroots community organizations that are helping the working poor.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I came back from France, I volunteered in St. Stephen\u2019s shelter in Minneapolis,\u201d Berglund said. \u201cI got to see for myself \u2026 a lot of these guys get up to work factory jobs at 3 or 4 o\u2019clock in the morning. I saw how many of these guys were working and still homeless.\u201d<\/p>\n

The needs of the working poor strike a personal chord for Berglund. Growing up, her father started working as a janitor before moving up the ranks, while her mother was a waitress.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember as a kid not being able to participate in church activities because we didn\u2019t have the money,\u201d Berglund said. \u201cI feel so fortunate to be able to have done all of the things that I do. I think that, \u2018Boy, it\u2019s nice to give back a little bit.\u2019 We owe a bit of gratitude.\u201d<\/p>\n

That background helps explain Berglund\u2019s drive to build a self-sustaining nonprofit that can help the working poor regardless of government grants or philanthropic whims. But it also comes down to faith in your vocation.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhenever I do speaking engagements, that\u2019s my whole thing: It\u2019s about following your passions, and then at some point, the dots will connect. Even though it seems so remote that they could possibly connect,\u201d Berglund said. \u201cWhen I came back and was working in the pub, I thought, \u2018What am I doing here? How does this connect to this whole dream job I had of international development projects?\u2019 I just had faith that it\u2019s going to come\u2014I\u2019m going to find it. It\u2019s kind of that whole \u2018calling\u2019 thing at Augsburg\u2014I knew I was going to find it, it was just going to take a minute.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Bryan Barnes \u201cI read this article in Time magazine, interviewing all of these 80- and 90-year-old people,\u201d said Jacquie Berglund \u201987. \u201cThe overwhelming feedback from their question, \u2018If you could change one thing, what would it be?\u2019 was that they all wish they had taken more risks.\u201d That was 1983, when Berglund was in <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":8153,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[46],"class_list":["post-469","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured-stories","tag-spring-2010"],"wps_subtitle":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=469"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8163,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469\/revisions\/8163"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}