Today’s CSRwire News Alert featured a release from PepsiCo announcing the 2011 continuation of the Pepsi Refresh Project.  That’s good news for people, organizations and communities in the U.S. and Canada, where the program has been in place since February.

The Pepsi Refresh Project is an innovative approach to both marketing and grantmaking.  The program was designed and is funded by Pepsi marketing and represents a new approach to engaging the public and, specifically, Pepsi customers.  In fact, Pepsi chose to launch the Refresh Project instead of investing in Super Bowl advertising, a bold and risky move that has paid off.

Here’s how it works:  individual and organizations submit “refreshing ideas” or projects that create social good at refresheveryting.com.  In turn, the public votes on the ideas and Pepsi awards grants of $5,000 to $250,000 to the top 32 voter-getters each month.  In 2010, Pepsi will grant more than $20M in grants.

The Pepsi Refresh Project has been a wild success attracting 42M votes across 7,500 ideas in its first eight months.  This represents a real movement in civic engagement, social change awareness and, of course, brand visibility for Pepsi.

Mission Measurement partners with Pepsi and GOOD Projects to measure the social impact of the Pepsi Refresh Project.  By gathering data from each grant winner, Mission Measurement aggregates the total number of lives improved, communities enhanced, organizations strengthened and ideas advanced as a result of Pepsi’s generosity.  Additionally, Mission Measurement captures the “ripple effect” of the Project, tracking new volunteers, donors and incremental funding that is brought to the social change movement as a result of the Pepsi Refresh Project. 

So far, Mission Measurement estimates that more than 200,000 lives have been positively impacted by the Refresh Project.  This number is expected to increase dramatically in the coming months as more grant winners complete their projects and more grants are given by Pepsi.  This impact data, as referenced in today’s press release, plays a critical role in Pepsi’s evaluation of the project and decision to continue it.