The first Benefit Restaurant™, The Elephant Walk in Waltham, Massachusetts, has been giving 4% of its sales to nonprofits since September, 2009. With sales of over $1,000,000 annually, the restaurant will give over $40,000 each year.

Consequently, funding to local nonprofits has increased by more than $3,300 per month, with no related increase in fundraising or administrative costs to either party.

Our Project focus is Poverty and these core components: Hunger, Homelessness, and Education. Nonprofit beneficiaries thus far include Project Bread, The Greater Boston Food Bank, Pine Street Inn, Horizons for Homeless Children, Waltham Education and Beyond Foundation, Future Chefs, School on Wheels of Massachusetts, More Than Words, City Year, and SmallCanBeBig.org. – We also holds “Crisis Reserve” which was first released in January 2009 to Partners In Health after the Haiti Earthquake.

The Elephant Walk’s guests are reading asking questions about the beneficiaries, raising public awareness of those nonprofits.

Sales began rising at the restaurant in December 2009 and have increased over 9% per month ever since. It is impossible to establish absolute causality between changes in sales and participation in the Benefit Restaurant™ Project. However, although sales at the other two Elephant Walk restaurants have risen as well during this period, they’ve gone up less than 6% [which may partially attributable as well to their related entity's BRP association], strongly suggesting that the Benefit Restaurant™ commitment is making a difference.

Of course, these sales gains are in turn increasing both restaurant profitability and donations to beneficiaries. Synergies. Virtuous circles. Win-wins. They’re here, by design, at the core of The Benefit Restaurant™ Project!