Dear beverage professionals:
We are writing to you with a farewell, though hopefully not a permanent goodbye. After years of effort in raising funds for the life-changing educational opportunities SommFoundation offers, we are now making the choice to take a hiatus in 2025 in order to build up an organization that can be stronger than ever when we reopen in 2026.
Since early 2022, SommFoundation has lost over $200,000 in funding, which means we have some tough choices to make. We have sadly seen cuts to philanthropic spending; changes in industry priorities regarding education and outreach; and decreased giving to corporate diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. This year, we will work with our partners to fine-tune our mission so that we can best meet the needs of aspiring professionals and the industry at large while building a sustainable model for the future.
As you know, SommFoundation champions and supports a long-term vision for the accessibility and continued growth of the beverage-alcohol business, which is worth $200 billion in the U.S. alone. We believe this requires support for the passionate, knowledgeable, dependable, driven individuals from diverse backgrounds who represent its future. In the process of making this difficult decision to pause operations, maintaining transparency concerning our mission to provide career-changing educational opportunities to these individuals—many of whom otherwise couldn’t afford them—has been at the top of our priorities.
In mid-November 2024, we launched a month-long fundraising campaign on social media. We were blown away by the support we saw from you, our community. The number of Instagram accounts we reached during this short period of time went up 144%, with engagement up 219%. The clicks on our external links were up 550% and we had almost 20,000 impressions on our posts. We see each and every one of you out there who did everything you could to spread the word that SommFoundation provides an essential service and needs financial support to keep going. Your messages regarding what SommFoundation has done for you and why we are needed are deeply moving to read. We are grateful for all of you.
However, we were unable to raise the necessary amount. To remain in good standing with our supporters, donors, vendors, and most importantly our applicants, then, SommFoundation is auctioning off the wines that remain in our cellar, which had been in reserve for our educational programs. By doing this, we hope to ensure that our nonprofit can remain active as we continue to fundraise, albeit without our small but mighty support staff or incurring any other costs outside of the bare minimum needed to avoid dissolution. Meanwhile, we have offered to refund all donations made toward scholarships and enrichment trips that we cannot fulfill at this time, although our intention is to resume all our endeavors in 2026.
We hope that we, as the all-volunteer board of directors, will be able to renew the large gifts that used to sustain SommFoundation and help over 2,000 individuals since 2003 to access education that fueled their passion and success. While it deeply saddens us to be in the position we are in (in truth, it breaks our hearts—nonprofit work is inherently emotional, after all), we remain hopeful that we will come back in a stronger position to offer another 20 years or more of service.
During this time, please share our story and our website with your networks, your employers, and anyone who may contribute to future educational opportunities. SommFoundation was built by and for the wine community, and you are what has made us successful for more than two decades. If you are interested in supporting our mission, please contact me at [email protected]. Thank you again—we can’t wait to be a part of your education and positive growth next year.
Thomas Price, Master Sommelier,
Chairman of the Board,
SommFoundation Board of Directors