COCA-COLA PLEDGES $500,000 TO THE DRUCKER INSTITUTE AT CLAREMONT GRADUATE UNIVERSITY

Specifically, the grant from The Coca-Cola Foundation will be used to increase the first-place Drucker Award from $35,000 to $100,000, beginning in 2009. The second place award of $7,500 and the third place prize of $5,000 will remain unchanged.

"This extraordinarily generous gift from The Coca-Cola Foundation underscores just how important it is for nonprofit organizations to innovate-something that Peter Drucker wrote and talked about long before there was such an intense focus on the social sector and social entrepreneurship," said Rick Wartzman, director of the Drucker Institute, a campus-wide resource of Claremont Graduate University. "This gift allows us to better recognize the work being done by leading nonprofits, while also raising the awareness of Peter Drucker's seminal contributions to the field. We couldn't be more pleased to have Coca-Cola as our partner."

Said Ingrid Saunders Jones, chair of The Coca-Cola Foundation, "Nonprofits play a vital role in creating sustainable communities, and we are pleased to assist the Drucker Institute in its efforts to identify and reward best practice programs in nonprofit innovation."

The Peter F. Drucker Award for Nonprofit Innovation, administered annually since 1991, is granted to a social sector organization that demonstrates Drucker's definition of innovation-change that creates a new dimension of performance. This year's winner, selected from more than 500 nonprofits that applied for the award, was recently announced. It is KickStart International, a San Francisco-based organization that fights poverty in Africa by creating and selling simple tools that help poor entrepreneurs increase their income. Among its innovations is the MoneyMaker irrigation pump, which allows small-scale growers to produce high-value crops year-round and make the transition from subsistence farming to commercial agriculture.

This year's runner-up is Hidden Harvest, based in Coachella, Calif. The program employs low-income farm workers to "rescue" produce that is left behind in fields and orchards after harvest. This fresh and nutritious food is, in turn, delivered free of charge to more than 60 local agencies that serve the poor and hungry. The third-place winner is the Bethesda, Md.-based Calvert Foundation. Its Community Investment Notes raise capital from individual and institutional investors and lend it to nonprofits and social entrepreneurs working around the world to alleviate poverty and promote sustainable development.

The winners from the 2008 competition will be honored at an Oct. 28 dinner in Los Angeles, featuring Wendy Kopp, the founder of Teach for America, as the keynote speaker. The awards dinner will be preceded by a daylong conference on nonprofit effectiveness. The keynote speaker at the daytime event will be Karen Baker, California's Secretary of Service and Volunteering-the first such cabinet-level position in the nation.

Widely considered the father of modern management, Drucker not only consulted for major corporations, he advised the Girl Scouts, the Red Cross, the Salvation Army and countless other social-sector organizations. He called the nonprofit sector "America's most distinctive institution."

About The Coca-Cola Company
The Coca-Cola Company is the world's largest beverage company, refreshing consumers with more than 450 sparkling and still brands. Along with Coca-Cola®, recognized as the world's most valuable brand, the Company's portfolio includes 12 other billion dollar brands, including Diet Coke®, Fanta®, Sprite®, Coca-Cola Zero®, vitaminwater, POWERade®, Minute Maid® and Georgia® Coffee. Globally, we are the No. 1 provider of sparkling beverages, juices and juice drinks and ready-to-drink teas and coffees. Through the world's largest beverage distribution system, consumers in more than 200 countries enjoy the Company's beverages at a rate of 1.5 billion servings a day. With an enduring commitment to building sustainable communities, our Company is focused on initiatives that protect the environment, conserve resources and enhance the economic development of the communities where we operate. For more information about our Company, please visit our website at www.thecoca-colacompany.com.

About the Drucker Institute
The Drucker Institute at Claremont Graduate University is a think tank and action tank whose purpose is to stimulate effective management and ethical leadership across all sectors of society. It does this, in large part, by advancing the ideas and ideals of Peter F. Drucker, the father of modern management.

The Institute acts as a hub for a worldwide network of Drucker Societies, volunteer-driven organizations that are using Drucker's teachings to affect positive change in their local communities.

In addition, the Institute maintains a digital archive of Drucker's papers; undertakes research that builds on Drucker's writings; offers a major prize for nonprofit innovation; produces curricular material that distills Drucker's decades of leading-edge thinking; applies Drucker's work to current events (including through a regular online column in BusinessWeek by Institute Director Rick Wartzman); presents a slide show exploring the "Responsibility Gap"-society's collective failure to be good and ethical stewards of our resources, people and institutions; and hosts visiting fellows with Drucker-like insights and values.

The Institute is a close affiliate of the Peter F. Drucker and Masatoshi Ito Graduate School of Management.

About Claremont Graduate University
Founded in 1925, Claremont Graduate University is one of the top graduate schools in the United States. Our nine academic schools conduct leading-edge research and award masters and doctoral degrees in 22 disciplines. Because the world's problems are not simple nor easily defined, diverse faculty and students research and study across the traditional discipline boundaries to create new and practical solutions for the major problems plaguing our world. A Southern California based graduate school devoted entirely to graduate research and study, CGU boasts a low student-to-faculty ratio.

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