Coca-Cola’s Collaboration with JRF Continues to Have a Lasting Impact

A long time Jackie Robinson Foundation partner, for nearly 40 years the Coca-Cola Company has remained engaged with JRF in a variety of ways.

The Coca-Cola Company has been collaborating with the Jacke Robinson Foundation since 1986, contributing more than $4.4 in total support, including $2.4 million in scholarship support. Coca-Cola’s commitment to higher education is the driving force behind the company’s long-standing relationship with the Jackie Robinson Foundation. Coca-Cola has supported 46 JRF Scholars since 1986 including five current members of the class of 2026.

In his acceptance speech for the Robie Industry Award at JRF’s Annuals Awards Dinner, former President and Chief Operating Officer of the Coca-Cola Company Donald R. Knauss spoke of the seven guiding values the company shared with Jackie Robinson. “We have a wallet card at the Coca-Cola North America and on that little card which everyone carries around…on one side we have our business goals and aspirations but on the other side we’ve captured seven values that we think are critical to the success of our company; they are leadership, accountability, collaboration, quality, innovation, passion, and integrity, said Knauss, adding, “I could spend a whole speech on one of those values and give examples of how Jackie Robinson personified that value….but looking at one of them, like collaboration, whether he was turning a double play with Pee Wee Reese or working on the creation of the Freedom Bank in Harlem it was obvious that Jackie Robinson believed strongly in collaboration.”

An early highlight of the partnership between Coca-Cola and the Jackie Robinson Foundation was the creation of the “Jackie Robinson: An American Journey” traveling museum exhibit in 1987. In conjunction with the 40th anniversary of Robinson’s historic debut as major league baseball’s first Black player, the Coca-Cola company provided JRF with a $1.2 million dollar sponsorship. The exhibit containing more than 175 photographs, and 200 artifacts began its two-year tour at the New York Historical Society in New York City and was also on display at the California Afro-American Museum in Los Angeles, the Robert W. Woodruff Library in Atlanta, and made stops in Chicago and Washington D.C.

In 2011, when awarded the Foundation’s Robie Humanitarian Award, Ingrid Saunders Jones, Senior VP of Global Community Connections for the Coca-Cola Foundation spoke of the company’s ties to the JRF Scholars.

“I want you to know that our expectations of you are very large. I want you to know that my path to this job, to this place, required making choices that were at the time filled with risks,” said Saunders-Jones, adding, “…Looking back now, I see that each of these moves gave me the skills that I needed to reach this place so that I could work with purpose.”
Coca Cola has demonstrated their commitment to equipping JRF Scholars through their participation in the Mentoring and Leadership Development Program. Led by Alba Castilla Baylin, Vice President Stakeholder and Social Impact manager, staffers have served as mentors and conference faculty advisors. Today, several JRF alumni work for the company including: Diletha Waldon ’86, Regulatory Compliance Manager; Angelia Lumpkin ’97, Solutions Architect; and Christina Joseph ’01, General Counsel and Secretary, Coca Cola Bottlers’ Sales & Services Company.

More than providing sponsorship funding and assistance creating high-profile traveling museum exhibits, the Coca Cola Company has shared its world-famous brand and presence as a means of promoting and supporting the Jackie Robinson Foundation in reaching its aspirations.