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From the beginning, Svenson wanted to use MOD Pizza to foster positive social impact. First and foremost, he said he wanted to spread MOD-ness through “The ripple effect of just doing the right thing.” Since 2008, the company has donated $4.3 million to charities nationwide.
In 2018, MOD Pizza donated $1.8 million to their nonprofit partners, including anti-childhood hunger organization Generosity Feeds, which made 450,000 meals for hungry children over the past year. In June 2018, MOD introduced its first Impact Pizza called “The Isaac” named after a Chicago-area teen who died by suicide in 2017. More than $60,000 was donated to a suicide prevention organization, the Jed Foundation, as a result of the initiative.
The Svensons also do good internally and have become known for hiring employees who need second chances, like former felons.
“We believe in them often more than they believe in themselves,” Svenson said in a July 2018 interview.
MOD Pizza has been named a top workplace for diversity, for women, and for Millennials, and has become known for offering above-average wages and benefits.
“We believe in getting out and spending time with people and making sure we have ‘culture carriers’ out there when new stores open,” Svenson said at NRN’s MUFSO conference in 2016.
“Our business is built around and for our people. We have chosen to be people-centric.”
MOD Pizza has quadrupled its number of employees in the past three years to 8,100, with a focus on impact.
Svenson’s charity-focused business model and the high MOD employee satisfaction rates have gotten the attention of outside investors. MOD Pizza has raised $185 million in equity capital, including $33 million in January 2018 and $42 million in November 2016.
These multiple rounds of funding over the years have been used to fuel the chain’s growth in new and existing markets in the United States. and United Kingdom.
MOD Pizza was named the fastest growing restaurant chain in NRN’s 2018 Top 200 report. That was the first year that MOD Pizza landed in the top 200, and it came in at number 141 thanks to 80 percent growth in domestic annual sales in 2017. Since 2016, MOD Pizza has opened at least 100 stores every year, adding 13 new states to the company’s market reach since 2016.
Svenson credits the chain’s rapid expansion to MOD’s involvement in the community:
“We accomplished this during a difficult period for the broader restaurant industry, and we believe our remarkable growth was enabled, in significant part, by our continued commitment to make a positive social impact,” he said in a 2018 press release.
MOD recently launched its first loyalty program and mobile app. The loyalty program offers a basic dollars-to-points-to-rewards structure with some personalization and customization based on user preferences.
True to Svenson’s original mission, the new app also allows customers to either cash in their points or donate them to a MOD Pizza charity partner.
“The next generation of loyalty is built on enhanced customer experience,” Kevin Flaherty, vice president of digital marketing, said in an interview earlier this month. “That’s when it goes beyond a transactional interaction and really builds brand regard.”
