mission

make someone’s day just a little bit better.

The Happy Cup Project works with local coffee shops to serve coffee with a compliment. One day, ever so often, many of the coffee cups in a neighborhood will have a compliment on them. A customer who receives a Happy Cup is asked to post a selfie with their compliment under the #HappyCupProject on Instagram. That way, a platform of positivity is created online, and local businesses—whose individual logos are featured on the compliment sticker—are advertised.

how it happens

It all begins with a target date and a few local coffee shops. Before the compliments are distributed, the cups and coffee sleeves are picked up and brought to another location to be decorated with a compliment sticker. The cups are typically designated for cold drinks, while sleeves are for warm drinks. A variety of ten different compliment stickers are randomly assigned to each cup. The stickers feature the compliment, the logo of the host coffee shop, and the “#HappyCupProject on Instagram.”

TheHappy Cup Project is designed to make people smile in the most random ways. Wouldn’t it be silly to receive a compliment on a tie when you aren’t wearing one?

That morning, all compliment-decorated cups and sleeves are returned to the coffee shop. Typically, all host coffee shops will receive their cups and sleeves on the same date. This is so that there is a day in which practically all the coffee cups in a neighborhood are decorated with a compliment.

Our happy customers submit a selfie with their compliment under the #HappyCupProject on Instagram. The hashtag and instructions are featured on the bottom of the compliment sticker.