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Investing in People Through Mentor it Forward

AIUC Global was created to bring clarity to how AI is used in the world. The AI Usage Classification™ gives creators, organisations, and communities a practical way to communicate how AI contributed to their work. The framework brings transparency, which builds trust, and trust strengthens the relationship between people and technology.

This commitment to ethical and responsible practice naturally extends to social responsibility. AIUC Global, being part of the Pledge1% movement, directs a fixed portion of its revenue to Mentor it Forward. This is far from being a symbolic gesture. It reflects a view that progress in technology should always be matched with progress in opportunity and human development.

Mentor it Forward  (MiF) is a community built around access to the workforce. Many professionals begin their journey with motivation, skill, and potential, yet struggle to gain a foothold in the industry. The mentoring ecosystem provides guidance, structure, and the network that individuals need in order to step into their first real opportunities. AIUC Global invests in this work because it recognises that trust in innovation begins with trust in the people who create it.

The people behind Mentor it Forward

The link between AIUC and MiF sits in shared values. Both organisations operate with a focus on empowerment, clarity, and fairness. AIUC supports transparency in the use of AI so that creators can stand behind their work with confidence. MiF helps people build the confidence and capability they need for their early career journey. Both aim to reduce barriers, simplify complexity, and lift communities into stronger positions.

Joining Pledge1% helps formalise this intent. It sets a consistent expectation that AIUC Global will continue to direct part of its success toward programs that support development, inclusion, and talent growth. As AI becomes more widespread, it becomes even more important to invest in individuals who are preparing to build the next wave of innovation. Supporting MiF helps create that foundation.

For AIUC Global, responsible practice includes more than classification badges and policies. It includes the decision to strengthen the community that surrounds the technology. By contributing to Mentor it Forward, AIUC affirms that the future of AI should be shaped with care, opportunity, and shared progress.

At Team4Tech, we’re not just connecting dots—we’re igniting sparks. As a nonprofit impact accelerator, we bring together purpose-driven companies and powerhouse nonprofits to advance digital equity through skills-based volunteering. With flexible program models that meet companies where they are, we help unleash employee talent for good. Just ask our trailblazing partners—and proud Pledge 1% champions—Cadence and Salesforce. Over the past 8 years, Cadence has worked with us on 35+ projects, mobilizing 275+ rockstar employees for more than 15,700 hours of tech-forward service. Their stories? A symphony of impact, from quick hits to deep dives, all driving nonprofit innovation.

Recent skills-based volunteering features from our partnership with Cadence:

Meanwhile, Salesforce has been making a difference too—20 capacity-building projects in just three years, with 7,000+ volunteer hours valued at nearly $1.4 million. Want to learn more about the employee experience? Read reflections from Salesforce changemakers like Michael Kennedy, Jackson Gambrill, and Cynthia Mastrodomenico as they share how purpose and passion intersect in the field. 

Recent skills-based volunteering features from our partnership with Salesforce:

Skills-based volunteering isn’t just generous—it’s transformative. When professionals apply their expertise to nonprofit challenges, they unlock capacity, spark innovation, and build lasting impact. It’s a win-win: nonprofits gain critical support in technology, strategy, and operations, while employees grow into leaders, collaborators, and changemakers. Whether through immersive projects or bite-sized engagements, skills-based volunteering turns purpose into practice—and helps companies live their values while driving real-world change.

Zr3i — origin and mission


Zr3i started in early 2022 with a clear conviction: smallholder farmers in Egypt and the Arab world deserve the same precision, prediction, and market access that large agribusinesses use. We build Arabic-first, mobile‑friendly tools that translate satellite imagery, AI, and local agronomy into actionable guidance farmers can use the same day. Our mission is to boost yields, reduce input waste, strengthen market linkages, and build climate resilience for small farms.

What Zr3i does

A global first: carbon sequestration for date palm trees

Zr3i is now integrating carbon‑sequestration measurement for date palm trees into our platform — the first time this metric has been included at scale globally. By combining high‑resolution remote sensing, field calibrations, and crop‑specific carbon models, we can estimate carbon stocks and sequestration rates for date palms and translate those measurements into credible, farmer‑level climate benefits. This capability unlocks new pathways for climate finance, carbon incentive programs, and sustainability claims that directly benefit palm-growing smallholders and their communities.

Impact to date and scalable uses

Pilots have validated our remote‑sensing workflows, mobile delivery, and farmer adoption, producing measurable improvements in decision timing and input efficiency.

The date‑palm carbon module enables farmer access to emerging carbon markets, pay‑for‑performance programs, and donor investments that reward climate‑positive land management.

We prioritize gender‑sensitive outreach and subsidized access for the most vulnerable cooperatives to ensure benefits are broadly shared.

Why we pledge with Pledge 1%

Committing product, equity, and time through Pledge 1% institutionalizes our social mission: it makes it easier to guarantee subsidized access, fund local extension, and open anonymized datasets for research and policy. Pledge 1% helps convert technical capability into verified, long‑term benefits for smallholders and for landscape‑level climate outcomes.

How contributions will be used

Invitation

We invite the Pledge 1% community to join us in a pilot to validate farmer‑level carbon payments for date palms while scaling agronomic benefits across 1,000 smallholder plots over 12 months. Together we can prove a model where precision agritech, verified carbon finance, and equitable access combine to raise incomes, strengthen resilience, and reward climate stewardship.

Willamette Technical Fabricators is a structural metal manufacturing company whose mission is to build sustainable infrastructure and sustainable careers. We focus on building transportation and clean energy infrastructure, as well as other custom, complex fabrication projects. We were founded in 2020 and certified as a Benefit Company in 2022 by Benefit Corporations for Good. Each year we publish an annual benefit report detailing how we are demonstrating our commitment to a quadruple bottom line of people, planet, profit, and purpose.

People: As a minority- and woman-owned small business, we strive to create a truly inclusive workplace. We work closely with community-based organizations to offer high-skill, high-wage, high-demand career opportunities to the communities that need them the most, including women, people of color, and people affected by the criminal justice system. We have retained our employees with extremely low attrition thanks to: transparent and highly competitive wages that reflect our budget for a given position instead of applicants’ compensation history; promotions based exclusively on merit; paid on-the-job training and tuition assistance; unlimited paid time off for salary workers, generous PTO for hourly workers, and flexibility for everyone to have a healthy work/life balance; the same comprehensive healthcare benefits for all employees and their families, and a company match of up to 4% total compensation for 401(k) contributions.

Planet: We have strategically located our facilities on the Willamette and Columbia Rivers to minimize the carbon impact of shipping heavy materials. We are conducting US Department of Energy-funded robotic welding research to improve the cost-competitiveness of American manufacturing for floating offshore wind and pumped storage hydropower, so that clean-energy infrastructure that makes us more resilient and energy-independent can be built locally instead of being shipped across the Pacific while keeping those jobs local. We recycle all of our scrap metal and purchase almost exclusively materials made with recycled content and manufactured in the USA. We adapted our production work schedules and support flexibility for those able to do their jobs from home to minimize carbon emissions from commuting. We use high-efficiency power sources for our equipment to minimize energy consumption, and electric vehicles in our fleet.

Profit: As a for-profit company, Willamette Technical Fabricators provides profit-sharing bonuses to salary employees and real cost of living adjustments for our hourly staff, plus PTO bonuses when we beat our production schedules. We have committed to donating at least 1% of company net profits to charitable organizations that serve our communities and advance the causes that our staff are passionate about. All staff members have the opportunity to vote on the non-profit organizations that we support, and corporate giving is decided collectively. This year we gave $25,000 to local organizations including the Boys & Girls Club, Children’s Institute, Clark County Food Bank, Columbia Land Trust, Evergreen Habitat for Humanity, Free Clinic of Southwest Washington, Friends of the Children, Humane Society , National Association of Minority Contractors, Oregon Business Academy, and YWCA Clark County.

Purpose: Our company leadership is active on many advisory boards and in appointed public roles, advocating on behalf of a more equitable economy, environmental stewardship, and support for businesses like ours working to those ends. In 2023 our CEO testified in support of the successful passage of Oregon House Bill 3572 that provides registered benefit companies with a sustainable advantage, and encourages more businesses to commit to people, planet, and profit as we have done. Our employees are actively engaged in community outreach and we frequently host visitors including elected officials, families, and students, to showcase how manufacturing jobs can serve as a positive force for change for the environment, improve connectivity, access, and resiliency, and drive economic development, creating life-changing wealth generation opportunities for members of under-served communities.

That spirit of giving is what inspired me to join Pledge 1%, making a commitment to give back in recognition of all I have received.

Hoopsy was born out of a deeply personal experience that sparked an unexpected discovery. After two failed embryo transfers during an IVF journey, I found myself reflecting on hope, resilience, and, surprisingly, waste. The IVF process, in particular, ovulation and pregnancy testing, meant to bring life, was creating another kind of problem: plastic waste. Every test I used, even for only a few minutes, added to a growing environmental burden. The realization that millions of women went through the same thing I did every month was sobering: a joyful and intimate process for many was silently contributing to a global plastic crisis. Determined to change that, I founded Hoopsy in 2021.

The name Hoopsy comes from the old Dutch word hoop, meaning “hope.” It symbolizes the optimism of trying to start a family and the perseverance required to navigate life’s challenges, the hoops we all jump through to achieve our dreams.

Hoopsy’s mission is ambitious yet necessary: to create sustainable, plastic-free diagnostic tests and set a new industry standard for environmental responsibility.

In 2022 and with immense support from so many people, we launched the world’s first 99% plastic-free pregnancy test in the UK. But the journey did not stop there. In pursuit of total sustainability, in 2025, I relocated to the United States to lead the development of a 100% plastic-free pregnancy test, currently undergoing clinical testing for FDA approval, expected by July 2026. Alongside this innovation, Hoopsy is pioneering an eco-friendly packaging solution to ensure every part of the testing experience aligns with our mission of protecting the planet.

Through Hoopsy, I am redefining what hope looks like, not only for those dreaming of parenthood but also for a world striving to live more sustainably.

Most importantly, giving back has been at the core of our business model. Thanks to Pledge 1%, we have been able to donate over 20,000 plastic-free pregnancy tests to university students in the UK, making a direct impact on young women’s lives. Each donation is a way to return the generosity I have experienced throughout my startup journey, creating a cycle of support and empowerment.

As Hoopsy grows, our commitment to community and sustainability remains stronger than ever. This Giving Tuesday, and every day, we celebrate the power of giving, the connections we build, and the positive difference a founder can make by paying forward the support they have received.

Beneath the waves lies a silent emergency—one that connects humanity’s maritime heritage to the future of our one global ocean. The Ocean Foundation’s Ocean Heritage Initiative stands at the forefront of this crisis through a revolutionary flagship project that demonstrates that cultural preservation and environmental protection are not competing priorities but complementary solutions to the same urgent challenge

More than 8,500 shipwrecks worldwide contain enough oil and hazardous materials to cause environmental disasters that would dwarf recent spills, while simultaneously destroying irreplaceable underwater archaeological sites and war graves. These aging vessels, many casualties of the World Wars, represent a dual threat that traditional conservation approaches have failed to address comprehensively. Our groundbreaking partnership with Lloyd’s Register Foundation and Waves Group tackles these ticking time bombs through an innovative model that recognizes shipwrecks as both cultural treasures and environmental hazards requiring integrated solutions.

The crisis embodies a profound injustice: vulnerable coastal communities that played no role in creating these underwater hazards face the greatest risks from catastrophic spills and heritage loss. Through international workshops spanning from London to Malta, we’ve built a global coalition of experts developing the standards and protocols needed to address these dual threats before they become catastrophes, while ensuring those most affected have the strongest voice in developing solutions. Our work has already prompted UNEP to commit to developing new guidelines for wreck management, while UNESCO has recognized the urgent need for cross-sectoral cooperation in protecting maritime heritage.

The project demonstrates how heritage preservation can drive environmental policy, creating frameworks that simultaneously safeguard marine ecosystems and honor the cultural significance of these underwater sites. Where traditional approaches see separate problems requiring separate solutions, we see interconnected heritage requiring integrated protection—transforming ocean threats into conservation opportunities that preserve both our maritime past and marine future for generations to come.

For more information on our Ocean Heritage Initiative, see here.

For the call to action on Potentially Polluting Wrecks read the Malta Manifesto here.

Our road map going forward is to implement or foster the implementation of the 14 recommendations in the Insight Report, “Potentially polluting wrecks: protecting people and planet.” See our road map here



I recently visited a 2nd-grade classroom to introduce the children to the fun side of Artificial Intelligence. We started by taking simple photos and then used AI to transform each child into a unique superhero. The excitement in the room was incredible.

Next, the students asked the AI their own questions—everything from “Do robots dream?” to “Can you make a story about my cat?” Together, we created funny and imaginative stories in just seconds, showing how AI can make creative tasks much faster.

At the end of the workshop, we talked about the most important idea:
AI can help us speed things up and make amazing images and stories, but real creativity and real feelings still come from people. AI can imitate emotions, but it cannot truly feel them.

The children left the classroom inspired, knowing that technology is powerful—but their imagination is even stronger.

At Odyssey Advisors, giving back has always been more than a corporate initiative — it’s part of who we are. Inspired by Salesforce’s 1-1-1 model and a 2019 holiday giving column by New York Times writer Nicholas Kristof, we began imagining what a meaningful, authentic, and team-driven approach to philanthropy could look like for our organization.

That reflection led us to develop a hybrid giving model rooted in the Pledge 1% ethos: Odyssey donates 1% of our gross revenues each year, and every team member has the opportunity to direct a portion of that giving to the causes that matter most to them. Rather than leadership selecting organizations, we empower our employees to be the decision-makers, ensuring our impact is personal, diverse, and deeply meaningful.

Why this approach?

Because each team member brings their own passions, lived experiences, and perspectives on the issues affecting their communities. By centering their voices, we not only broaden our charitable impact but also cultivate a culture of empathy, awareness, and shared purpose. Our model allows employees to champion organizations doing work they care deeply about — from local rescue shelters and addiction recovery programs to global health nonprofits and child hunger advocacy groups.

Every year, the range of causes our team chooses reminds us of how powerful collective giving can be. Whether supporting Alzheimer’s research, providing life-saving medical care in Uganda, helping families adopt rescued animals, or ensuring children in the United States have access to nutritious meals, our employees continually highlight the needs they see in the world and the ways we can make a meaningful difference together.

Our goal in sharing this story isn’t to seek recognition, but to inspire. Like so many teams, we asked ourselves: How can we give back in a way that truly reflects who we are? Our Pledge 1% journey has become our answer. Each year, our team drives impact that extends far beyond Odyssey and we’re beyond grateful to our employees and clients who make that possible.

As we celebrate another year of giving, we’re reminded that generosity thrives when people are empowered to lead it. Every contribution, no matter the size, becomes part of a collective effort to renew, restore, and uplift our communities. This is the heart of our tradition and we’re proud to share it as part of the Pledge 1% movement.

At Equitable Philanthropy, we believe that when funders give strategically and charities are truly funder-ready, impact accelerates. In 2025, we supported charities across Australia to diversify income, strengthen cases for support, and engage with funders in authentic, values-aligned ways. We also advised families and foundations to identify genuine change-makers and structure their giving for long-term, multiplier effects.

A core part of our 1% commitment is sector capacity-building. This year alone, we delivered hundreds of pro-bono training hours through the Institute of Community Directors Australia, Pressroom Philanthropy’s podcast, Fundraising & Philanthropy (F&P) conferences, The Education Network’s national conferences, and Matchmore’s event program — all focused on lifting capability across the social impact ecosystem.

We don’t just move money. We build the bridge that helps it reach where it can create the most good.

Impact highlights

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