This piece is shared as part of Pledge 1%’s #GivingTuesdayNow campaign, which highlights how Pledge 1% members and the business community are coming together as a force for good to combat COVID-19.
2020 was a very different year for us and for our community. COVID-19 brought a world of challenge and change to our pest control industry. We were tasked with first and foremost, finding a way to stay afloat. But in all of that searching, we continued to look for ways to stay close to our commitment to Pledge 1%.
When COVID-19 hit our community, we were struck and amazed by the dedication of folks in our local medical and first-response fields. We started to ask ourselves if there was any way that a company like ours–a pest control company–could find a way to give to our community and help with COVID-19. We saw how hard it was for the families of medical and first-responders to manage household tasks; and we thought, well, maybe there’s a way for us to take care of the little things, while these folks take care of the bug things. And that’s what we set out to do.
We created a special pest control program for medical and first responders that provided pest control with zero profit for ourselves. The program was an immediate hit. Folks were appreciative of the steep discount, and the peace of mind our service provided them. We are dedicated to providing this service at zero-profit for the rest of the year.
You can read more about our commitment to medical and first-responders on our Facebook and our website.
This piece is shared as part of Pledge 1%’s #GivingTuesdayNow campaign, which highlights how Pledge 1% members and the business community are coming together as a force for good to combat COVID-19.
The rapid spread of the novel COVID-19 has created an atmosphere of uncertainty for all of us. Reports from across India have solidified the grave impact that this pandemic has had on vulnerable communities. Large-scale migration of workers and laborers back to their villages and increasing reports of violence against women has increased challenges for communities across the country.
As a grant-making organization, EdelGive Foundation‘s first response was to ensure that our 43 NGO partners spread across 14 states are safe and able to cope with the situation. Our endeavor from the beginning was to ensure that their work with marginalized and vulnerable communities in some of the most remote locations of India, is not hampered. In the span of 3 weeks of the declaration of the lockdown, we were able to influence over INR 3 crore to support these organizations. We have also committed INR 10 crore for the first quarter to our NGO partners.
Simultaneously, we continued to reach out to the larger philanthropic ecosystem, connecting them to initiatives that were aiding poor, displaced and vulnerable communities. We understood early on that the need of the hour was to collectivize our efforts; being strategic, but timely with our funding; and ensuring we are leveraging our networks at both ends (funders and NGOs) optimally. This also paved way for the formation of the ‘Common Charter for Indian Donors and Philanthropic Community’, which EdelGive is Founding Signatory too. Vidya Shah, CEO, EdelGive Foundation along with Rohini Nilekani, Founder and Chairperson of Arghyam; Rishad Premji, Chairman, Wipro Limited; Amitabh Behar, CEO, Oxfam India and Ford Foundation, have developed and signed this charter, pledging support to their civil society partners, by introducing flexibilities and undertaking measures in their grant-making and monitoring mechanisms.
Through this engagement, we were also determined to share our learnings from our partners on the ground to others within the sector. We highlighted these learnings in two pieces, one titled, ‘How to approach your funding during COVID-19’, written by our COO, Naghma Mulla and published in India Development Review which explores the ways in which funders can be more empathetic and strategic when dealing with NGO partners; the second titled, ‘Will women bear the brunt of COVID-19’, written by our CEO, Vidya Shah which explores the increasing cases of domestic violence against women and the need for our relief initiatives to adopt a gendered approach.
Through all our initiatives, Edelweiss Group has continued to be our largest support system. Additionally, Edelweiss has contributed INR 2 crore to the PM-Cares fund and INR 50 lakh to the Chief Minister Relief Fund in Maharashtra respectively. Employees across Edelweiss have also been able to come together and raise over INR 12 lakh for our NGO partners in providing relief to over 35,000 families from vulnerable communities with cash transfers, food grains, and safety equipment. Individually, our employees are also doing their small bit towards helping those in need by providing financial aid to their house help and security guards, supporting senior citizens and participating in community kitchen activities.
Even with the unending challenges, we believe this pandemic has also given us a rare opportunity to stand in solidarity with each other. It has reflected the human spirit of giving, which shines through in these times and is a strong catalyst for change.
“As governments, businesses and civil society continue to play their respective parts in this crisis, there is also a lot we can individually do to support these communities in their time of need. Be it financial contributions, support to our house-help, or just leveraging our networks to spread useful information forward – all are small steps that will go a long way in curbing this situation.” – Vidya Shah, CEO, EdelGive Foundation
“By no means, is this an easy time for governments or civil society; there are too many complex, inter-related health, economic and humanitarian challenges. However, I do believe that Including a women-centric response to the crisis by supporting civil society organizations with knowledge and expertise will lead to a better-gendered approach to the crisis.” – Vidya Shah, CEO, EdelGive Foundation
“While large commitments to manufacturing masks and sourcing ventilators are welcome—and much needed, we (funders) also need to think about those who are on the brink of vulnerability to the virus and struggling with hunger and homelessness. Rehabilitation would ensure that the homeless, hungry, and jobless get self-employed or re-employed and have access to food and income security. Thus, large funders should set aside some of their energies and funds for the longer haul.” – Naghma Mulla, COO, EdelGive Foundation
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This piece is shared as part of Pledge 1%’s #GivingTuesdayNow campaign, which highlights how Pledge 1% members and the business community are coming together as a force for good to combat COVID-19.
The activation of the national defense law in the beginning of the crisis put a stop to services provided by gym studios and training services across the country. In the beginning, all registration and bookings made through the Connect to Fit application stopped completely.
Given that we already have a strong and operational online cashless payment system, we immediately launched online live fitness training sessions and encouraged our community of service providers to do the same.
Staying active at home during lockdown is not only important to maintaining our physical status, but is indeed important to maintaining a healthy and balanced mental status.
The lockdown pushed gyms and trainers to pivot and we started to deliver virtual workout sessions (both group, and one-on-one). This allowed gyms and trainers to maintain their source of income, and for those at home to maintain their sanity!
To that extent, we continued to encourage our trainers and gym owners to pivot and deliver classes virtually. We launched a campaign through which we directed proceeds generated towards the national COVID-19 fund.
This piece is shared as part of Pledge 1%’s #GivingTuesdayNow campaign, which highlights how Pledge 1% members and the business community are coming together as a force for good to combat COVID-19.
The spread of COVID-19 has put healthcare workers from all around the world on the front line of a rough battle, so has it in Taiwan. With the hard work and bravery of every healthcare worker, Taiwan is able to successfully keep the confirmed cases under 450, despite being only 1,300 miles from China.
Since the end of January, for almost three months, healthcare workers in Taiwan have been working non-stop, testing and treating patients. Long working hours plus frequent hand sanitization made them suffer from dry, cracked hands. Not only are these dry cracks painful, but they can also be dangerous as potential entry points for bacteria and viruses into the bodies.
We saw how we can contribute to beating the virus by protecting the healing hands of healthcare workers. In response to combating COVID-19, Inna Organic has donated 1000 dual-certified organic hand creams to hospitals in Taiwan including Keelung Hospital, Taoyuan Hospital, Changhua Hospital, National Cheng Kung University Hospital. By offering hand creams that are designed for sensitive or delicate skin, we helped relieve the pain and concern of cracked skin from healthcare workers so that they can put 100% energy into saving more lives.
We are proud to be a #ForceforGood with Pledge 1% and #GivingTuesdayNow, because we believe that any action of kindness can be the drop that starts the ripple. The small streams of individual kindness can eventually converge into a great, powerful river. This is the true power of 1%. When we start caring for our skin, ourselves, our community and the whole humanity, we begin to realize our capacity to care for others is infinite.
This piece is shared as part of Pledge 1%’s #GivingTuesdayNow campaign, which highlights how Pledge 1% members and the business community are coming together as a force for good to combat COVID-19.
“This means so much to me, from the bottom of my heart, thank you!” – Aussie Broadband customer
At Aussie Broadband one of our strongly held values is, “Don’t be ordinary, be awesome.” Despite all the challenges during these difficult times, we’ve never been prouder of how our Aussie family continues to display these values.
Our Customer Experience Manager, Emma Pezzimenti, is one of our team members who has risen to the challenge. She’s been leading a project to help our elderly customers who are currently isolated.
The project involves contacting our customers who are over 70 and letting them know that we’re thinking of them.
“We have such a large portion of our customers that fall into that category, so we thought it would be good to reach out to them,” Emma said.
“Essentially, it’s a well-being check to see if they need help in finding resources. We’ve been linking them to various services including TeleHealth, The Australian Post, pharmacy & grocery home delivery, Life Line and Beyond Blue,” she said.
“We’ve already called around 150 customers who don’t have email, typically customers who are on a voice only service. During the call, we offer them advice on how to stay connected with loved ones and their communities. Ultimately, it’s about health and well-being and checking to see if they need further support,” Emma said.
Over the next few days, an email will be sent to more than 1,200 elderly customers offering support across a range of services.
“So far, the response has been overwhelming and we really feel like we’re making a difference to people’s lives,” she said.
As a growth marketing firm for values-driven organizations, Copilot Crew‘s response to COVID-19 has focused on helping as many small businesses as possible to navigate the crisis, and keep their companies going and growing.
“How we’re helping small businesses survive this environment is unique to each organization, but the common thread is using business as a force for good, finding ways to give back, and adapting quickly and efficiently,” co-founder Hunter Boyle says.
For instance, they’ve helped a woman-owned skin care client launch a campaign to support Beyond Blue, Australia’s leading nonprofit for mental health and wellbeing services. They’ve helped another client, a (carbon-neutral) corporate consultancy, shift their services to prioritize career transition assistance and leadership development in tough times. The crew has been helping a female-founded fashion client that’s had to close its retail outlets maximize online sales to help offset losses. And they’ve been helping a carbon-neutral shipping client reach and assist more Australian small businesses with the recent shift to delivery-only models.
Beyond the clients, Copilot Crew have been offering complimentary (virtual) 1-to-1 growth workshops to values-driven organizations and local small businesses.
These workshops help small businesses identify opportunities to make impactful shifts, from rapidly adjusting their business and marketing strategies, to repositioning their products and services on the fly to fit the radically altered needs of our new environment. Beyond immediate planning and pivots, these pro-bono workshops also help these organizations to look further ahead, envision the transition plans for what comes next, and be as ready as possible for the near-term future, post-lockdown.
“Small businesses are the lifeblood of our economy,” says co-founder Candice DeVille. “When they’re thriving, it lifts our other social ecosystems, especially when they team up with and support charities and put people first. We want to facilitate more of that now and keep it going strong into the future.”
This piece is shared as part of Pledge 1%’s #GivingTuesdayNow campaign, which highlights how Pledge 1% members and the business community are coming together as a force for good to combat COVID-19.
“We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give.” – Winston Churchill
These uncertain times reveal the sure power of giving to uplift any situation.
Clever Play is a social enterprise committed serving the future by creating lasting positive learning experiences beginning in early childhood. Beyond our portals, we give our time, talent and resources to individuals, communities and organizations that enable and support access to quality and inclusive STEAM Education for all.
The current global crisis has turned our attention to the growing lack of resources in a variety of sectors. Everyone is being impacted by the downturn in one way or another. This opens up a wealth of opportunities for giving.
In response to the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, we began our charity at home. We allowed our staff to seek shelter in their own homes while being assured of continued income without salary cuts. Working with greater flexibility allows them to wade through these uncertain waters supported.
In order to maintain our service and helping capacity, we adopted creative ways to shift our diversified services online and crafted learning kits that are delivered right to a child’s doorstep. These actions allowed us to continue to serve while also allocating a portion of our proceeds to families in need. In addition, we have been giving away free kits to our long-time believers and advocates.
Our giving also includes sponsoring 10 underprivileged students from Al Mabarrah Al Khalifa Foundation for virtual programs.
To reach our ecosystem partners, we are offering free webinars that tackle relevant strategies to cushion the blow of the crisis and explore opportunities for transformation in these challenge-ridden times. We are particularly proud to support organizations, fellow start-up companies and projects that share our goal to make learning a lifelong habit through innovative means, unwavering commitment and collective dedication.
On top of that, our staff is volunteering in a variety of fundraising projects that provide a lifeline to displaced expatriate workers.
Finally, we find that one of the most profound ways to help is by partnering with parents in raising their children to be givers. Children who will one day become change-makers, trailblazers and beaconing bright rays of humanity amidst grey skies. To achieve this we recently partnered with Global Youth Service Day to offer Do-Good-From-Home challenges. These are a great reminder to serve from the heart; and despite physical distancing, to never lose touch of the connectedness that makes us all human.
This piece is shared as part of Pledge 1%’s #GivingTuesdayNow campaign, which highlights how Pledge 1% members and the business community are coming together as a force for good to combat COVID-19.
Overview:
Hexaware Technologies Limited is a leading global provider of IT and BPO services. At Hexaware, we strongly believe that CSR is the continuing commitment to behave ethically and contribute towards the betterment of the local community and society at large.
Community Support:
The commitment of Hexaware has skyrocketed in its resolve, to offer a helping hand to our society to cope up with the current pandemic – COVID-19. We have directed a large number of our efforts and finances towards NGOs and programs working to overcome this pandemic. This situation is a threat not only to the health of our people but also the economic status of many who step out every day to bring food to plate. Amongst other activities we are supporting the families of such wage earners and are providing them with dry ration and groceries with the support of NGOs in various cities of India (like Chennai, Mumbai, Pune, Nagpur, Bangalore and Delhi). Nearly 1650 needy families in the mentioned locations have benefited through our NGO partners who helped us distribute these kits responsibly while adhering to the social distancing norms, to ensure safety of volunteers and beneficiaries.
On the other hand, we are also working with hospitals to ensure they are better equipped to handle this deadly virus. We helped the TATA Memorial Hospital, Mumbai, India in association with Cuddles Foundation to set-up ventilators and to supply protective gears like mask, gloves, appropriate attire and basic sanitation gears for the frontline soldiers in this war against COVID-19 – the doctors, nurses and nutritionists.
In the coming days, we are planning to expand our support focusing on 3 major requirements, as mentioned
below;
- Food (dry groceries/cooked food) for the needy families: targeted 13,000+ families
- Health care support (ventilator and PPE kits) to the Government hospitals: targeted 6 ventilators and 1000 PPE supplies.
- Police personnel safety kit: targeted to support 20,000 police personnel.
Employee Engagement:
It is in these never experienced before times that we must do whatever it takes to make employees feel comfortable. We are also eager to participate and/or contribute to the larger societal good.
To address this, we provided a social platform of Yammer to connect and enthuse our employees. The purpose is to recreate office camaraderie in the WFH space and to stay healthy & fit while doing it. Various awareness and interactive sessions are being conducted through our Teams platform.
Created Leadership – Lantern series. It brings the executive leadership team closer to the global employees and has been a super success.
We also conducted a campaign to raise funds from our employees for the Zomato Feeding India initiative to provide dry rations and groceries to needy families.
Mobile Application for COVID-19:
To help control the spread, Hexaware developed KareRing – a cloud-based mobile application for various institutions such as healthcare organizations, hospitals, governments, NGOs, law enforcers and care providers to manage and limit the outbreak and also to provide timely care management for those in quarantine.
This piece is shared as part of Pledge 1%’s #GivingTuesdayNow campaign, which highlights how Pledge 1% members and the business community are coming together as a force for good to combat COVID-19.
A Salesforce implementation within a few days: Salesfive accepted that challenge and mastered that implementation successfully thanks to a great team spirit with NOVID20.
The non-profit organization NOVID20.org was founded in March 2020 and develops tech-solutions to interrupt infection chains of COVID19. Designed by over 80 volunteers of digital-experts, developers, data protection experts, entrepreneurs, health experts and medical doctors they launched their App-solutions complying with European personal data protection laws (GDPR) and ethics.
This technology could significantly contribute towards slowing down the spread of the virus, end lockdowns, unlock the economy and move to selective health measures.
NOVID20 now uses Salesforce for its global approach.
Salesfive implemented Sales Cloud to give NOVID20 the best way to manage their relations in more than 40 countries. Now they can track all activities between countries’ authorities, organizations, corporate partners, supporters and even other market players.
They are managing:
- Leads – to record every person N20 talked or persons who would like to get in touch with
- Contacts – qualified leads, to record persons that are related to accounts
- Opportunities – to record project progress (negotiation phase etc.)
- Accounts – to manage supporters, authorities, and every sort of company they work with
- Reports – to get an overview on their achievements and what is still to do in the following days to weeks
- Daily tasks – easily visible through a chatter overview, where also other employees can be asked for support.
- After implementing the company’s own emails, it is perfectly possible to work together on projects – with physical distance and a global approach.
We are happy with this partnership and are excited for what this collaboration brings up next.