Nextep has always been active in giving back.

From preparing dinners for families at the local Ronald McDonald House to participating in charitable events and volunteering, we and our people have long been passionate about helping others.

But this year, Nextep got serious. Inspired by Salesforce’s philanthropy and following Pledge 1%’s model, we formed The Nextep Charitable Foundation to help accomplish our giving on an even bigger scale and put some official numbers behind it.

More than that, though, we wanted to make giving a core value; an integral part of our culture. We approached the Foundation with the mission of empowering our employees to elevate the lives of people in need, and to enrich the community in which they live.

“From families and schools to charities and businesses, the Nextep Charitable Foundation is working to remove the barriers that keep people in need from moving forward,” said Brian Fayak, Nextep’s founder and CEO. “We’re fortunate to be in a position to give back, make a positive impact, and to empower our employees to do the same.”

In business and in life, we realize that improvement comes when we commit to and measure our results. To accomplish this, we dedicated ourselves to Pledge 1%’s 1:1:1 model, donating 1,000 service hours, $100,000, and free HR services to select start-up nonprofits. At the beginning of the year, we at Nextep were excited but a bit nervous these goals might be too ambitious, that we might have trouble reaching them. Going into the final quarter of the year, though, we found that we had already reached most of them and were on track to meet or exceed them all by the year’s end.

Our main focus in the Foundation is helping children, families, and organizations that do the same, with our time, dollars, and know-how.

TIME
Our people are excited about being difference-makers in the community. They’re eager to serve, and we readily encourage them to do so by providing paid volunteer hours to employees. To us, there’s no better day’s work than one spent assisting children, families, and people or organizations in need within our communities.

DOLLARS
In addition to time and physical effort, Nextep Charitable Foundation is donating $100,000 to elevate people and organizations that need help. From families and schools to charities and businesses, we’re removing the barriers that keep people in need from moving forward, and we are donating our dollars to make a positive impact.

KNOW-HOW
We know starting an organization is hard. But Nextep has the know-how you need to succeed and we’re here to help make that happen. Nextep Charitable Foundation offers grants consisting of one year of free services to select start-up nonprofits. And what up-and-coming company wouldn’t want a certified expert in their corner?

During the year, our people have built meaningful partnerships with more than a dozen organizations in our communities, being humbled by the important work they are doing, and enriched by the inspiring people they’ve met.

“Empowering our people to help others is incredibly gratifying,” said Ashton Stephens, HR business partner and Nextep Foundation committee chair. “We’re making a real difference in our community, and I’m so grateful that Nextep gives us this platform to do good things.”

Fluxx is a mission-driven company. Our platform powers both givers and doers in the philanthropic space – allowing them to fund more and increase impact throughout local communities and the world. And while giving back is something we do throughout the year, we especially look forward to Giving Tuesday because it’s when we set aside time to collectively donate our time as a team – it’s tradition!

This upcoming November 27th, our entire office will spend half a day volunteering at two amazing nonprofits. Our San Francisco headquarters will be returning to Alameda County Community Food Bank while our New York employees will be at Grand Central Neighborhood Social Services.

For over 30 years Alameda County Community Food Bank has distributed millions of healthy meals to communities in need. We’ll be helping their team to sort through pounds of fresh produce and then bagging them up for distribution.  Last year we sorted 38,570 pounds of produce, the equivalent of over 32,000 meals for our community. While in New York, Grand Central Neighborhood Social Services provides basic necessities and social services for the New York City’s homeless. Our team will be serving dinner in their soup kitchen.

And of course, our volunteer work isn’t exclusive to Giving Tuesday. As part of our Pledge 1% commitment, we donate our time to the local community throughout the year – during the work week. These volunteer activities are factored into our day-to-day and we encourage our employees to set aside their projects and join in.

We’ve worked closely throughout the years with Project Open Hand, an incredible organization also focused on improving nutrition for communities in need. We’ve pitched in at GLIDE (a local community shelter) working to serve food and clean up after their lunch program, and we’ve held team beach cleanups at our local shorelines.  

Joining Pledge 1% was natural for our team. We genuinely believe that you get more when you give. Whether we’re engaging in skill-based volunteering our large group activities aimed at accomplishing a momentous project all at once, our team commits itself wholeheartedly, and I truly believe it makes us a stronger company.

This November 27th will be a day of cross-functional comradery, smiles, and goodwill!

Dallas, Texas based Concenter Services has been a Salesforce partner for nine years, offering customizable CRM solutions and ongoing support to the Financial Services industry.  This year, Concenter Services and its team of experienced “computer nerds” was excited and honored to donate time, services and expertise to “Pledge 1 Percent” by assisting with the operational merger of two local non-profit organizations: My Possibilities and LaunchAbility.

My Possibilities (mypossibilities.org) is a pioneering leader in vocational education for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD), and LaunchAbility is the leading supported job placement organization for adults with intellectual and development disabilities. Despite the obvious synchronicity of mission between the two organizations, there were some challenging obstacles to the operational merger – especially with CRM.

Concenter Services was happy to work with these two incredible organizations, and provide the necessary expertise and guidance for a smooth transition. Initial confusion on how best to merge the two Salesforce orgs and most efficiently utilize the system going forward required teamwork and collaboration from all parties. Concenter Services provided training on best system practices, which allowed for the formulation of an effective project plan for the merger.

Taking the pledge proved to be a great learning experience for everyone involved. Not only did it allow Concenter Services to give back to a great cause within the community, but it also helped the “computer nerds” think outside the box and apply their knowledge in an unfamiliar industry.  The My Possibilities -LaunchAbility merger has created a very powerful resource for the community and Concenter Services was pleased to be a part of the smooth transition. Of course, the Pledge does not end here, as Concenter Services looks forward to finding new ways to help the community!

I recently sat down with my two boys, ages 10 and 6, over our bowls of Cheerios before we all headed off to our daily duties of learning and “farming” in the entrepreneurial world. Right before I was about to get up to clean the dishes, my ten-year-old said, “Dad, I’ve been pondering why I was chosen to be a human? I mean, I could’ve easily been a dog or a tree, but I was selected to be a human.” After I picked my chin up from the depths of my bowl, I asked him why he thought he was chosen? After a couple of seconds, he said, “I guess I’m here to change the world by making someone’s life a little better.” This was one of those times when I realized we are going to be ok.

Now, I want to make sure I’m transparent in that I could easily share other stories where I’ve stayed up at night thinking I’ve screwed up this fatherhood thing. In fact, this idyllic moment quickly disappeared when someone farted, resulting in denials and belly-laughs, but the moment was worth noting as we approach #GivingTuesday.

While I have almost 50 years under my belt (and sometimes over my belt) and have studied with some cool people, it seems my kids continue to be my greatest teachers. Somehow, they seem to boil everything down to the most salient point.

In this day and age of “likes” within our personal and mass syndication ecospheres, giving is often judged through recognition as a CNN Hero, your name on a building, or the ability to document the gift in a color-corrected filter for our feeds. It’s heartening to frame giving from my son’s eyes—the idea that giving is personal and doable by all of us, not just by superheroes. My friend and writer, Adam Grant, points out in his book, Give and Take, that “Givers Can’t Burn Out If They Focus on How Big Their Impact Is.” As my son points out, a single impact in one person’s life is big enough to change the world.

In business, we are constantly focused on scale, but the reality is that when it comes to giving, the ten-year-old’s perspective is more meaningful. Giving—and all collective creations for that matter—is felt by an individual, not a “target-market.” If we were to judge our impact through my son’s lens that we’re “here to change the world by making someone’s life a little better,” I am confident that together we could easily create mass change. Our ten-year old selves know it can be as easy as a smile or saying hello.

On this #GivingTuesday—and every day—know that we can all create change in the world simply by making it more personal.

#keepmoving

Every year at 97th Floor, we set out to show the world how quickly kindness can grow.

What Does Twenty Dollars Mean

For many people, twenty dollars isn’t a lot of money. In a world of debit cards and Venmo, twenty dollars is probably all the cash you’ll ever need to have on-hand. It’s the biggest bill most people have in their wallet, but it’s not enough to cover expenses like rent, medical bills, or a car payment. It’s usually not even enough to break the bank.

As we said, it’s not a lot, but it’s enough.

Twenty dollars is enough to pay for a meal. If you lose it, it’s enough to ruin your day. It’s enough to pay for a couple of hours of minimum wage work. It’s the difference between being able to buy groceries or having to go without. Twenty dollars is enough to keep the lights on, put gas in the tank, or buy someone a holiday gift.

The #20Helps Campaign

The #20Helps program is an annual charity campaign hosted by 97th Floor. #20Helps encourages people to help others by giving them twenty dollars. It also lets those participants track the good deeds that their twenty dollars does for others.

All you have to do is download the #20Helps app, scan your bill, add your story, and watch your twenty dollar bill go around the country helping people. The #20Helps participants find it inspiring to see how their twenty dollar bills move from person to person doing good.

Not only does the campaign help us do good things for other people, but it also shows us how small acts of kindness make a big impact.

It helps us remember that twenty dollars isn’t a lot, but it’s enough.

Daniel Mintz, chief data evangelist at Looker, announces the company’s commitment to Pledge 1% during his keynote at Looker’s annual data conference, JOIN, in October at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco.

One of Arizona State University’s goals is to enhance our local impact and social embeddedness. The University Technology Office (UTO) at ASU embraces its role as both an enabler and catalyst for advancing the vision and work of the New American University.

UTO enthusiastically formalized its commitment to serve the broader community by developing a framework for increasing our impact and supporting a sustainable community volunteer program. In January 2018, UTO created a Giving Back Team, which organized volunteer events and has joined Salesforce in the 1% pledge.

As an IT organization, the Giving Back Team established a mission to grow and sustain a culture of giving and drive community impact. During development of the infrastructure, the team engaged in a variety of volunteering events to start cultivating the spirit of team giving, and jump-start the momentum. These events continue and are now warmly expected rather than the exception.

UTO seeks to address causes that speak to the expertise of the organization. However, participating in local events, such as harvesting oranges for the local food bank from the Arizona State University Campus grove and cleaning up the nearby inner city desert park, directly support the community and begin to build stronger relationships.

Staff spent several hours together volunteering with park rangers at Papago Park in Tempe, Arizona. One volunteer stated, “It was great to hang out together outside of the office. Though I think we lost John. Maybe he was kidnapped by Sasquatch. We should do this more often. Let’s do it again in the fall.”

In addition to oranges and desert improvements, the UTO has also volunteered at the local St. Mary’s Food Bank, packed over 118,000 meals for Feed My Starving Children, and raised $600 for the Valley of the Sun United Way in a coin wars competition.

Joshua, ASU West Campus staffer, remarked, “My team was really disappointed we missed the last food packaging, so we found an opportunity to do some outreach with St. Mary’s Food Bank on our side of town. We had a blast!”

On Giving Back Tuesday, the UTO is launching an Ambassador Program! This program will allow members of the UTO to be more active in the Giving Back community, organizing events, socialize the initiative, and generally represent our goal of helping the community. Ambassadors will be key to sustaining the Giving Back program, from marketing events to actually developing programming. They will be embedded in various UTO groups to expand the scope of giving. Coupled with the UTO leadership pledge of ‘time to give’, Ambassadors will be the delegates taking the program into the new year.

The new year promises to be exciting. In addition to local programming and the new Ambassador program, the UTO is getting ready to kickoff Girls Who Code. Leveraging our technology focus and infrastructure for community service, the UTO is gearing up to facilitate locations, resources and curriculum for girls and young women who aspire to work in technology.  The UTO is looking forward to a great year of giving!!