From day one, our mission at Postmates has been to help people unlock the best of their cities. While some companies try to build a warehouse outside of a city and funnel goods into it — we know that our cities, our towns and our communities are our warehouses. A big part of what we do is help local brick and mortar businesses better compete against retail goliaths. But as we’ve grown to operate in more than 250 cities, we now want to re-invest in building a more sustainable future for the communities we serve.
This past summer, we hosted a town hall meeting where we sat down with teams across the company to discuss our core values:
Be eccentric: Do things differently — and better, do them your way. Inspire others to experience a different point of view.
Create things that last: There is incredible value in infrastructure & utilities others can rely on. We liberate people by creating it.
Embrace the new, new: Dream up new ways to see and live the future. Once upon a time, all we do today sounded like science fiction.
Out of many, one: Be aware of the responsibility we have to look out for each other — both within our own Postmates team and the larger world we live in.
Now, we’re taking a big step in fully realizing that last value — “Out of Many, One.”
We’ve recently formed a new team — Civic Labs, a social impact team with the mission to tap into Postmates ingenuity to build a thriving, sustainable future that works for everyone. The team is focused on developing programs and partnerships to promote climate action, food security and local business and independent workforce advocacy.
In addition, we are also dedicating 1% of our collective workforce time to support the communities and causes we care most deeply about. Postmates has joined Pledge 1%, a movement spearheaded by Atlassian, Rally, Salesforce and Tides, which is dedicated to making the community a key stakeholder in every business.
As part of the Postmates Civic Labs efforts and Pledge 1% partnership, teammates can now choose the nonprofit of their choice, and we’ll pay them for their workday — up to 24 hours per year. Postmates full-time employees can use 1% of their workdays days to join one of our company volunteer events — such as our recent community garden harvest or our upcoming project with Open Hand; or employees can volunteer at the local nonprofit that they’re most passionate about.
To kick off our renewed focus on enabling the Postmates community to give back, we were proud to partner with TNDC Tenderloin People’s Garden harvest — to help harvest fresh food for low-income residents in the SF bay area. TNDC Volunteer and Corporate Partnerships Lead Haley Caldwell was equally heartened by the turnout. “I’ve never seen so many people out at that front table before… It was really fun to have Postmates here. It’s not always easy for some volunteers to be in the Tenderloin, but you guys fit right in.”
Josh Phillips, Chief of Staff at Postmates and Civic Labs founder also echoed that sentiment. “Harvesting the Tenderloin People’s Garden was an incredibly rewarding way for our team to serve the community.”
“In addition to providing fresh food to low-income residents in a food desert less than a mile and a half from our office, we got to explore our complicated relationship with food. We spend our lives far removed from the production of what we eat. When you get even just an inch closer you naturally start to ask questions about our food system’s equitability, the impact it has on our health, the role it plays in climate change, and, ultimately, our dependence on others to feed ourselves.”
With Harvest Day down, there’s still more to come for Civic Labs and the volunteers at Postmates. You can find out more about the larger Pledge 1% effort here.
Originally posted: November 28, 2017
An interview with Jill Harrison, Innovation Programs, Silverline CRM
How do you contribute to the non-profit community? *
2017 marked Silverline’s 7th consecutive year sending a team of volunteer consultants and technology experts to the annual New Orleans Entrepreneur Week conference in partnership with Salesforce. This team of ten spent a week in March donating hundreds of pro bono consulting hours to advise six fast-growing start-ups and non-profits on how they can leverage cloud technology to grow their businesses and to build apps to help them achieve greater impact in their communities. Also as part of the engagement with the festival, Salesforce Chief Philanthropic Officer Suzanne DiBianca delivered an inspiring keynote talk addressing local organizations looking for advice on how to build their own Pledge 1% programs, using our team’s engagement as a model example. As this amazing festival has grown like gangbusters over the last several years, NOEW now plays host to over 13,000+ entrepreneurs and 185 organizations each year. Silverline is humbled and grateful to be a part of this great tradition and can’t wait for next year.
Why should partners join the global Pledge 1% philanthropy movement? *
Pledge 1% is a movement that reaches beyond your business to connect your employees with the greater mission of community impact. This movement empowers your organization to reach out locally and globally, and find inspiration and meaning through volunteerism and giving. By working together and pledging 1%, we are all affecting positive change.
What’s new or in the pipeline for Silverline’s giving program?
Our participation each year at NOEW has been such a fun team-building experience that has had broad impact across Silverline. It led to the foundation of Silverline Cares, which is a program at the heart of the social events we do with our team and with our partners like Salesforce. We now incorporate volunteerism and philanthropy into each of our all-hands meetings with more than 200 teammates from all over the country. We’ve packed back to school supplies, created care packages for orphanages, built RC toy cars for kids in the hospital with new cancer diagnoses, and more. We’ve even started to extend these programs and share them with our new clients! Recently we hosted a big event in NYC with a brand new client to build bikes for local school kids. What an amazing experience to get to know each other and do good for the community!
NOEW also helped us realize a few years ago that we wanted to formally roll out a VTO program for all employees to make sure our teammates know that we value and encourage their contribution to local communities. Giving back to others is so important for our culture, and so important for our world.
Originally posted: November 28, 2017
It’s the season for sharing and service and for the last three years 97th Floor, along with thousands from around the globe, have shared ways a simple $20 dollar bill can serve others during this holiday season with our 20 Helps campaign. But whether it’s 20 dollars, 20 minutes, 20 acts of service or 20 days of mindfulness — #20Helps.
This year, along with our Pledge 1% commitment and the Pledge 1% Gives Community, we are launching the biggest and newest feature in #20Helps history with the #20Helps Track Your Impact app.
Watch the video and learn more about the app here: http://20helps.com/
Available on the Apple Store and Google Play November 28, the app allows you to see the good you can do with a single bill as you watch it travel through the lives of others.
We encourage you to watch the video, download the app, and learn how you can lend a hand to someone who might otherwise go unnoticed. After all, even if this is the most charitable time of the year, a little bit more giving can do an entire world universe of good.
Get started now: http://20helps.com/
Originally posted: November 28, 2017
By the team at LoSoMo.
When our founder, Scott Romney, first heard of the 1% Pledge through a contact at Salesforce last year, it immediately resonated with his desire to make a difference as a business owner. He brought the idea back to our team, and we all jumped on board and took the pledge on May 25, 2016. Then, we began brainstorming ways to implement the 1% Model at LoSoMo Inc.
As a digital marketing agency that focuses on local businesses, we have a unique perspective on interacting with those around us, and we knew we wanted to incorporate our space, our skill set, and our local community into our pledge. When we decided to donate 1% of our profits to a local South Florida non-profit organization, we reached out to our community for nominations the best way we know how—on social media.
By calling out our community on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, we reached over 19,000 community members and received over 250 nominations of South Florida nonprofits! It was a thrill to see so many interact, share, and nominate organizations that they felt deserved our 1% donation.
On December 15th, we put all the nominations into a random generator and selected a winner, on Facebook Live, of course! We were so pleased to donate 1% of our 2016 profits to Speak Up For Kids Palm Beach County, an organization that supports the Guardian Ad Litem Program to advocate for and protect the lives of children in the dependency (including foster care) system – facilitating their development, ensuring their right to a safe and permanent home, and building their future.
In addition to our pledge to Speak Up, we were also able to give away a brand new website to Redland Rock Pit Abandoned Dog Project, Inc. as 1% of our Product. While taking advantage of social media was an awesome and effective approach for one piece of our pledge, we wanted to involve our team and the causes they support too.
If you come to our office on any given day, there’s a good chance you’ll meet Lola, Theodore, Kota, or Ponce.
No, they aren’t interns, they are a Pembroke Welsh Corgi, a Catahoula Leopard Dog, a Bichon, and a Chihuahua! That’s right, every day is bring your dog to work day at LoSoMo, and none of us are complaining. Animal rights are important to our team, so when the opportunity arose to giveaway a new website to a nonprofit dedicated to saving abandoned animals in South Florida, we said YES! It was a privilege to design a new site for an organization whose cause was so dear to our hearts.
We would like to thank the Pledge 1% organization for inspiring us to give back in a very tangible way and creating a platform that allows us to put our unique spin on making a difference. The entire LoSoMo team looks forward to finding more creative ways to donate our time, product, and profits for 2017.
Originally posted: November 28, 2017
SpringCM became a member of Pledge 1% in July 2017, and we’ve been hard at work giving back to our community since then. As a company, we’re proud of a lot of things, but two things in particular: our Chicago roots, and our team-focused culture. When we joined Pledge 1%, we wanted to make sure that we were supporting organizations that made a big impact on the city of Chicago as well as the people that make our company so strong.
Springers have cleaned up beaches with Alliance for the Great Lakes, donated food and clothing to children and families through the Cara Program and Cradles to Crayons, and volunteered in classrooms doing job shadowing and career day presentations with Junior Achievement and IC Stars.
Employees have also contributed personal funds to two campaigns for United Mitochondrial Disease Foundation and the National Hemophilia Foundation. These initiatives were run by Springers’ whose family members are affected by these disorders, and the response was amazing. Watching the SpringCM family come together to support one another is truly inspiring and has led to a more tight-knit dynamic.
All of our efforts have been meaningful, but our favorite so far is #BenioffMeetJames. Leading up to Dreamforce 2017, we launched a campaign to help our Digital Media Guru, James Serra, meet Marc Benioff. Using the hashtag #BenioffMeetJames and a series of videos, we spread awareness across social media. If you missed the videos, you can find them here.
While this campaign is one of our favorites because of how fun it was, the best thing about #BenioffMeetJames is the cause behind it. For each retweet of the hashtag, we planned to donate $1 to the UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital. And, if Marc actually met James at Dreamforce, we’d double that donation (spoiler alert: it happened!) To top it off, for each booth scan at Dreamforce, we’d donate another $1. All in, SpringCM was proud to donate $10,000 to the Children’s Hospital.
“Marc Benioff and his team are extremely gracious to charities and nonprofits. SpringCM really wants to help and contribute to the culture of giving that they’ve started.” – Greg Buchholz, President and COO at SpringCM.
We were blown away by the support of this campaign, from Salesforce employees, Partner companies, and people we had never met before on social media.
If you’re a newer Pledge 1% member or a small startup, you don’t have to wait until you’re more established to start weaving in a culture of giving back at your company. #BenioffMeetJames has proven that the power of social media and a little creativity can go a long way, and do a lot for people in need!
Originally posted: November 28, 2017
By Scott Cunningham, Head of Alliances with a focus on Salesforce at PandaDoc. Scott’s an entrepreneur, investor, and child rights activist, with a love for emerging technology, start-ups, and innovative ideas. He, his wife, and 3 children live in the heart of Silicon Slopes, Utah. Follow him on Twitter: @1c
Many businesses have the desire to get involved in philanthropic initiatives, but there are many hesitations that companies have to overcome before doing this successfully. As a small, but quickly growing company, resources and time are scarce, so how do you make the jump to building a scalable, truly impactful corporate giving program, and maybe more importantly, embrace giving as part of your corporate identity and culture?
PandaDoc was founded in 2013 with the goal of making it easy for businesses to transact faster. Over the last few years PandaDoc has grown and now counts over 7000 businesses as customers, and recently raised a $15.5 Million Series B led by Rembrandt Ventures, with participation from Microsoft Ventures, HubSpot, and others. Through this time PandaDoc has maintained a focus on three primary values: Impact, Learning, and Fun.
- Impact – We’re building something big. Something that will have a huge impact on how people do business.
- Learning – While we are all experts in our relevant fields, we always make time to continue to expand our minds.
- Fun – We work hard. But we also like to have fun while giving it our all.
Since inception, the mantra of giving back has lived and breathed throughout the PandaDoc culture but wasn’t ever defined. In full transparency, many excuses were made around why PandaDoc wasn’t able to formalize these programs. PandaDoc was growing too quickly to divert focus on areas other than revenue generation or channel development. Team members were already working long hours, and nobody wanted to add to their workload. The marketing team was small and stretched thin as it was, and creating additional content about giving back wasn’t immediately revenue generating.
Looking back, Mikita Mikado, PandaDoc CEO, says that, “We’ve always been a philanthropy driven organization, although it hasn’t always been expressly spelled out. Even though we may be perceived as late to the game when it comes to our corporate philanthropy, it’s important for every company to realize it’s never too early, and never too late to initiate a giving program. Pledge1% enables organizations of any size to build and track their programs with turn-key resources.”
As PandaDoc has grown, partnerships have expanded, and relationships with key industries have been developed. Specifically, PandaDoc integrates with over 20 of the top CRMs, such as Salesforce, HubSpot, & Microsoft Dynamics. These channels are driving the PandaDoc growth. I recently joined PandaDoc as Head of Alliances focused on growing the Salesforce channel. One of the key things I advocated early on was the necessity of creating a philanthropic culture.
In short, there are three important reasons that a philanthropic corporate culture is essential, especially when working with Salesforce:
Business Necessity
Although it’s not always spoken of publicly, it is commonly understood that being a cause-driven company has an impact on the revenues and success of businesses. Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce, pioneered the 1, 1, 1 philanthropic model. This model is core to the culture and methodologies at Salesforce. If PandaDoc wants to transact and develop a deep synergistic relationship with Salesforce, it’s a necessity to not only externally exemplify what Salesforce wants as a partner, but to indeed live and support this values-driven culture internally. Marc Benioff has said, “To be truly successful, companies need to have a corporate mission that is bigger than making a profit.”
Marketing Alignment
Ensuring that the areas of focus for a company’s corporate giving initiatives align with your brand is extremely important. It’s also important to ensure that your team members, investors, partners, and customers care about and support your initiatives as well. At PandaDoc, the critical areas of our focus on giving relate to Human Rights and Gender Equality, as well as Social Equity.
Experience-Driven Partnerships
PandaDoc is experience focused. Not only does PandaDoc have a beautifully simple and well-executed product (shameless plug….check it out at www.pandadoc.com), but is also focused on creating valuable experiences for employees, investors, customers, and partners. If an organization exhibits a high degree of purpose in its mission and objectives—taking a stand to benefit society—there is a an excellent likelihood that employees will more easily demonstrate meaning in their roles at work, become engaged, while adding to their sense of purpose in life as well. (Pontefract, D. (2017, January 09). Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff Says The Business Of Business Is Improving The State Of The World. Retrieved November 19, 2017, from https://goo.gl/pbBnTK)
Before joining Pledge 1%, we were giving financial support to a number of organizations that our team members were already working with or supporting. Since joining Pledge 1%, we’ve been able to simply structure our programs to give 1% of profit, time, and product to benefit society. Formally we have launched this program as Pandas Helping People.
Britnee Laughlin, the Talent Manager at PandaDoc, has said regarding joining Pledge 1% and establishing the Pandas Helping People program, “While talking with prospective employees from diverse backgrounds across multiple geographies, we received questions all the time about our focus on giving back. It’s so great now to be able to share specific details about our corporate giving program with applicants, and our membership in Pledge 1%. Speaking about our giving and core values to applicants has allowed me to have much deeper and personal conversations, and get to know them better.”
Although PandaDoc is a recent addition as a Pledge1% partner, our focus is continuing to grow and ensure that the core business has increased success, the messaging is aligned with the needs of stakeholders, and genuinely impactful moments will be experienced together. Over the next few months, we will be launching programs to engage with our partners in experience-driven ways, while supporting some incredibly meaningful causes. We are extremely optimistic about the future and are humbled and honored to be supporting our employees, partners, investors, and customers through giving back.
Originally posted: November 28, 2017
Author: Michael Litt, CEO Vidyard
This #GivingTuesday, we’re taking a moment to reflect what it means to give back as a business. We’re proud that community impact is one of our top priorities at Vidyard from our participation in Salesforce’s Pledge 1% to the launch of our community initiative, PlugIn.
As a busy CEO with an equally busy team, I understand that making time for giving back can seem like a nice-to-have versus a critical priority. I strongly encourage other founders to move beyond this way of thinking. For the past few years, we’ve been moving at breakneck speed, but with a little creativity and a lot of heart, we’ve managed to successfully bake community betterment into our business model. This includes donating 1% of our product and of our people’s time to supporting nonprofits in our area. How did we do it? Check out my video for some tips:
PlugIn has been an undeniable win for the community, local business owners and Vidyard employees. I love this next video because it shows the impact that’s possible. Special thanks to our friends at House of Friendship, Big Brothers Big Sisters and Lutherwood for participating:
Getting your message out isn’t always easy. At Vidyard, we’re also proud to offer in-kind services to create videos for the charities we support and help raise the profile of their work. Here’s a great example (just make sure you have some Kleenex on hand):
I feel motivated to continue our focus on community impact as we grow. It inspires me to see many other companies prioritizing these same values. I’d love to hear about how you or your company are moving the needle for the causes the matter to you and I’m always happy to share what’s worked for us here at Vidyard.
Feel free to share your comments below or find me on Twitter: @MichaelLitt
Originally posted: November 28, 2017
In late September of this year, Pluralsight, the enterprise technology learning platform, took a major step toward addressing the global technology skills gap and fulfilling its mission to democratize technology. The company launched Pluralsight One, a philanthropic arm dedicated to improving technology education and investing in technology-driven solutions to the world’s greatest challenges. To fuel this work, Pluralsight formalized its commitments to holistic, integrated philanthropy by joining the Pledge 1% community across the product, time, equity and profit pillars. Since the launch of Pluralsight One less than three months ago, the organization has made great progress delivering on its founding purpose.
Pluralsight One is building a social enterprise that will fuel its giving capacity and establish a sustainable path by which it will create lasting social impact. Leveraging Pluralsight’s practice of the human-centered product design philosophy, Directed Discovery, and best practices in the social sector, Pluralsight One is actively—and committed to continually—identifying and evaluating the complex root needs of problems within the social sector. As an early effort in this process, Pluralsight One traveled to Vancouver to conduct field research at NetHope Global Summit, meeting with dozens of the world’s largest NGOs who collectively serve millions of people experiencing chronic vulnerability and poverty. While there, Pluralsight One was able to capture challenges, host conversations and identify opportunities for the Pluralsight platform to add value and advance the way the world learns.
In addition to this needs assessment research, Pluralsight One has also collected more than 500 survey responses from organizations around the world and conducted deep interviews with leaders across 50 nonprofits. Findings from the assessment are informing the development of a set of Pluralsight product offerings for the social sector. With an eye to root problems and their drivers, Pluralsight One will effectively apply its resources to strengthen the capacity of the social sector and amplify its impact, enabling organizations to build for the future and equip those they serve with the tech skills needed to create, problem solve, and access economic opportunity. This marked the start of Pluralsight One’s one percent product pledge.
Pluralsight One’s pledge to give of its time has been another central focus for the organization. To democratize technology, Pluralsight One is working to engage and support those who are underrepresented and vulnerable. In September, Pluralsight One activated its network to bring Project Homeless Connect to Utah. The event, which began in San Francisco and has since rolled out across more than 700 communities, has proven to be a successful way to increase inclusion, debunk stereotypes about homelessness and connect those experiencing homelessness with much-needed resources that can be accessed all in one place, at one time. Utah’s inaugural Project Homeless Connect provided more than 1500 individuals experiencing homelessness with more than 80 services through the support of more than 800 volunteers. As a founding volunteer sponsor, Pluralsight One mobilized a large group of employees and their families for an incredible day of compassion and community.
Studies have shown that the emotional and physical stresses associated with homelessness have significant negative impacts on academic performance among children. During the 2011-2012 school year, only 48 percent of homeless students in grades three through eight met statewide math standards and 51 percent met reading standards[1]. These striking numbers represent an incredibly precarious and at-risk group of youth. Given that those years have shown essential for technology education and exposure, Pluralsight One’s support of Project Homeless Connect serves as an important investment in the future and inclusion of these children.
Pluralsight One also recently announced a collaboration with Encircle to host Utah’s first-ever Hour of Code event for LGTBQ+ youth at the IGNITE festival. This event will take place on December 2nd at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah and kick off Computer Science Education week. The summit, designed to equip young LGTBQ+ high school students with the tools they need to foster creativity and kindle their desire to innovate, will commence with welcoming and encouraging remarks from Pluralsight CEO Aaron Skonnard and a video with messages of hope and unity from Pluralsight’s team and broader community. Pluralsight One’s Hour of Code track, called Create the Future, will include three workshops focused on inspiring youth through experiential learning opportunities around technology. In a state where suicide rates are twice the national average and LGTBQ+ youth lack access to many community resources, Pluralsight One is committed to celebrating diversity and promoting an inclusive tech ecosystem where all are welcome.
These actions are just a sampling of the great work Pluralsight One has achieved since its founding this fall. Today, on #GivingTuesday, Pledge 1% celebrates Pluralsight One and its outstanding commitment to giving and volunteerism.
Anusha Teerdhala, Pluralsight employee: “I don’t know how to even express this. Today was one of the most amazing days I’ve had since arriving in the US! Participating in Project Homeless Connect made me feel like I could really make difference in people’s lives. I was able interact with and help people with mental, physical, financial and emotional challenges, from veterans to children. I saw people who were extremely happy to see the the simple help we offered, like the food packets we had for them! Right now, I am feeling just how blessed I really am and the responsibility I have to help make my community better. Thank you Pluralsight for this experience!”
Ian Estes, Pluralsight employee: “This is Rick. He was one of the many kind faces that we had the honor of connecting with on the streets of Salt Lake City at this morning’s Project Homeless Connect event. This event helped so many individuals gain access to services that they otherwise could not afford or get access to. I am thankful to be part of a company that supports initiatives to truly give back to the community and ultimately lift the human condition.”
[1] Firth, P. (2014, September 8). Homelessness and Academic Achievement: The Impact of Childhood Stress on School Performance. Retrieved from Firesteel: http://firesteelwa.org/2014/09/homelessness-and-academic-achievement-the-impact-of-childhood-stress-on-sc
Originally posted: November 28, 2017
Since the earliest days of WillowTree in 2007, we’ve made it a point to contribute our expertise to helping local charities and organizations achieve their goals with digital solutions of a caliber that is often cost-prohibitive for the non-profit sector.
Ten years on, we’re thrilled to have reached a size and capacity to allow us take that goal of being a force of good in our community to the next level with the launch of WillowTree Social Impact and our partnership with Pledge 1%.
Pledge 1% is a global movement creating new normal where companies of all sizes integrate giving back into their culture and values. Pledge 1% empowers companies to donate 1% of product, equity, profit, or employee time to causes of their choice.
Over 1,500 companies in 40 countries have taken the Pledge and committed to give to communities around the world. We at WillowTree are excited to join Pledge 1%’s network of founders, entrepreneurs and companies around the globe that have committed to giving back.
As part of our commitment to the Pledge 1% community, WillowTree will be working to provide a minimum of 1% of our annual resources towards providing world-class digital services to local and national charities and non-profits at substantially reduced costs as a part of our WillowTree Social Impact initiative.
How WillowTree Social Impact Works
WillowTree Social Impact will select non-profits to work with by carefully considering the opportunity each project has to make positive change and to be sustainable in the long run. On a case-by-case basis, we determine how we can best help suitable clients with their projects, including financial assistance of a 60% to 80% reduction in project rates.
WillowTree Social Impact identifies prospective clients in three primary areas:
- Opportunity and community We support projects that enhance our ability to better live together as human beings in a connected world–that build community by strengthening social bonds, whether through compassion or new economic opportunities.
- Sustainability and environment We work with clients who are dedicated to the long-term health of our environment and to supporting the ecosystems and living things who need sustainable practices to thrive, whether through issues of energy, the natural environment, or biodiversity.
- Innovation and creativity We are an app company, after all, and we know the crucial role of creativity in our society. We support efforts to strengthen the role of imagination in our world, whether through the arts or educational programs focused on innovation.
Our Social Impact clients receive work of the same quality and exacting standards that all our clients receive.We’re excited to take this next step together with Pledge 1% in responsible, sustainable company and community growth. For more information on the program and how to apply, please visit our WillowTree Social Impact page.
Originally posted: November 28, 2017