By Rebecca Koenig. Originally published in the Chronicle of Philanthropy.
After years of sporadic interest, technology startups are embracing the practice of setting aside company stock before initial public offerings to endow new charitable ventures.
Tech entrepreneurs say they hope to place corporate giving, once a personal matter for executives or a peripheral project for shoring up community goodwill, at the heart of budding companies.
Venture-capital firms, once skeptical of mixing business with charity, are also testing the waters by adding philanthropic startups to their portfolios and earmarking their own equity in startups for charitable purposes. Just this month, for example, Fyrfly pledged to start a new foundation — believed to be a first for a venture-capital firm.
The momentum is such that charity set-asides could soon become the new normal, according to some philanthropists, venture capitalists, and entrepreneurs in the tech world. What remains unclear is exactly how they will play out for the
nonprofit world and the populations they serve.
After all, “if the business doesn’t materialize, the money doesn’t materialize,” says Seth Levine, managing director at Foundry Group, a venture-capital firm.
If tech stock prices soar, it could mean a windfall. With $47.2 billion in venture capital invested in the first three quarters of 2015, according to the MoneyTree report, nonprofits could benefit significantly if they capture even a small fraction of those resources.
eBay Blazes a Trail
The equity set-aside movement started in 1998, the year eBay’s founders created the company’s eponymous foundation using stock reserved from before eBay went public.
The concept spread from there, according to Silicon Valley philanthropist Laura Arrillaga-Andreessen. Marc Benioff set aside 1 percent of the equity of his cloud-computing company, Salesforce.com, in 1999 to start the Salesforce foundation.
And Mr. Benioff’s move helped guide Google’s 2004 decision to set aside 3 million shares of stock, worth more than $900 million, to support its for-profit charitable arm, Google.org, Ms. Arrillaga-Andreessen says.
Today, nearly 300 companies have pledged equity through Pledge 1%, a movement to encourage business leaders to build charity into the structure of their companies. The Silicon Valley Community Foundation is working with 20 companies that have agreements to donate equity or closely held stock to charitable vehicles.
The idea has caught on outside of Silicon Valley, too — sometimes in a big way.
In 2014, Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba announced a 2 percent set-aside of the company’s pre-IPO shares — an amount worth billions of dollars — to support two charitable trusts that will benefit the environment, education, medicine, and culture in China.
Also last year, Australian software vendor Atlassian, valued at more than $3 billion, set aside 1 percent of its shares to create the Atlassian Foundation. The company, which co-founded Pledge 1%, filed its intent to go public in November.
And in December 2014, Seattle-based software company Tableau used shares it had set aside before going public in May 2013 to establish a donor-advised fund — called the Tableau Foundation — at the Seattle Foundation, worth more than $20 million.
“It is an obvious future to me that in 10 years the majority of startups will adopt a program like this,” says John Hering, co-founder and executive chairman of mobile-security firm Lookout.
The company, still privately held and valued at around $1 billion, recently pledged to set aside equity for charity through
Pledge 1%.
“Once critical mass has taken hold, this is going to become the default,” Mr. Hering says.
Making a Commitment
By setting aside equity to endow new charitable institutions, company leaders hope to signal a long-term commitment to corporate philanthropy. Several have gone the route of opening corporate donor-advised funds at community foundations.
It’s an attractive option for startups, according to Fidelma McGinn, vice president for philanthropic services at Seattle Foundation. It saves time, affords more flexibility, doesn’t have annual payout requirements, and costs less in taxes.
It also allows them to outsource overhead expenses and administrative duties to community-foundation professionals.
That’s important in part because startups prefer their own employees, many of whom lack philanthropy experience, to run the new giving vehicles, sometimes as volunteers, says Suzanne DiBianca, co-founder and president of Salesforce’s foundation.
It is a calculated move: Startups are betting that engaging employees directly in corporate giving will help them attract and retain talent.
For example, Tableau pays an employee, Neal Myrick, to oversee its donor-advised fund. He works with 15 other employees who volunteer their time to help guide Tableau’s grant making.
Mr. Myrick says staff members seem to appreciate the opportunities they have to determine how the company uses its equity fund. During the presentations he makes to all classes of new hires, “one or more people will raise a hand and say one of the reasons they picked Tableau over other organizations is they feel we’re having a positive impact in the world,” he says.
Appealing to Customers
In addition to scoring talent, start-up leaders say building philanthropy into their companies could attract consumers who support businesses they view as agents of positive social change.
For this kind of cause marketing to work, customers must perceive it as authentic, says Deborah Small, a marketing and psychology professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. Although that term is difficult to define, she says, it means that consumers look for an alignment between the brand and its charitable giving.
However, there’s a danger for companies if their charitable activities appear to be insincere or, worse, self-serving.
“Consumers quickly become cynical if there’s anything that smells of hypocrisy,” Ms. Small says.
Consumers also seem to favor brands that devise creative ways to give back, she adds: “If you’re a copycat, that doesn’t
seem very authentic.”
That may be an obstacle to the proliferation of IPO set-asides.
“I think it will be a requirement for doing business, but businesses will have to use their creativity to find out ways to make it not just a requirement but to make it competitively advantageous,” Ms. Small says.
Persuading Venture Capitalists
There are signs that another obstacle — persuading investors to support the practice — is eroding. Proponents report that attitudes among venture capitalists are beginning to shift as they “recognize there’s actually a return from a business perspective” in setting aside equity for charity, Mr. Levine says. His venture-capital firm, Foundry Group, gives money raised when it exits investments through the Pledge 1% program to the Community Foundation of Boulder County’s general fund.
Still, skepticism endures. Swaying doubting investors will require evidence that IPO set-asides improve company success, and measuring that may prove difficult. Researchers say it’s nearly impossible to prove that an individual start-up that has set aside equity is doing better or worse for having made that decision, although it may be possible to assess the sector as a whole once enough companies have done it.
And movement leaders say they’re still puzzling over how to collect and measure evidence of employee engagement and customer approval. Pledge 1% asks participants to report the effects of their charitable programs.
There’s little experimental evidence about whether people actually prefer to work at philanthropic companies, says John List, economics professor at the University of Chicago. He’s testing the question by running a large-scale field experiment using job ads on Craig’s List; results should arrive in the spring.
Mr. Myrick says Tableau can measure employee engagement by checking how many staff members use the company’s
online portal for logging personal volunteer hours. So far, 26 percent do.
But the company is not measuring the level of influence the foundation has over customer purchasing decisions, he says. Although he acknowledged that corporate foundations “have to return value to the company in some way or another,” he doesn’t want that mind-set to direct the foundation’s work.
“Our focus on a foundation is on the social impact,” Mr. Myrick says. “Any benefits to the company we see as collateral benefits, not part of the primary decision-making process. We don’t want to put them in the driver seat.”
New Normal
Despite the doubters, start-up leaders and their venture-capital allies are forging ahead. Ms. DiBianca says it’s her dream that companies of the future won’t think twice before setting aside equity for charity. She wants the number of companies signing up through Pledge 1% to double.
“People are learning that this is how you build a great company today,” she says. “The new normal is our big vision.”
And proponents have one more rationale for setting aside equity for corporate giving, Mr. Hering says: “It’s also just the right thing to do.”
Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly referred to Suzanne DiBianca as co-founder and executive director of Salesforce’s foundation. She is co-founder and president.
Originally posted: December 15, 2015
By Chris Player. Originally published on ARN.
The Pledge 1% campaign that encourages companies to dedicate 1 per cent of employee time, equity, product or profit to improve communities around the world, has garnered support from over 500 companies in its first year.
The corporate philanthropy movement founded by Atlassian, Entrepreneurs Foundation of Colorado, Rally for Impact and Salesforce.org, said companies such as DocuSign, Glassdoor, Lookout, Twilio, Xactly and Zuora were among those to offer support.
Its founding partners have set goal of securing 1,000 new pledges in the next year
Salesforce.org president and co-founder, Suzanne DiBianca, described the momentum the organisation has seen as ‘incredible.”
“There’s been a groundswell when it comes to the next generation of companies adopting philanthropy as a key value. We truly believe that giving back is a key component to building a great company,” she said.
Atlassian co-chief executive and co-founder, Scott Farquhar, added that the real power of Pledge 1% is that it inspires companies to bake corporate philanthropy into their business model from day one.
“It becomes a core part of their culture, not just another box to tick off. Having reached the initial goal of 500 companies, we’re excited to triple the number by the end of next year.”
Of the first 500+ companies that have joined the movement, 59 per cent committed a percentage of equity, 54 per cent pledged a percentage of employee time, 39 per cent pledged a percentage of product and 18 per cent pledged a percentage of profit.
Companies that joined the Pledge 1% movement in its first year include: 6sense, AppNexus, Campaign Monitor, DocuSign, Dstillery, General Assembly, Glassdoor, Hampton Creek, Lookout, MediaMath, Planet Labs, Sage, Twilio, Weebly, Xactly and Zuora.
The organisation has also partnered with venture capital firms including Bessemer Ventures, Blackbird Ventures, Foundry Group, Obvious Ventures and SV Angel and startup accelerators including Techstars to include Pledge 1% as a part of the startup process.
Originally posted: December 12, 2015
By Terry Collins. Originally published on CNET.
Silicon Valley is giving more than ever before.
In a culture with a reputation for being selfish, some tech heavyweights are using their clout and money to affect change.
On Tuesday, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, celebrated the birth of their daughter by saying they will create and fund a new initiative worth about $45 billion.
In a “letter to our daughter,” Zuckerberg described his and his wife’s planned investments. “Can our generation cure disease so you live much longer and healthier lives? Can we connect the world so you have access to every idea, person and opportunity? Can we harness more clean energy so you can invent things we can’t conceive of today while protecting the environment?”
Zuckerberg said they hope to answer yes to each question.
The man in charge of the world’s largest social network made his announcement on Giving Tuesday, a global day of philanthropy at the start of the Christmas and holiday season. It’s also on the heels of Monday’s news that Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, Zuckerberg, LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman and other industry titans are pooling their resources to create a fund pushing clean energy.
The donations are just the latest examples of tech industry leaders using their influence and their money to solve the world’s problems. Saleforce.com CEO Marc Benioff, for example, has donated $200 million since 2010 to create two children’s hospitals, one in San Francisco and another across the Bay in Oakland, California. In February, Zuckerberg and his wife donated $75 million to San Francisco General Hospital, which will be renamed after them.
In addition to saying he’ll donate most of his wealth, Apple CEO Tim Cook has influenced change through his actions. In October 2014, Cook wrote an opinion piece in Bloomberg Businessweek where he announced he is gay and advocated for human rights and equality. In March, he wrote an op-ed piece in the Washington Post where he railed against state laws that would have discriminated against the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered communities.
Cook, along with Benioff and more than 100 tech executives from Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and Yelp, criticized laws in Indiana and Arkansas that threaten to “allow people to discriminate against their neighbors.” The following month, lawmakers in both Indiana and Arkansas bowed to pressure and amended their “religious freedom” laws.
“Certainly Tim has been willing to take courageous positions on a number of issues,” said Harvard Business School professor David Yoffie. “Apple is progressive on many fronts and I give him enormous credit to both his leadership and culture of the company.”
On Monday, the Robert F. Kennedy Center announced that it will honor Cook for his efforts.
The head of the world’s most valuable company, Cook will receive the RFK Ripple of Hope Award for demonstrating a commitment to social change during a ceremony on December 8 in New York. He will be recognized along with Rep. John Lewis (D-Georgia), a key figure during the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s, Evercore Partners co-founder and former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury Roger Altman and UNESCO Ambassador Marianna Vardinoyannis.
Past recipients include former President Bill Clinton, his wife, former Secretary of State and Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and entertainers George Clooney and Taylor Swift.
Originally posted: December 2, 2015
By Joe Garofoli. Originally published in the San Francisco Chronicle.
Few entrepreneurs focus on charitable giving when they are building their companies — mere survival is a much bigger concern.
But leaders in corporate philanthropy circles say bigger companies find it even harder to make charity part of their business model, as investors have other priorities.
A campaign launching Tuesday aims to get growing businesses to do what San Francisco’s Salesforce.com did in its infancy 15 years ago: Promise to donate 1 percent of its equity, 1 percent of its employees’ time and 1 percent of the firm’s products to charity. Called the Pledge 1% Program — and led by Salesforce and others — it aims to get 500 other corporations to do the same over the next year.
Those who have bought into the idea have seen other benefits.
“It’s good for business, too,” said Bradley Heinz, program manager at Optimizely.org, the social impact arm of Optimizely, a firm which helps users enhance and grow their websites. The San Francisco company — which includes several top execs who used to work at Salesforce — is participating in the program.
It started early
Optimizely had already incorporated philanthropy into its business model when it was a 100-person firm. Now the 4-year-old company is three times that big. Employees saw the value of giving back when it donated its product to a campaign to help earthquake victims in Haiti four years ago. Improving the fundraising website led to $1 million more in additional donations toward earthquake victims, Heinz said.
“It’s much easier to integrate this when you’re a smaller company,” Heinz said.
But that can be difficult to sell to a growing company.
“I think it’s a mental barrier for most people,” said Ryan Martens, co-founder of the Entrepreneurs Foundation of Colorado, which is leading the campaign along with Salesforce and Atlassian, a software company. “People will say, ‘What will the venture capitalists say?’ Or, ‘Oh, that’s only for older adults who have made it, not for young ones.’”
“We’re just trying to make it easier for them to do this,” said Martens, who is also a co-founder of Rally, a software company that spends 4,000 hours annually volunteering and has donated $1.5 million through incorporating its principles over the past dozen years.
While saying that the goals are noble, privately some entrepreneurs say the hardest part is getting their employees — or VCs — to part with their equity shares. That’s why Martens suggested the “time to start talking about that is when it’s worth nothing. That’s the best time to talk to people about it.”
It is somewhat easier to convince a young firm to volunteer time and offer its product at a deeply discounted rate. Many young tech firms sell their software to nonprofits for up to an 80 percent discount, not only as a way to give back to the community, but also to broaden their customer base.
Aimed largely at startups and smaller firms, the campaign will provide a website where companies can learn how to enact each of the 1 percent pillars — and allow them to satisfy their commitment by taking on one challenge at a time instead of all three at once.
Making it easier
The hope is that if a younger company can make philanthropy part of its DNA when it is smaller, it will become a way of life as it grows. So far, 200 firms have signed up during the campaign’s quiet period.
Not every company can give with the volume of Salesforce. Founder Marc Benioff and his wife, Lynne, have donated tens of millions to the UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital, to homeless families and to San Francisco public schools. In March,
Salesforce and the nonprofit Tipping Point Community formed SF Gives, an initiative to get the corporate community to raise money for Bay Area antipoverty programs.
Still, San Francisco’s income inequality divide — the fastest-growing in the country — is inspiring other growing companies to look at what they can do to help those less fortunate.
Employees at Practice Fusion, a cloud medical records company in San Francisco, decided that they would take $50,000 that would have been used for their holiday gift — usually something like a fleece pullover — and give it to the poor. Later this month, some of its 400 employees will box holiday meals for 700 San Francisco families and deliver them to three nonprofit organizations.
“People were not that into the gifts and swag,” said Practice Fusion CEO Ryan Howard. “They wanted to give back.”
Its biggest effort
While Practice Fusion has regular volunteer programs, this is the largest such outreach in its nine-year history.
Martens, one of the campaign’s leaders, hopes that by taking the pledge, such types of philanthropy can become institutionalized.
“It breeds a very virtuous cycle,” he said. “If you lean into it, it leans back on you and delivers way more benefit than you put into it.”
Originally posted: December 2, 2015
By Carolyn Said. Originally published on SF Gate.
Ever since receiving cochlear implants 15 years ago at age 12, Caroline Clark has wanted to help other hearing-impaired people. She started a foundation, the Baker Institute, to provide speech therapy and offer a weeklong summer camp at Stanford University for hearing-impaired children.
Now a product marketing manager at San Francisco software company Atlassian, she was attracted to the company when she discovered that philanthropy is embedded in its mission. Since its launch 12 years ago, Atlassian has given 1 percent of its profit, products and equity, and a bit more than 1 percent of employee time, to nonprofits. That freed her up to spend a week volunteering at the camp.
“As a Millennial, social purpose is really important,” Clark said. “We don’t just look at a company as a way to make money, but something we want to feel passionately tied to. Atlassian is at the forefront of that revolution and really speaks to our generation. I feel really lucky to be at a company that allows me to dedicate time to a cause.”
A year ago Atlassian partnered with Salesforce, which has long had a similar approach to philanthropy, the Entrepreneurs Foundation of Colorado and Rally for Impact to inspire other companies to make similar charitable commitments. They launched the Pledge 1% Foundation, dedicated to transforming corporate philanthropy by helping companies donate 1 percent of their equity, products, employee time and/or profits to nonprofits.
“Corporations need to step up and provide an outlet for people to give back,” said Scott Farquhar, Atlassian co-CEO and co-founder.
The founders have spent the year raising awareness through launch events, seminars and networking with affiliated companies at Salesforce and Atlassian conferences. Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff hosted dinners for executives at companies like Lookout, Glassdoor and Twilio. The Pledge 1% Foundation website provided resources, legal documents, case studies and other information for corporations.
“We came together with a collective vision: To help companies integrate giving and a culture of social impact from the beginning so it’s part of their DNA,” said Dipti Pratt, director of the foundation. “We want to make it easy for any company in the world to be philanthropic.”
On Tuesday — designated as Giving Tuesday — the foundation is announcing that it’s exceeded its goal of getting 500 companies to sign up in the first year. It drew 530, including high-growth companies like DocuSign, Glassdoor, Lookout, Twilio, Xactly and Zuora. Now in the coming year, it hopes to secure another 1,000 pledges.
“We saw a groundswell of not only interest but people who were ready to execute,” said Suzanne DiBianca, president and co-founder of Salesforce.org, the software firm’s philanthropy wing. “It’s a movement. We wanted to take away the myth that it’s too hard or complicated or time consuming to do.”
Almost all the pledged companies are tech firms, and the majority are fairly new.
“The earlier you are as a company, frankly the easier it is,” DiBianca said. “It’s very easy for a small company to pledge a percentage of its equity, for instance, because the pie isn’t cut up yet. It can make this part of the articles of incorporation.”
Each of the 530 companies picked one or more resources to pledge donations. Equity (59 percent) and employee volunteering time (54 percent) were the most popular options, followed by products (39 percent) and profit (19 percent).
Of course, an equity donation doesn’t translate into money until a company goes public or is sold. The foundation suggests trust structures such as a donor-advised fund operated by an existing foundation as a mechanism to transfer money once there’s a sale. “Effectively it means just setting aside the shares,” Farquhar said. “Some do it through a dedicated foundation.”
The Entrepreneurs Foundation of Colorado provides a map for how the 1 percent pledge works. Ryan Martens, who’d incorporated the 1 percent model into Rally, a company he co-founded in 2002, worked with the foundation to get about 100 Colorado companies taking a similar pledge, although Rally was the only one that went public. After its Wall Street launch, it put $700,000 into a donor-advised fund and donated the same amount to the community foundation in its Boulder hometown.
“It takes a peer relationships to really get this started,” he said. “It’s not common that giving is the first thing you think of when you start a business. Meeting someone else who’s done it, and hearing what it’s meant to them and their community personalizes it, and shows how it can become a cultural norm.”
Ultimately, they hope this will be the new normal as part of the startup process.
“The great news is that venture capitalists aren’t blocking it anymore, which is massive,” DiBianca said, crediting supporters like Ron Conway, SV Angel, and accelerators like General Assembly and Techstars. “They’re starting to see that (philanthropy) can add to your success as a company.”
Both Salesforce and Atlassian say their 1 percent commitment is a powerful recruiting tool.
“Millennials tell us it’s in the top three reasons they join Atlassian,” Farquhar said. “And it’s great for morale. We let employees choose projects they’re passionate about (for volunteering); we don’t put any rules around it. I think humans have an innate desire to give back and help people.”
Pledge 1% first-year results
Pledge 1% launched a year ago seeking to transform corporate philanthropy by inspiring and helping companies to pledge 1 percent of various resources to charity. Some 530 companies worldwide are now participating. Here’s a breakdown of the pledge types from those companies.
Equity: 59%
Time: 54%
Product: 39%
Profit: 18%
Companies that joined the Pledge 1% movement in its first year include 6Sense, AppNexus, Campaign Monitor, Dstillery, Glassdoor, Gliffy, Hampton Creek Foods, Lookout, MediaMath, Planet Labs, Sage, Splunk, Twilio, Weebly, Xactly and Zuora.
Originally posted: December 1, 2015
By Ken Yeung. Originally published on VentureBeat.
First we had Black Friday, then Small Business Saturday, and then Cyber Monday. So after a long weekend of spending money on ourselves and loved ones, why not turn that towards those less fortunate? Today is the third annual Giving Tuesday, and tech companies are rallying to help out.
Started in 2012, this event — founded by the 92nd Street Y cultural center in New York City in partnership with the United Nations Foundation — has come to symbolize the start of the holiday charitable season. Over the past three years it has seen participation by over 38,000 partners worldwide while also directly causing an estimated 470 percent increase in the number of online donations made during the same period.
Adobe stated that in 2014, it found that most people who gave to charities don’t know ahead of time which organizations to contribute to: 40 percent of all charity referral traffic is through search, while 3 percent is from social. This shows that raising awareness of causes, such as what various companies are doing on Giving Tuesday, can help donors to choose organizations to support.
This year we asked around to find which tech companies would be participating in this event. This is by no means an exhaustive list, and some companies told us that while they’re not participating directly in Giving Tuesday, they’re actively encouraging their employees to give back in their own way.
PayPal
PayPal has teamed with the 92nd Street Y on an ambitious mission to set a Guinness World Record for the “Most Money Raised Online For Charity in 24 Hours.” Last year, the company raised $8.6 million and has set its sights on generating more than $19 million in donations in the same time span this year.
Starting earlier today, at 12:00 a.m. Eastern Standard Time, you can participate by making a donation through PayPal to any charity, anywhere in the world. The company said that if you contribute more than $10 through its Give Cheer website, not only will 100 percent be passed through to the recipient organization, but PayPal will add 1 percent more to the amount.
Microsoft
A founding partner of the Giving Tuesday movement, Microsoft is encouraging customers to tell it about their favorite charities and why they should receive a software donation from the company. Additionally, it has created a dashboard powered by its business intelligence solution, alongside 92nd Street Y and Blackbaud, to help visualize real-time data of the 24-hour giving campaign.
Uber
The on-demand private car service is encouraging riders to make donations to the (RED) organization, whose aim is to eradicate AIDS from the world. At the end of your UberX ride in select cities, riders will be asked if they wish to make a $5 donation towards the cause. Each donation will be matched by The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
eBay
eBay is encouraging people to donate to charities during this year’s Giving Tuesday event in perhaps the best way it knows how: by letting you shop. The company has opened up a new “store” where purchases made will go towards raising funds for various charities, including (RED).
With its eBay for Charity shop, the online marketplace wants to connect you with charities. Instead of asking you for donations outright, eBay is approaching from a commercial standpoint — you can buy a collection of limited-edition jewelry from Pamela Love whose proceeds benefit Fashion Targets Breast Cancer, bid on art from the upcoming Star Wars movie The Force Awakens to benefit UNICEF Kid Power, and much more.
Like Uber, eBay has teamed with (RED) to help fund the fight against AIDS. The organization will be auctioning off memorabilia, along with one-on-one brunch experiences with “iconic global business figures” like Coca-Cola chief executive Muhtar Kent; William Morris Endeavor co-CEO Ari Emanuel; Twitter cofounders Biz Stone, Ev Williams, and Jack Dorsey; and Warby Parker founders Neil Blumenthal and Dave Gilboa.
In another effort to get more charitable donations going, eBay is giving shoppers who select a favorite charity during the holiday season an opportunity to win a $2,500 shopping spree. The charity with the most new favorites will also receive a $25,000 grant from eBay.
Squarespace
The “do-it-yourself” website service kicked off its Giving Tuesday campaign earlier this week with $100,000 towards Code.org to assist the organization in providing computer science education to underprivileged groups.
Alphabet/Google
Through its Google.org program, Alphabet is encouraging users of its Google search engine to make contributions to DonorsChoose.org. The focus this year will be on providing assistance to educators who want to “increase inclusion, equity, and opportunity for students with diverse learning styles.” Just like it did with refugee relief, Google will be matching donations up to $1 million.
Already, Google’s Impact Challenge, whose goal is improving life for people with disabilities, has raised $1 million thanks to Android Pay. According to the U.S. Department of Education, 6.4 million students in the United States have special needs — that’s 13 percent of the school population. There’s not enough money being passed along to classrooms and teachers working to educate those kids.
As Facebook is a place for people to connect with the experiences of the community, the social networking company has released multiple stories to show the power charity has on the human spirit. The first story shows an architect who recounts the names and personal stories of every homeless person he helps directly. Seattle resident Rox Hohlbein has set up a Facebook Page to ask for goods and services requested by a person in need — in the past five years, Hohlbein said that every request posted has been answered.
There are other stories, including one featuring a family in North Carolina looking to raise funds for a sex education program in their area to stem HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases.
Facebook tells VentureBeat that it’ll be sending special messages to its users within the United States and Canada to help raise awareness of Giving Tuesday and the aforementioned stories. A spokesperson told us, “We know people around the world connect with their friends to celebrate special moments like holidays and other cultural moments on Facebook, which is why we’re sending them this message.”
Of course, with the company recently testing a new tool to help nonprofits raise funds, it’s probably not too far-fetched to see some causes and organizations try out this method. The company also just published several 360-degree videos from causes like Charity Water, TOMS Shoes, and the Clinton Global Initiative that are meant to help enhance their story.
Snapchat
The ephemeral messaging app company is participating this Giving Tuesday in association with (RED). Snapchat has created its first-ever global filter that, when applied, will trigger a donation to the AIDS-fighting organization. Users will find that there are three (RED) filters, designed by Tiesto, Jared Leto, and Jimmy Kimmel.
These filters will be available in all markets and will rotate throughout the day.
For 24 hours, every time any of these filters are used in a Snap, The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will donate $3 until $3 million has been raised. One hundred percent of the funds will go towards fighting AIDS — no overhead is taken by Snapchat.
Twitter isn’t shy about doing good in its community — it has a #Twitter4Good team dedicated to this cause. The company told us that its Neighbor Nest community space will hold Twitter 101 and 201 training classes for businesses in the mid-Market area of San Francisco, California. It also published an interview it conducted with the creator of the #GivingTuesday event, Henry Timms of the 92nd Street Y.
Nvidia
Although Nvidia isn’t doing a campaign like the ones listed above, it does have plans this weekend to replace its annual holiday party with time spent helping the community. The company said that its 1,500 volunteers will spend two days working to once again “improve key institutions in nearby low-income communities.” It’ll be targeting Sheppard Middle School and Painter Elementary School in the Alum Rock Union School District in East San Jose, California.
The company said it will be building outdoor classrooms and education gardens, painting murals, upgrading fitness facilities, creating new seating areas, and much more.
Adobe
Although Adobe isn’t doing any public-facing campaign, it is looking to its employees to help make a difference. The software company revealed that it has partnered with Oxfam International to supports humanitarian efforts around the world. For every employee who contributes this Giving Tuesday, Adobe will donate $1,000 — up to $50,000.
Salesforce
When it comes to philanthropy, one of the most prominent companies is Salesforce. The Marc Benioff-led company has been encouraging founders and chief executives to not think only about their company’s financial bottom line, but also what legacy they’re leaving in the community. This leads to the 1 percent pledge that today has over 500 companies committing to it — 1 percent of employee time, equity, and product or profit goes back into the community.
This 1 percent pledge was started by Salesforce along with Atlassian, the Entrepreneurs Foundation of Colorado, and Rally for Impact in 2014 and has received the support of companies like AppNexus, Campaign Monitor, Twilio, Glassdoor, Hampton Creek, Lookout, Weebly, and even venture capital firms.
Munchery
Munchery is doubling down on its year-long campaign to feed those in need. While the company already donates one meal to a local kitchen for every meal ordered, this Giving Tuesday, it’ll offer diners the opportunity to make donations directly towards a local food bank with each order. So not only will you be buying food for yourself, but you can help feed someone else too.
Apple
Apple’s App Store has partnered with (RED) and the developer Supercell to raise money to fight AIDS. Every time you buy a special (RED) packs for select Supercell games: Clash of Clans, Boom Beach, and Hay Day, 100 percent of the proceeds will go towards the cause. These packs will be available as in-app purchases until December 4 at 8 a.m. Pacific Standard Time. Each purchase will include a limited-time decorative item so you can highlight your support in the game.
Originally published on Next in Nonprofits.
Pledge 1% “is a corporate philanthropy movement dedicated to making the community a key stakeholder in every business. Pledge 1% encourages and challenges individuals and companies to pledge 1% of equity, product, and employee time for their communities.”
Co-founder and Rally Software CTO Ryan Martens joins host Steve Boland to talk about the important work of encouraging corporations – starting with the technology sector – to pledge to improving our communities through diverse giving. Ryan talks about working with community foundations, measuring the impact of in-kind gifts, and reaching sustainable business models for increased giving.
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Originally posted: December 1, 2015
By Levi Sumagaysay. Originally published on SiliconBeat.
Here’s what’s on the Tuesday menu.
A court document released Monday shows what NSLs are good for: The FBI uses national security letters to demand warrantless access to Internet users’ complete browsing history, online purchases and who they communicate with.
In other tech and policy news, the House is considering changes to the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act. The changes would require the government to obtain warrants when they want to access communications that are older than 180 days.
It’s Giving Tuesday. Some tech companies are following Salesforce’s philanthropic example, MarketWatch reports.
Eddy Cue Q&A about Apple’s News app: It’s for everyone; it’s good for journalism; there are no censorship hurdles in China.
Messaging battle? Facebook looks to be blocking links to Telegram, a Whatsapp rival.
“Iterating Grace,” an anonymously written satire of Silicon Valley, now has a publisher. (NYT)
Now playing at the Google Cultural Institute: You, onstage at Carnegie Hall, via 360-degree videos. (NYT)
Hewlett Packard Enterprise teams up with Microsoft Azure on hybrid cloud.
AT&T raises price for grandfathered unlimited data plans, will be $35 a month starting in February.
Originally posted: December 1, 2015
By Mark Hubert. Originally published on MarketWatch.
Mark Hulbert discusses the growth expectations imbedded in Amazon.com’s current stock pick and how likely it is that they will be met. See full story.
These are the stocks for playing climate change
As a summit on climate change takes place in Paris, banks are thinking about the hot-button topic — including how to make money from it. Bank of America Merrill Lynch details stocks with “exposure to climate change-related solutions.” See full story.
On Giving Tuesday, tech companies follow Salesforce’s example
Pledge 1%, a corporate philanthropy movement, is using Giving Tuesday to announce that more than 500 companies, including many tech startups, have committed to the once-novel donation model created by Salesforce.com Inc. See full story.
What you need to know about China’s inclusion in IMF currency basket
Five things you need to know about the Chinese currency’s inclusion in the International Monetary Fund’s currency basket. See full story.
Millennials cheer as boomers retire
The underemployment rate for college graduates dropped to 6.2% this year from a high of 10.2% during the recession. See full story.
MARKETWATCH PERSONAL FINANCE
Based on the price per square foot in eight neighborhoods, New York looks like a comparative bargain. See full story.
Originally posted: December 1, 2015