By Ludovic Ulrich. Originally published on the Salesforce blog.
Last year, Salesforce for Startups launched globally with the mission to empower startups to build, grow and give back. In that time, more than 3,500 members have joined the program from more than 85 countries. And we’re just getting started. To coincide with this milestone, the program has introduced a new offer related to Salesforce’s marketing automation tool, Pardot; a new partnership with enterprise technology venture fund Work-Bench; and new plans to grow and expand globally.
We’ve listened to the community.
The countless conversations we’ve had with entrepreneurs in our first year confirms there is no lack of passion, innovation and creativity across the global startup community. However, many entrepreneurs struggle with laying the right foundation for long-term success. As we’ve worked with startups over the last 12 months, it’s become clear that beyond choosing the right development environment or technology platform for their products, startups’ more pressing challenge is finding ways to better connect with their customers. We’ve listened to these concerns, and Salesforce for Startups is committed to helping these early-stage startups become customer-focused companies.
A vision to help startups become customer companies.
Startups that join Salesforce for Startups have access to the technology, tools and expertise needed to become thriving customer- and community-focused companies. We focus on helping startups build, grow and give back.
- Build – Through Salesforce for Startups, startups gain access to development platforms in the Salesforce App Cloud to quickly build any type of app at scale. We chose to build our Salesforce for Startup program on this very same technology, and we can help startups do the same so they can stay close to their customers’ needs.
- Grow – Once startups establish a product and market fit, they need to focus on growing efficiently at scale. Living in spreadsheets and multiple email inboxes is a recipe for failure. Salesforce for Startups’ goal is to provide startups with the tools they need to connect to customers across sales, service and marketing to support their growth. Today, we’re excited to announce we’re offering registered startups a 30% discount on Pardot to kickstart their B2B marketing automation efforts.
- Give Back – In partnership with Pledge 1% – an organization founded by Salesforce.org, Atlassian and the Entrepreneur’s Foundation of Colorado – Salesforce for Startups enables startups to easily adopt the 1-1-1 integrated philanthropy model that Salesforce itself pioneered at an early stage in its history. More than 25% of our members are currently working with Pledge 1%. Salesforce for Startups members who have recently taken the pledge include Auctio, LendUp and Yesware.
We’re just getting started.
By our second anniversary, our goal is to triple our membership and see our program reach all corners of the globe. Many thanks to our current network of accelerators and other startup organizations, including Communitech, StartupAUS, Startupbootcamp, Startup Grind and UPGlobal, who have introduced us to their innovative communities. We’ll continue to develop programming through partnerships like these.
And, speaking of partnerships, today we’re proud to announce our new relationship with Work-Bench, an enterprise technology venture fund and well-respected thought leader in the NYC enterprise startup ecosystem. Much of our growth can be attributed to support from organizations like Work-Bench, which helps startups accelerate product development and customer insights by connecting them with forward-thinking Fortune 500 companies. We look forward to working with Work-Bench and other partners to develop content and workshops in the coming year. Stay tuned for more news on that front.
Salesforce for Startups is the only global startup program guides startups through their build and grow phases, and is also focused on giving back. If you’re a startup that wants to become a customer company, join us!
Learn more about Salesforce for Startups at http://salesforce.com/startups.
Read great startup stories here: https://startups.salesforce.com/startup-customers.
Follow @Salesforcestart to keep up to date with our latest news and offers.
Originally posted: November 19th, 2015
Originally published on Medium.
Last year on #GivingTuesday, Salesforce.org, along with Atlassian, Entrepreneurs Foundation of Colorado and Rally, launched Pledge 1%: a movement to encourage high-growth emerging companies around the world to build philanthropy into their business. We’ve had an unbelievable year — hundreds companies have already pledged 1% of their equity, profit, product or employee time back into the community — and we’re on our way to hitting our goal of 500 pledges by #GivingTuesday 2015 on December 1st.
Today, as we kick off Salesforce World Tour New York City, we’re pleased to celebrate the incredible Pledge 1% members in New York.
- 212 Staffing, a company that provides consulting and staffing services to local and global enterprises implementing and using Salesforce, Oracle and SAP based applications, has pledged 1% of time, 1% of product and 1% of profit.
- Admittedly, an app that takes the guesswork out of school applications, has pledged 1% of time and 1% of product.
- AppNexus, the world’s leading independent ad tech platform, has pledged 1% of time.
- Auctio, Inc., is a referral management platform that enables companies (B2B) to launch and optimize referral and cross selling programs, has pledged 1% of equity, 1% of time, 1% of product, and 1% of profit.
- Care+Wear, a company designing innovative healthwear to create a more positive and effective healing experience for patients everywhere, has pledged 1% of profit.
- CariClub, a company that is connecting young professionals to nonprofit junior board opportunities, has pledged 1% of time and 1% of product.
- CartoDB, a company making it easy to map and analyze data, has pledged 1% of product.
- ChatID, a platform that connects consumers and brands from within the retail channel, has pledged 1% of time.
- CloudPixle, a leading innovator in the digital signage space, has pledged 1% of equity, 1% of time, 1% of product and 1% of profit.
- Dstillery, a company that creates data-driven marketing solutions that are brand-specific, cross-channel, and tuned to perform, has pledged 1% of equity and 1% of time.
- Goby, an expertly designed toothbrush, has pledged 1% of profit.
- enhatch, a mobile platform for field sales teams, has pledged 1% of product.
- Epic Foundation, an organization that connects the world’s leading philanthropists and corporations with outstanding organizations focused on youth wellbeing, has pledged 1% of time.
- Fundera, a company that makes it easy to save on a small business loan, has pledged 1% of equity, 1% of time, and 1% of product.
- General Assembly, a global network of campuses for technology, business, and design, has pledged 1% of time.
- Guggenheim Partners, a global investment and advisory financial services firm, has pledged 1% of time.
- Javelin, an all-in-one software platform for innovators, has pledged 1% of equity, 1% of time and 1% of product.
- Media Math, the top advertising software company for transformative results, has pledged 1% time, 1% product and 1% profit.
- Multi, which allows individuals to interact with local businesses in real time has pledged 1% of equity, 1% of time and 1% of product.
- Placemeter, Inc., an urban intelligence platform, has pledged 1% of time and 1% of product.
- Porter and Sail, the premium digital concierge for leading lifestyle hotels, has pledged 1% of time.
- Qubit, a digital experience leader, has pledged 1% of time and 1% of product. Reserve, a digital concierge service focused on making every part of the dining experience better, for both restaurants and diners, has pledged 1% of equity.
- Scott’s Pizza Tours, a company providing guided tours of New York’s best pizza, has pledged 1% of time and 1% of profit.
- Silverline, a Salesforce Platinum Cloud Alliance Partner focusing exclusively on the end-to-end deployment of salesforce.com products and powerful third party apps, has pledged 1% of time and 1% of product.
- TripExpert, a service providing trustworthy, professional reviews of hotels, restaurants and tourist attractions, has pledged 1% of equity.
- UltraLinq Healthcare Solutions, Inc., a cloud-based medical image and data management platform determined to help payors, networks and providers change how healthcare is delivered and practiced, has pledged 1% of equity, 1% of time and 1% of product.
- Vettd, the mobile app platform for alumni groups, non-profit and social organizations, has pledged 1% of time and 1% of product.
Thinking about building giving back into your company culture? Pledge 1% can help. Take the pledge today at www.pledge1percent.org.
Originally posted: November 11th, 2015
By Ryan Scott. Originally published on Forbes.
Attending SOCAP15, the recent Social Capital Markets conference in San Francisco, was one of the highlights of my year. A world-renowned conference series dedicated to increasing the flow of capital toward social good, SOCAP brings together impact investors, global innovators, foundations, governments, institutions, and social entrepreneurs for a forum on how best to change the world. It’s nearly impossible to leave without feeling inspired and ready to take on any challenge to social progress.
San Francisco is uniquely positioned to help define and embrace the evolving role that businesses play in social change. While all the attention is on the unprecedented wealth within the Bay Area, the reality is that one in five residents live in poverty. Fortunately, the same entrepreneurial mentality endemic to the region has also ushered in brand new tools to address this growing income gap and other pressing social issues.
One of the most exciting of these new tools is the concept of equity pledges, and I was honored to participate in a dynamic panel discussion about how startups can use this commitment to do good from the start.
The discussion was hosted by Rob Joyce, Director of Special Projects for Full Circle Fund, an active network of 200 professionals who leverage their resources, skills, time, and funds to accelerate social good in the Bay Area. A year ago, inspired by Salesforce’s 1-1-1 model, the San Francisco nonprofit launched Founders Pledge, a program that helps companies bake giving back into their corporate DNA by pledging 1% of their equity to nonprofits. These pledge-making companies access resources and programing to cultivate a company culture that builds on their equity commitment; these companies also become a part of the Pledge 1% community, a national and international corporate philanthropy movement dedicated to making the community a key stakeholder in every business.
How are Founders Pledge, Pledge 1%, and other programs relating to models like the 1:1:1 and benefit corporations creating new opportunities for collaborative impact between the private and nonprofit sectors? How can a pledge of company equity be the first step to building a broader social-minded company culture? This was the line of inquiry Joyce posed to me and fellow panelists Dipti Pratt, Director of Pledge 1%, which has encouraged 450 companies to take the pledge so far; Carlos Garcia, Sr. Donor Relations Officer at San Francisco Foundation, which ranks among the nation’s largest community foundations in grantmaking and assets; Milicent Johnson, Manager of SF Gives at Tipping Point Community, which funds and partners with the most promising groups supporting the needy in San Francisco; and Joe Kleinschmidt, a board member of Full Circle Fund as well as CEO and co-founder of productivity software firm Obindo, a company that has also made the Founders Pledge.
The panelists I sat with agreed that there’s never been a better time to engage your company in community outreach, and it’s important to not wait to do so. As the founder of two companies, Kleinschmidt had a helpful perspective. “When you first launch a company, your resources are often extremely limited. But you do get to define the kind of culture you want your company to have.”
Ten years ago, when Kleinschmidt started his last company, he wanted to give back. “But the demands of building a company mean you have no extra time to say, ‘Now I’m going to get to that giving back,’” he observed. “I was always ‘about to get to that.’”
When he launched his second company, Obindo, Kleinschmidt recognized that there are always going to be other demands and giving back must be a part of its mission from the start.
Beyond doing the good work, you need to have systems in place to track how you’re giving back. And the biggest piece of data you need isn’t data at all; it’s the infrastructure to tell your story. Causecast is doing its part in this regard by offering our platform to any Founders Pledge company, and by connecting all of the pledge companies to volunteer and give together. This is particularly helpful to startups that may have a small headcount and no point person to manage their employee volunteer and giving programs. Through the Full Circle Fund, every pledge-making company will enjoy the benefits of the Causecast platform.
“We think about leverage every time we make a key decision at our company,” said Kleinschmidt. “The question we always ask is: how can we do this, not slightly better, but a thousand times better? When we apply that question to philanthropy, we feel the strongest answer is to leverage the community of people who are already doing this. Meeting other like-minded founders is pure gold. There’s an alignment there. Purpose drives you, and founders want to connect with people who have those values.”
The panel agreed that one challenge founders face in shaping their corporate philanthropy is investors. How will funders perceive the generosity of equity pledges?
The answer is that culture is a much broader consideration than what happens within your company. You can’t just add culture after the fact if it isn’t there; sometimes it’s too late. And if you aren’t building your culture with intention, it doesn’t mean it isn’t being built.
Startups compete with larger companies for more than market share; they also compete for talent. And employees these days aren’t just looking for balance – they’re looking for purpose. If you want to attract the best talent, you need to shape your company as a visionary on every level, and that includes philanthropy.
From early on, you are signaling what kind of company you are building. The consensus of my esteemed panelists is that prioritizing philanthropy is an essential tool toward creating a company that resonates through the noise and drives positive social change forward.
Originally posted: November 3rd, 2021
By Quentin Hardy. Originally published in The New York Times.
To view the full article, visit: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/08/giving/marc-benioff-salesforce-chief-on-the-strategic-benefits-of-corporate-giving.html?ref=giving
Originally posted: November 2nd, 2015
By Gillian Tett. Originally published in the Financial Times.
If you are strolling around downtown San Francisco these days you might notice an imposing superstructure springing up, changing the skyline. This is the new headquarters of Salesforce, the cloud computing company that was founded by Marc Benioff in 1999 and has since exploded at startling speed. (Among its clients is the FT.)
But Salesforce is using more than concrete to change the landscape — it is trying to use philanthropy too. In recent years, the group has run a big charitable foundation, which dispenses tens of millions of dollars of aid each year, along with donations of employee time and Salesforce products.
There is nothing unusual about that: most tech companies today run philanthropic programmes, and most newly minted billionaires are giving money away. Just look at how Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has joined forces with Warren Buffett and Bill Gates to implement a pledge to each give away at least half their wealth.
But what makes the Salesforce initiative striking is that the company started doling out cash as soon as it was founded, long before it could aspire to create a 61-storey San Francisco skyscraper. More interesting still, when Benioff’s company made its move into philanthropy, it did this by placing 1 per cent of the equity into a foundation — creating a windfall when Salesforce went public in 2004 for a $1.1bn valuation.
These days, Salesforce is on a mission to persuade other start-ups to do the same via a “1-1-1” pledge (a framework whereby companies give away 1 per cent of their equity, employee time and services for social good). This year, for example, it has teamed up with the Robin Hood Foundation, an organisation that seeks to address the problems of poverty in New York, to promote that pledge on the East Coast.
But the really big prize is Silicon Valley, which is now home to a herd of so-called “unicorns” — start-ups that have not yet floated on any stock exchange but are already valued at more than $1bn. For if those unicorns were to earmark 1 per cent of their equity for charity, it could eventually deliver a philanthropy bonanza. “We think that start-ups should be thinking about philanthropy right from the start,” says Suzanne DiBianca of Salesforce. This is a campaign to turn the tip of those unicorns’ horns into a force for good.
Not all unicorns seem to be convinced by this pitch, however. There is no sign that, say, the founders of Uber — arguably the most (in)famous unicorn around today — are about to give 1 per cent of their company to charity. Nevertheless, dozens of start-ups have signed up to variations of the 1-1-1 pledge, including Seth Levine (founder of Foundry), Dan Siroker (Optomizely), Ron Conway (SV Angel), Scott Farquhar (Atlassian) and Krista Marks (Simbulus).
To my mind, this is a fascinating development. In the past, it was generally assumed in corporate America that people donated money after they had become successful and rich. It was also assumed that companies ran corporate social responsibility programmes only when they had profits to disperse. But what the Salesforce model is trying to do is build philanthropy into the company from the very start. And that reflects a subtle shift in how Benioff and his ilk view companies — and capitalism.
For instead of assuming that companies are just about shareholders, or that corporate social responsibility sits in a separate mental or structural box from business, the 1-1-1 pledge tries to put them into a wider vision of social interest.
This is different from the Wall Street ethos — the concept of capitalism that people such as Buffett espouse (he does not believe in giving chunks of the company to philanthropy because it goes against shareholder interests). Indeed, the language of the 1 per cent pledge has more in common with centre-left ideas, or the 19th-century British Quakers who created companies such as Cadbury. “Companies can do more than make money,” Benioff insists. “They can serve others
If you want to be a cynic, it is temptingly easy to scoff. After all, 1 per cent of your wealth is not that much to give away (the traditional Christian church has usually demanded a 10 per cent “tithe”). And when the tech sector talks about philanthropy today there tends to be a hefty dose of self-interest involved — or, more accurately, self-preservation. The wild success of Silicon Valley is fuelling rising inequality, and savvy entrepreneurs know they need to do something to defuse the inevitable backlash.
To be fair to Salesforce, it should be noted that it started its 1-1-1 pledge well before the current boom. And even if you dismiss the idea as hype, it is worth pausing to consider what might happen if company executives of all stripes assumed that it was normal “business” to give part of their enterprise away. Would that make capitalism more effective (and loved)? Or would it muddy the waters in a dangerous way?
Personally I think Salesforce has it right — but the debate will continue long after the tech bubble has burst. Better keep watching the tips of those unicorn horns.
Originally posted: October 30th, 2015
By Caroline Preece. Originally published on CloudPro.
Salesforce has set aside a $100 million fund to pour cash into European start-ups.
The money will be allocated by the SaaS giant’s global corporate investment group, Salesforce Ventures, whose portfolio includes more than 150 start-ups, such as CartoDB, CloudSense, Cloud9 IDE, NewVoiceMedia, Qubit, Universal Avenue and YOUR SL, but only 17 of those are based in Europe.
However, John Somorjai, EVP of corporate development and Salesforce Ventures, said the money signalled a growing focus on Europe from the company.
“There is so much incredible innovation happening in Europe today and we want to empower the next generation of enterprise cloud start-ups in the region,” he said. “Our $100 million commitment strengthens our mission to help start-ups grow and give back to their communities.”
The public cloud software market in Europe is predicted to grow 12 times faster than other sectors, according to IDC, and is set to hit €33.3 billion by 2019.
Salesforce Ventures has invested in start-ups since 2009, and those present among its portfolio are encouraged to take up Salesforce Foundation’s 1-1-1 model that encourages companies to give back to their community with one per cent of their product, time or equity.
Ruben Daniels, co-founder and CEO at Cloud9 IDE said: “Salesforce Ventures provides not only funding, network and introductions, but also the mentorship and framework to help companies understand how they can give back as they grow.
“We are proud of our commitment to pledge one per cent and expand diversity in the technology industry by making the community a key stakeholder in our business.”
Thorsten Kohler, co-founder and CEO of mobile productivity solutions firm YOUR SL, added: “An investment from Salesforce Ventures offers a collaborative partnership. Salesforce Ventures has increased our ability to stay competitive as we grow and connect with new enterprise customers, delivering success to the entire spectrum of business.”
Originally posted: October 14, 2015
By Naomi Morenzoni. Originally published on Medium.
Any veteran of Dreamforce knows that our community gives back in a big way. This year was no exception with 1 million books donated to libraries and schools around the world, 3,500 kits packed for Project Night Night to support homeless children, 325 students learning to code on site, 75 vets participating in mentoring sessions with executives — and not to mention 10,000 nonprofits and universities discovering how they can power their mission with Salesforce.
We’re incredibly proud of these efforts and what we can accomplish as a community when we come together. But perhaps what’s even more exciting is how many of our partners and customers have been inspired to build giving back into their own culture through the Pledge 1% movement.
Since it’s founding nine months ago on #GivingTuesday in partnership with Atlassian, Rally and Entrepreneurs Foundation of Colorado, more than 425 companies have pledged 1% of their equity, profit, product and/or time to support the causes and nonprofits of their choosing. 61 of these pledges happened at Dreamforce 2015 alone.
A number of Pledge 1% members shared their advice during the four days to inspire others to follow their leadership and take the pledge to build integrated philanthropy into their DNA.
- Start now. Integrating philanthropy at the founding phase may be easier, but there is always an opportunity to build giving back into your culture. Robert Hohman, Glassdoor CEO, and one of Pledge 1%’s newest members, admitted his company is late to the game. However, because of Glassdoor’s 1% equity pledge, his employees will now have a better sense of purpose when they come to work each day by knowing that when they create value for the company they are also creating value for the disadvantaged.
- But start small. For many companies, the feeling that you have to do it all at once often means they end up doing nothing. Karyn Smith, General Counsel at Twilio recommended companies bite off what they can chew. A few years ago they launched Twilio.org to offer their technology at a free and discounted rate to support nonprofits. They have since grown that program and pledged 1% of equity to further expand their commitment to giving back.
- Make it tangible. When giving back is truly integrated into a company culture, it starts from day one. Follow the lead of Dave Elkington, CEO of InsideSales.com, whose company makes it clear even at the hiring process that giving is core to their values. And in walking the talk, all new hires take part in a volunteering event their first day on the job.
- Make it part of your business. While not all business models are designed to donate 1% of product, there are ways to make giving back part of your core business operations. Leila Janah, CEO of Sama group, urged companies to consider impact sourcing, which taps into employment resources that support individuals at the base of the pyramid.
- Make it count. Some entrepreneurs worry that their investors will see setting aside 1% of equity, profit, product or time, as detracting value from their company. Ron Conway of SV Angel, countered that notion, noting that committing to giving back early in a company’s culture provides a better sense of purpose that is appreciated by all stakeholders from employees to investors to customers.
Hear more from Dave Elkington and Karyn Smith on why integrating philanthropy into their respective companies was not only good for their communities but good for business.
Inspired to see what your 1% could do for your community and your world? Take the pledge today to begin building a culture of giving back and join a network of like-minded peers at www.pledge1percent.org.
Disrupt SF started off with a bang this morning with a fireside chat including Ron and Topher Conway, both investors with SV Angel. TechCrunch founder and CrunchFund investor Michael Arrington peppered them with questions about the landscape of Silicon Valley.
They know what they’re talking about, as SV Angel is currently investors in 26 “Unicorn” companies. They’ve been investing for six years and invest in about one new company every week. The elephant in the room was recognized by Arrington, asking the two investors: “Is there a bubble?” Topher Conway quickly replied “no,” to which Arrington brought up his relatively young age of 29. Neither Conway felt like the industry was entering bubble territory.
The discussion began about the stress involved in being a VC and how some investors are looking for a support group. Ron Conway feels like starting a company is more stressful than being an investor, saying the community should be supporting the companies and putting their own stress aside.
“The world is watching us,” said Arrington, saying that a lot of VCs spend a lot of time on Twitter talking about how great they are, and Topher Conway thinks that VCs should be in the background.
Topher continued: “We need to understand that tech founders are leading the next industrial revolution and investors should be honored that they get to be a part of it. They need to knuckle down and help the companies be successful.”
SV Angel raised a $75 million fund last summer, as it needed more capital to keep its ownership percentage up, Topher Conway explained. He also said that they’re not currently raising, but when they do, the fund will be about $40 million. Arrington pressed on why SV was going to go back to “old size rounds” and Topher said it’s about going back to its seed investing roots.
On the topic of Y Combinator, Topher Conway called the program “very important” as SV Angel invests in the cream of the crop from their classes. “Everyone copies Y Combinator’s application, because it’s so well thought through,” Ron Conway added, also calling them the “Stanford of accelerators.”
“Do you sit around and smoke cigars with Paul Graham and say “Hey, if you say I’m the best, I’ll say you’re the best”?” Arrington asked Ron Conway tongue-in-cheek. Reputation matters, and they’ve been working together for quite some time.
The conversation quickly switched over to a political one, as it tends to do when Ron Conway is onstage. He discussed the huge tech job boom and how it has affected housing:
San Francisco has a huge housing problem and the tech industry has a lot to do with the issue. Since 2011, over 100,000 tech jobs have been created in San Francisco alone. The bi-product of that is housing, Ed Lee has put an initiative called Prop A on the ballot.
He directed everyone to visit weupvote.us, vote and read up on how to get involved.
Originally published in the Independent Ireland.
Suzanne DiBianca is at the pointy end of making companies less evil. There’s a real push – particularly in the technology sector – to use the wealth created by companies for something better than just buying Ferraris.
She heads up the Salesforce Foundation and was one of the first employees at Marc Benioff’s massive software and cloud services company.
“We use the 1-1-1 model,” she tells me. This means that 1pc of the company’s people/time-equity-product are devoted to philanthropy and doing good. It’s also on a major drive to encourage young girls to view technology as a potential career.
The Salesforce Foundation gave away $20m in grants last year with another $30m coming this year. About 50pc goes to its staff to fund their own volunteering and schemes to help people, with the remainder split between education programmes and direct grants to groups such as Mary Moloney’s Coderdojo in Ireland which got $200,000 to promote technology to kids. Citywise is another Irish beneficiary. “We’re trying to create a revolution by democratising philanthropy,” New Jersey born DiBianca tells me.
One of the key thrusts and one of the dominant themes of the Dreamforce conference in San Francisco last week is about encouraging women in technology. “We’re focused on encouraging girls,” she says. “We have 50pc girls in all our projects. It’s not that we don’t love boys, it’s just that were trying to catch girls before they fall off.
“Preteen girls who don’t have exposure to tech, engineering or science tend to avoid those sectors as careers later in life. It’s a struggle to attract them. We’re trying to capture them. Minecraft has been great. I showed my daughter how it was built and she thought it was cool. Historically technology has been a boys club and we’re trying to change that. We’re building a pipeline,” she suggests.
The Salesforce foundation has 26,000 “customers” around the world with the majority of them – about 80pc – having budgets of under $1m. DiBianca says that it doesn’t just hand over money to these organisations. “We kind of wrap ourselves around them,” she suggests. This means that the skills and resources of a big company like Salesforce can be used to help.
Corporate philanthropy and the whole corporate and social responsibility seems to make sense for companies. “We call it a secondary or tertiary value. First and foremost it’s about talent. We get more rounded people because of this,” she tells me. One of the top sales guys in the company went off to build a school in Africa on his time off. “He could have just bought a Lamborghini,” she says. “We attract high performance people who want to make a difference.”
This is particularly noticeable in the executive and developer ranks of the company. Attracting high end talent is one of the key challenges in Silicon Valley and in the major tech centres of the world. Any company can pay buckets of money and shovel out stock options but increasingly people are looking for something with a little more soul. They want to give something back.
“In the Great Places to Work survey, we came third in the UK. One of the key things attracting people was the foundation and the ability to volunteer. We’re finding the same thing in Ireland,” she says.
Volunteering is a major thing for Salesforce staff. Last year the Irish Foundation alone chipped in 13,000 hours of employee time to help good causes. Last June they donated 1,500 hours over just one week, as part of their 15th birthday celebrations. Globally, Salesforce staff have given one million hours.
DiBianca is also arm twisting other big global firms to agree to give away 1pc of their equity to philanthropy. This has the potential to completely transform the giving and philanthropic sector and reduces the need for state intervention. There isn’t much of that in the US anyway, which is one reason why the foundation has just divvied up $14m to local Californian schools. “I’m also focussed on it from the equity side. I’m involved in a thing called Pledge 1pc. This year we’re trying to get 500 companies around the world. It’s not just a Salesforce thing.”
Ebay initially rolled out a scheme and DiBianca is trying to improve on the programme. “It’s much harder with late stage companies. You have to be creative. The late stage privates are hard because the equity pie is already carved out, so you have to be creative in how you do it. I think it’ll be a 10 year game,” she says. Companies like Google are committed with new additions coming through all the time such as Twilio and Docusign last week. There are now 400 big companies around the world who are committed to the scheme. “Workday, the cloud based HR company and Yelp, they did the equity set-aside before their IPOs and now they have $120m in their foundations. That’s pretty cool,” she says.
The first conversation with an Irish company about giving over 1pc has also just taken place. It’s unnamed. I mention Stripe and the Collison brothers. “Stripe. Yes, Stripe,” she says. “We’ll have to get them to do something.”