Six Feet Up
Six Feet Up makes the world a better place by accelerating tech leaders’ impact. As a Python and cloud expert consulting company, we help clients make informed decisions, access accurate data faster, and scale up operations. Our engineers specialize in application development, AI, big data and cloud technology.
By: Darcy Lee, VP of Strategic Growth & Partnerships at Six Feet Up
Six Feet Up CTO Calvin Hendryx-Parker speaks at DjangoCon US 2022.
At Six Feet Up, giving back has always been a core part of our IMPACTFUL mission, and when we learned about Pledge 1%, we were immediately compelled to take the pledge. In addition to donating our resources, time and expertise, we also pledge to collaborate with like-minded companies and non-profits to build a better world.
Since its founding in 1999, Six Feet Up has been a key player in the tech and open source communities. Most recently, at DjangoCon US 2022, we collaborated with tech companies across the globe. We charged all conference attendees to think about how they can use technology to make the world a better place, and we asked each attendee: “What IMPACT will you have?”
In addition to using Six Feet Up’s booth, banners and swag to empower others to make an impact, our CTO and AWS Hero, Calvin Hendryx-Parker, kicked off the conference with a talk about the IMPACT of Django on our world. Technologists have a unique opportunity to find solutions for complex challenges. It’s amazing to see how Django is used every day to bring impressive, purposeful and transformative projects to life. For example:
- REVSYS had a hand in building Politifact.com, a Django-based website that fact checks politicians to help present real, unbiased facts. Fake news is everywhere these days, but PolitiFact is doing its part. It even won the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting for its coverage of the 2008 election.
- Octopus Energy is using Django to supply clean energy to millions of customers worldwide.
- Caktus worked with the United Nations to develop the world’s first SMS voter registration system for Libyan elections.
- Torchbox is helping protect our oceans with a donations platform for the Marine Conservation Society powered by Wagtail.
- Lincoln Loop uses Django to support Energy Solutions, a company that provides cost-effective, market-based carbon, energy, and water management solutions.
- Six Feet Up used Django to:
- power an app that predicts when and where lightning will strike in just seconds.
- map forest fire trajectory to help emergency response agencies more efficiently and effectively contain a blaze.
- to streamline battery energy storage operations to help mitigate the economic and environmental impacts of climate change.
At the end of his talk, Calvin asked everyone to stop by the Six Feet Up booth to complete an IMPACTFUL survey. We asked attendees what issues were most important to them, which organizations they thought were most IMPACTFUL and what they were doing on a personal level to make a difference in the world. At the end of the conference, I gave a lightning talk to share the results.
Darcy Lee, VP of Strategic Growth & Partnerships for Six Feet Up, gives a Lightning Talk at DjangoCon US 2022.
Climate change, inequality, education, energy, and water were among the top responses from attendees. And as the most mentioned organization in the survey, the Django Software Foundation received a $200 donation from us to continue its work promoting the Django web framework and the good it can do in the world.
This word cloud shows the issues that survey respondents felt the most strongly about.
This word cloud shows organizations that survey respondents feel impact the world in a positive way.
We know that to make a positive impact on the Earth, we must work together and do our part to address global challenges. Joining Pledge 1% gives us a way to formalize the impactful work we have done over the years. For example:
We Assist
Six Feet Up is committed to completing 10 IMPACTFUL projects — defined as projects that are impressive, purposeful and transformative — by 2025. By working with like-minded companies on projects that impact the world, and by listening to the greater tech community to determine the direction of such work, we aim to inspire others in the global tech community to pursue projects that can have a positive impact. So far, we’ve had the privilege to work on five IMPACTFUL Projects. You can read about these projects and our goal here.
We Empower
Six Feet Up empowers people across the globe via loans granted through Kiva. To date, the Sixie team has given $23,700 and granted 889 loans to people in need.
We Serve
Six Feet Up serves others by donating our time and expertise to multiple nonprofits. For example, members of the leadership team — myself included — are on the Women & Hi Tech board of directors, the Plone Foundation board, and the Django Foundation board.
We are proud to be doing transformative work, but this is only the beginning. By continuing to complete these projects and further inspire and engage the broader tech community, we aim to create a tidal wave of innovation from the ground up that can benefit the world.
Passage Technology
Passage Technology is a trusted provider of native Salesforce apps and development services. Since 2008, Passage Technology (passagetech.com) has empowered 30,000+ customers with administration and project management tools, and custom developed solutions.
https://www.passagetechnology.com
Sometimes making a difference makes all the difference, and Passage Technology is striving to make an impact for our communities. This year, we expanded our Pledge 1% commitment to encompass volunteering in our local communities, as well as making cards for kids who will be hospitalized.
Making Cards for Hospitalized Kids
There have been high numbers of children hospitalized with RSV throughout the U.S. recently. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that RSV leads to 58,000-80,000 hospitalizations for children under five years old every year.
To provide encouragement to them and all hospitalized kids, our team will be making Cards for Hospitalized Kids, as part of our month-long Giving Tuesday effort. This Chicago-based organization works to spread joy to more than 14,000 kids in 150 hospitals and Ronald McDonald Houses in the U.S. with handmade cards.
Providing Access to Healthy Food for Children and Families
In the U.S. 13 million children are food insecure, and food insecure people are 2.9 times more likely to experience poor health. To help fight childhood hunger, we participated in making 2,000 sack lunches at Kids’ Food Basket in Grand Rapids, MI. The organization distributes sack lunches to schools for kids to take home.
“It was a very rewarding experience knowing that we were helping provide food for kids who wouldn’t otherwise have a meal,” said a content marketing manager at Passage Technology.
Helping to Build and Improve Housing for Families
Rising interest rates and the housing shortage have made it more challenging for many families to afford housing. “Nationally, there is a shortage of more than 7 million affordable homes for our nation’s 11 million-plus extremely low-income families,” explains the National Low Income Housing Coalition.
Our Giving Tuesday volunteer efforts include Passage Technology staff helping out at Habitat for Humanity in Marshall County, Indiana. Habitat for Humanity is a global nonprofit housing organization whose vision is a world where everyone has a decent place to live.
Volunteering and participating in events like Giving Tuesday is not only a way to help others, it also offers health benefits. “Volunteering can have a significant impact on a person’s health and well-being. It can reduce stress levels, improve mood, help people stay active and give them a sense of purpose. In fact, 94% of people who volunteer say that volunteering improves their mood,” explains Forbes.
Co-Founder Brent Gossett, said, “On Giving Tuesday and all year long, Passage Technology is proud to support Pledge 1% and make an impact in our communities.”
ShoppingGives
ShoppingGives is the all-in-one social impact solution for eCommerce, omnichannel retailers, and direct-to-consumer brands to help them enable purchases with impact while doing well for their business. Through native integrations and customizable giving solutions, ShoppingGives helps brands of all sizes create more engaging and authentic customer experiences while boosting business metrics like average order value, conversion rate, customer loyalty, and lifetime value.
The hustle and bustle of the holiday season is synonymous with consumer spending and retail promotions, but there’s also an increased desire for charitable giving. It is the season of giving, afterall!
ShoppingGives works hand-in-hand with retailers and merchants to drive charitable donations to nonprofit organizations by creating donations on purchases made from their customers. This means that as consumers are doing their holiday shopping and gift buying, ShoppingGives’ brand partners are committed to donating a portion of every purchase made towards charitable organizations.
While the need for social good is ever-growing, ShoppingGives and their merchant partners are focused on creating an even larger impact for nonprofits this holiday season to help them meet fundraising goals and continue working in their missions.
For the holiday season, ShoppingGives is working with Feeding America, Equality Now, Born This Way Foundation, and Amazon Conservation Alliance to create the Powered by Purpose Coalition. This coalition is bringing purposeful brands together to raise awareness and funds for nonprofit causes like Climate Action, Women’s Rights, COVID Relief, and Mental Health.
The holiday season is one of the most important opportunities to raise funds and support the causes we care about, and the Powered by Purpose Coalition is committed to helping spread joy over the holiday season by offering hope and support to those who need it most.
Unity Technologies
We are the world’s leading platform for creating and operating interactive, real-time 3D (RT3D) content. We empower creators. Across industries and around the world.
On November 29, Unity will participate in GivingTuesday. Since its creation in 2012, the day has been used to demonstrate radical generosity through volunteering, random acts of kindness, and donations. This global movement for altruism is the perfect opportunity to come together and support our favorite causes to enable them to continue to do their important work.
This year, we are highlighting organizations that Unity employees have supported (outside of Ukraine relief giving donations) throughout the year. Unity will match up to $1000 USD per year for full-time employees in personal donations made to match-eligible causes. Match eligibility is granted to nonprofits or charities who have missions that align with some key areas of focus: Education & Inclusive Economic Opportunity, Environmental Sustainability, and Health & Wellbeing. Below you will find nonprofits that we are highlighting for GivingTuesday and a little about their missions.
Education & Economic Opportunity
- Urban Arts Partnership (New York, United States)
- Wikimedia Foundation (DC, United States)
- Teach for Japan (Tokyo, Japan)
- Lietuvos Junior Achievement (Vilniaus Apskritis, Lithuania)
- Enseña por Colombia (Bogotá, Colombia)
Environmental Sustainability
- World Wildlife Fund (Washington DC, United States)
- Asociacion Viajes Tumaini (Madrid, Spain)
- The Climate Change Organisation (England, United Kingdom)
- Green Korea United (Seoul, South Korea)
- David Suzuki Foundation (British Columbia, Canada)
Health & Wellbeing
- MIND- The National Association For Mental Health (England, United Kingdom)
- Floating Doctors Inc (California, United States)
- Singapore Association for Mental Health (Singapore)
Psykiatrifonden (Hovedstaden, Denmark)
- Make-A-Wish Foundation Canada (Ontario, Canada)
In honor of GivingTuesday, our employees have the opportunity to donate to causes through our GivingTuesday Campaign in addition to a more comprehensive list of match eligible organizations.
Pledge
Pledge is the world’s most trusted and innovative fundraising platform. Integrated with an incredible network of 2+ million verified nonprofits, we empower individuals, charitable organizations, and brands to create innovative campaigns that drive donations towards positive impact.
Did you know that every time a donation is made, 3% of that money goes towards credit card processing fees? And while that may not seem like much initially, if we took every dollar raised last year, that would result in over $10 billion dollars – talk about a huge potential for impact! If we put those dollars instead towards nonprofits, we could:
-Plant 10 billion trees
-Build 400 elementary schools
-Rescue 33 million shelter dogs
-Feed 1.1 billion for a month
Which is exactly why Pledge decided to #FreeTheFee by covering all credit card fees for donations made under $1,000 through our platform. We did this not only because we believe it’s the RIGHT thing to do, but also provides an immense opportunity for nonprofits to do more of what they do best – and that’s making a difference!
Whether you are a nonprofit, brand, or individual looking to inspire a change this holiday season, we invite you to join Pledge on our movement to #FreeTheFee, ensuring 100% of all donations go directly to the organizations that need them most.
To get started, visit pledge.to/free-the-fee today!
New Relic
As a leader in observability, New Relic empowers engineers with data to plan, build, deploy, and run great software. New Relic delivers the only unified data platform for all telemetry paired with powerful full-stack analysis tools to help engineers do their best work with data, not opinions. www.newrelic.com
https://newrelic.com/social-impact
Through Social Impact at New Relic, we aim to enable our employees to share their skills, time and resources with intention. With that in mind, this Giving Tuesday we’re kicking off our 2nd annual 21 Days of Goodness campaign – an initiative built to create opportunities for employees to connect with each other through giving back in a variety of ways.
- Week 1: We kick off the campaign “treasure hunt” style with a week dedicated to giving, surprising employees with varying levels of Giving Rewards (funds they can donate to charity), leveraging the power of sharing to inspire each other to support causes we care about.
- Week 2: From there, week two is all about learning, and we spend time gamifying getting to know our social impact tools so employees are more aware of all the ways they can give back year round.
- Week 3: 21 Days culminates in week three with our Global Day of Service, a day where we close down our offices and encourage employees to partner up with a local organization or do something close to their own hearts for the day in service to their community.
Last year we raised nearly $70k across the campaign and saw more than 4500 volunteer hours tracked around the world in just one day, and in 2022 we’re looking to grow our efforts! Every year, 21 Days of Goodness is such an incredible reminder of the way Relics around the world care about their communities all 365 days of the year.
LiquiDonate
LiquiDonate works with businesses to help seamlessly donate their unsellable or unusable goods to nonprofits and schools nationwide.
LiquiDonate is proud to join the pledge 1% community, through a commitment of time, equity, and product.
LiquiDonate provides retailers with a sustainable solution for handling the costly and cumbersome reverse logistics flow of returns and excess inventory. Specifically LiquiDonate helps retailers donate such goods to nonprofit organizations, schools, and community groups nationwide. LiquiDonate’s tech-based solution for landfill diversion uses their Donation as a Service API (DaaS) and matching algorithm, to save retailers significant capital while providing them with an opportunity to have a direct social impact within their community. Recipients receive free goods, allowing them to spend their donation dollars on other programmatic costs.
Founded by two ex-Postmates employees – Diz Petit who led the sustainability and social impact efforts at Postmates, and Chai Nadig who built tech for good products at Postmates – were inspired by a notion that there was immense room for improvement within a system that produces 6 billion pounds of waste every year. 80% of retail returns end up in landfills, while the other 20% goes into a costly, inefficient, and often wasteful liquidation process.
“Our goal is to do some of the most extreme landfill diversion in the world through LiquiDonate, while increasing the accessibility of quality items for nonprofits who need them the most.” -Diz Petit, LiquiDonate Founder & CEO.
LiquiDonate’s scalable API is being built to handle millions of item donations from enterprise retailers, and instantaneously match them to nonprofits.
A solution like LiquiDonate, which helps retailers meet their sustainability goals, is required now more than ever. Driving factors include an increased interest and requirement for ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) reporting, a growing consumer demand for companies to move in a sustainable direction, as well as a brightening spotlight on Retail’s ‘Dark Side,’ as reported by the New York Times.
In line with Pledge 1% initiatives, it was important to both the founders and early employees to establish a company culture that values and creates opportunities to give back to our local communities. With hopes to inspire joining the movement of tech for good within the tech space, LiquiDonate employees are given 24 hours of paid volunteer time to spend in their communities as they see fit to make the biggest impact on issues they care about. LiquiDonate prioritizes efforts to volunteer together at every company offsite as part of team building and giving back, as they did recently with Project Open Hand in San Francisco. LiquiDonate also plans to create the largest, accessible database of nonprofits to bridge the gap between givers and nonprofits.
Nonprofits are invited to register at www.liquidonate.com/register-a-nonprofit
Retailers are invited to request a demo at www.liquidonate.com/retail
Zuora
Zuora provides a leading monetization platform for recurring revenue businesses across all industries, enabling companies to unlock customer-centric business models. After starting with Zuora Billing in 2007, Zuora’s award-winning multi-product portfolio now includes Zuora Revenue, Zuora Collect, and Zephr, a Zuora Company. Zuora serves as an intelligent hub that monetizes and orchestrates the complete quote to cash and revenue recognition process at scale.
Zuora is proud to be a Pledge 1% Builder. We took the pledge in 2017 before we went public and committed to give back 1% of our equity and employee time to our communities. In 2019, we launched Zuora.org, which is part of our company and not a separate entity, to propel our pledge to action. Since 2019, we have committed $4 million worth of our Class A common stock to our Donor Advised Fund through the Tides Foundation. These funds are used to make grants to nonprofits around the world and support our employee giving and volunteering programs each year.
Fighting Climate change and preserving the planet through the Subscription Economy
To maximize its resources and have the greatest impact possible, Zuora has focused on building deep multi-faceted relationships with nonprofit partners that are aligned to the core of its business and provide opportunities for its employees to engage. This year, Zuora gave Village Capital, the largest supporter of impact-driven seed-stage entrepreneurs in the world, a $409,454 grant to support one of their accelerator programs. After conducting a deep landscape analysis, Zuora and Village Capital launched Sustainability Subscribed and selected a cohort of 9 startups, out of dozens, who were all focused on solving climate change using recurring revenue business models.
Sustainability Subscribed was focused on supporting startups with diverse backgrounds.
- 40% of the cohort was headquartered outside of US tech hubs (NY, CA, and MA)
- 40% have a BIPOC member of the founding team or C-Suite
- 70% have a female member of the founding team or C-Suite
The startups were focused on things like:
♻️ Reducing plastic waste
Micro-climate forecasting to improve local agriculture yields
Reducing food waste
High tech soil carbon verification
✅ More effective deployment of green building incentives
Establishing a carbon savings account via HSA/FSA like structures
An O/S for charging platforms
Increasing textile reuse/recycling
⚡ Turning any lamppost into an electric charging station
During the 4-month accelerator, which was laser-focused on investment readiness, the founders had the opportunity to work with mentors, industry experts, investors, and ecosystem partners to develop the networks they need to scale their impact. Over 20 Zuora employees were engaged on the Advisory Board, as mentors, and/or as workshop leaders.
The final 2.5 day Program Summit was held at Zuora’s HQ in Redwood City. Tien Tzuo, Zuora’s Founder & CEO, joined Allie Burns, Village Capital’s CEO, for a fireside chat where he reflected on Zuora’s journey and shared advice with the founders. The event concluded with the 9 participant startups evaluating each other through an investor lens, using eight specific investment criteria that leverage Village Capital’s venture investment levels. Benchmark Labs and Voltpost were ranked “most investment ready” and each received $50,000 in grant funding from Zuora. The two companies are focused on the following:
- Benchmark Labs (San Diego, CA) the first and only solution to provide real hyper local forecasting, improving local agriculture yields and reducing the need for irrigation pumping.
- Voltpost (New York, NY) is retrofitting lamp posts into electric vehicle charging stations to democratize charging access, which is the primary barrier to transitioning to an electric car.
This is just the beginning for Zuora and Village Capital’s partnership!
Let’s here what it was like to participate as a mentor from Zuora employees:
“I was impressed with the passion of the entrepreneurs to make a true difference in climate change. The technology was also very interesting. Thanks to Village Cap and Zuora for supporting ZEOs to partner with these startups.” – Ronak Majmudar, Head of GTM Initiatives
“It was a wonderful experience to connect with startups with outstanding sustainability subscribed visions blended with advanced AI technology. Very proud to know that Zuora plays a significant role in contributing to and supporting this program and startups.” – Darius Jones, Director, Corporate Strategy & Operations
Toast
Toast [NYSE: TOST] is a cloud-based, all-in-one digital technology platform purpose-built for the entire restaurant community. Toast provides a single platform of software as a service, or SaaS; products and financial technology solutions that give restaurants everything they need to run their business across point of sale; operations; digital ordering and delivery; marketing and loyalty; and team management.
https://toast.org/ or http://toasttab.com/
Inaugural Impact Grants from Toast.org will fund nonprofits working to create an impactful and inclusive restaurant community and to address food security in communities around the world.
BOSTON, MA – Nov. 29, 2022 – Toast (NYSE: TOST), the all-in-one digital platform built for restaurants, today announced $1.25 million in grants from Toast.org, the company’s philanthropic arm, to nonprofit organizations striving to enrich the food experience for all by addressing critical issues in the food system. This global grantmaking includes more than $1 million from the company’s inaugural round of Impact Grants to 22 nonprofit organizations and $200,000 to organizations supported by 40 Toast.org local volunteer committees across the globe as a part of its end-of-year Season of Giving.
“We are excited to put our Pledge 1% commitment into action with this first round of Toast.org Impact Grants. The selected grantees are best-in-class at creating tremendous change in the food system, and we are delighted that Toast.org’s capital and expertise can help to accelerate their impact,” said Chris Comparato, CEO of Toast.
The grantees announced today were selected for their standout work in one or more of these focus areas:
- Supporting underrepresented restaurateurs
- Creating opportunities through culinary training
- Helping restaurant workers
- Combating food insecurity and increasing access to healthier foods
“Toast.org is focused on creating a healthier, more sustainable and equitable world where people have enough nutritious and culturally relevant food to eat, where restaurant workers earn a living wage, where surplus food isn’t wasted, and where a diverse and inclusive restaurant community provides opportunity and generates impact,” said Amy Skeeters-Behrens, Vice President of Social Impact at Toast.
Criteria for selection also included innovation; level of impact; commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion; relevance to the restaurant community; and the opportunity for meaningful employee engagement.
“We are thrilled that Toast.org has committed to supporting C-CAP with a very generous grant. It will enable us to provide students with the tools they need for success and fuels our shared mission to improve the food landscape for generations to come,” said Marcus Samuelsson, Co-Chair of the C-CAP Board of Directors.
The 2022 Toast.org Impact Grantees include 22 organizations in three countries:
Grantee | Operating area |
Careers through Culinary Arts Program (C-CAP) | U.S. |
US | |
Greater Boston Area, Massachusetts, U.S. | |
Greater Boston Area, Massachusetts, U.S. | |
New York City, New York, U.S. | |
San Francisco Bay Area, California, U.S. | |
Ireland | |
Greater Boston Area, Massachusetts, U.S. | |
US | |
New York City, New York, U.S. | |
Chicago, Illinois, U.S. | |
San Francisco Bay Area, California, U.S. | |
Greater Boston Area, Massachusetts, U.S. | |
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S. | |
Nashville, Tennessee, U.S. | |
North American Traditional Indigenous Food Systems (NATIFS) | U.S. |
Omaha, Nebraska, U.S. | |
Los Angeles, California, U.S. | |
U.S. | |
Greater Boston Area, Massachusetts, U.S. | |
Sri Sathya Sai Annapoorna Trust | India |
Kentucky, U.S. |
Learn more about our efforts to enrich the food experience for all and opportunities to partner with us at Toast.org.