Imagine a world where everything you do makes a tangible, positive impact. Imagine if every time a coffee shop sold a coffee, someone in need receives access to life-saving water, or for every book an author sells, a tree gets planted or every time you’re on Zoom, a child in need gets access to game-changing education….

B1G1 is a business giving initiative with a unique platform that makes these things possible by helping businesses ‘embed’ giving into their everyday activities, creating a long-term habit of giving and growing impacts that are measured, tracked and shared easily. And collectively, 3,000+ B1G1 Businesses have already created more than 260 million giving impacts.

Today, more of those businesses are also joining in the Pledge 1% movement to expand their contributions beyond monetary giving. Here are a few examples.

CRED

CRED joined Pledge 1% in 2019 and incorporated the contribution of 1% time, 1% product and 1% revenue in what they do. They implement B1G1 in their 1% revenue contribution.

CRED gives their time to run programs to support people with mental health issues (this has been especially important since the start of the pandemic), to mentor youth start-ups and to create awareness for the Sustainable Development Goals (the SDGs). They have also integrated various micro-giving with their programs and have created 23,381 giving impacts including 528 days of access to vocational training for women and provision of skills training to vulnerable youth.

Image Credit: CRED (https://cred.global/)

FOUR POINTS CONSULTING

Four Points Consulting pledges more than 1%, in fact 2%, of their revenue from their consulting services to causes that they and their team align with. Their top priorities are the SDG 1: No Poverty and the SDG 4: Quality Education. And they have already provided special education programs to children, youth and families in Cambodia, India, Uganda and the Philippines. They also offer pro-bono work to support important causes.

Image Credit: FOUR POINT CONSULTING GIVING STORIES (https://cred.global/)

B1G1

The B1G1 initiative itself is run by two entities: a Singapore-based Social Enterprise (also a BCorp) that manages the business program, and a US 501(c)(3) charity that manages its Worthy Cause program.

As a Pledge 1% Member, the social enterprise arm also pledges more than 1% of all its revenue to support a wide variety of causes in all of the SDGs. For example, every email their team sends, every meeting they have and every special occasion they celebrate results in a giving impact, while supporting other businesses to implement effective giving in their own unique ways.

So, on this GivingTuesday, B1G1 is sharing the #PLEDGE1%GIVES campaign with their members to encourage more of them to consider joining the Pledge 1% movement.

Together, we really can create a world full of giving where businesses with a real sense of purpose can change our world. For good.

CloudKettle is a Salesforce Partner, and proud to be a Pledge 1% company. Over the years we have supported various organizations in our community in Halifax, Nova Scotia, including We Are Young – a foundation committed to granting unfulfilled wishes to seniors.

The mission of WAY is to raise awareness around the inequalities our seniors face, encourage respect for and appreciation of seniors, and facilitate inter-generational connection where our seniors experience inclusion and belonging in our communities.

CloudKettle has helped the WAY team with the implementation and configuration of their Salesforce NPSP org. We’ve spent time within the WAY org completing object configuration, data transformation and migration, automation, and connecting third party apps for the organization to help the charity run as smoothly as possible. 

CloudKettle is also no stranger to getting out and having some fun as a team, participating in fundraising events like the WAY annual charity golf and softball tournaments. (If you’re a longtime member of the Salesforce community, you might recognize the number on the back of our team shirts.) We place high value on inclusiveness and are committed to improving our community, and are so happy to be able to contribute through the Pledge 1% program.

As a self-preneur, 2021 was a year of reflection. Improvements to do good (and do well) do not have to be a mammoth job nor a big convoluted process.

I like to keep things simple. On my own journey I discovered how quickly the overload of information comes. Reflecting on this, I ended up structuring my efforts with three key areas of focus:

– People
– Product
– Planet

 
In terms of Product, 2021 was a year on since the release of my first book “Becoming more Agile whilst delivering Salesforce”. I’ve extended my pledge with a donation 5% of book sales to PepupTech, a wonderful non profit organisation dedicated to increasing the number of underrepresented people in tech.

Find your niche, find your core. What do you do already and what do you do well that can be extended?

Our third volunteering experience for Pledge 1% was at WoodGreen, one of the largest social service agencies in Toronto.

In this opportunity, we supported WoodGreen’s Food Bank, which is dedicated to alleviating food insecurity and hunger in Toronto. We know food bank visits have significantly increased since the pandemic began so we definitely wanted to make a difference in the lives of our neighbours that are struggling with insecure access to food.

Who is WoodGreen and how do they help our community?

WoodGreen was founded in 1937 and has since grown to over 36 permanent locations throughout Toronto, aiding over 37,000 individuals and families in being more self-sufficient and living independently within their communities.

WoodGreen supports people:

• Find safe, affordable housing


• Seniors live independently


• Homeless and marginalized people get off the streets


• Parents access childcare


• Internationally-trained professionals enter the job market


• Children and youth access after-school programs


• Newcomers settle into Canadian life


• Youth find meaningful employment and training


• Provide a variety of mental health supports

App Solve got involved with WoodGreen’s food program at one of their locations on Queen Street East, Toronto. In this location, WoodGreen also provides safe, affordable housing and a wide range of support services including on-site medical care, counseling, social recreational activities, life-skills training, and community volunteer opportunities.

App Solve Volunteering

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WoodGreen’s food program happens every Tuesday and involves many steps.

Our team helped to unload boxes of food from the trucks of their food donors. After that, we categorized and sorted perishable and non-perishable food. We then bagged the food for client distribution, and finally handed out the food bags to their clients. Also, pet food was provided when needed.

“App Solve’s volunteering journey at WoodGreen was an amazing experience that will remain in our memories” says David Brabrook, CEO & Founder of App Solve.

We had a wonderful day with WoodGreen and we were delighted to be part of the help WoodGreen provides to those experiencing food insecurity.

We want to say thank you to Kathy and Christine from WoodGreen who helped us with everything to ensure our volunteering day ran smoothly.

WoodGreen’s Food Bank could not achieve the transformative outcomes that it does without the support of its donors, corporate partners, and volunteers who step up to make a difference in our community. They count on the help of donors and volunteers to meet their needs.

Visit woodgreen.org to join their team by volunteering, or making a donation. You can also make a difference in the lives of people in need!

At the onset of the pandemic in 2020, Loop & Tie mobilized quickly to use its infrastructure to help gather and distribute tablets to ICUs so isolated patients could have access to video calls with their loved ones to say goodbye. Loop & Tie’s founder, Sara Rodell, formed Covid Tech Connect, with 5 other women in tech, the team quickly grew to 12 and has since become a standalone entity. 

Covid Tech Connect started after Sara received a text about a New York nurse hoping to get a tablet to use with her patients to set up video calls before they were put on ventilators. In those early days, once people went on ventilators, the odds of coming off them were slim and she was hoping to help people say goodbye to their loved ones. She described a heart-breaking situation where in those quickly-escalating early days, patients arrived without phones, without chargers, or would move quickly between rooms and nurses couldn’t find their belongings and unlock phones ahead of the intubation. Nurses and doctors were lending their own devices, but without a standardized way for healthcare-providers to set up phone calls, many weren’t happening. The request was simple, “Do you know of anyone who can donate a few tablets we can use with patients and have them pre-configured for video calling.” Rodell thought, if this person is experiencing this, every hospital must be experiencing the same, as as this grows beyond New York, there will be many more hospitals with this need. 

Rodell realized Loop & Tie was uniquely positioned to help, quickly. Loop & Tie’s core business is to help companies gift their clients and employees through a choice-based gifting experience where recipients can pick what they want, and tell Loop & Tie where to ship it. Loop & Tie easily pivoted to be an intermediary in tablet distribution, replacing “gift choice” with tablet and charge cord bundles; hospitals chose a bundle and let Loop & Tie know where to ship it. Loop & Tie received tablet donations at its warehouse and bundled them into packs of 15 tablets for re-shipping. Covid Tech Connect has placed over 20,000 tablets and 20,000 charge cords in hospitals and nursing homes since its founding, helping countless isolated patients have the comfort of a conversation with a loved one. 

Covid Tech Connect ran in 2 phases. In the first phase we received and shipped tablets as quickly as possible. In order to execute this, our Fulfillment Team at Loop & Tie worked tirelessly to power Covid Tech Connect. After a generous grant from an anonymous donor, we were able to set up a stand-alone entity allowing us to hire a team for full time execution. In the first wave, we were able to secure obsolete supply from a few generous tech companies, but after the first 3,000 devices were placed, we needed to make our own purchases, in an increasingly tight market. Our full time team worked to source supply while also monitoring success metrics to ensure the tablets we were shipping were put to good use. In phase two, with a standardized set of devices (vs. the mix of different brands and configurations we’d received in Phase 1) we were able to pre-configure tablets so they were ready for use once powered on at the hospital. We were also able to solve a significant pain point in call coordination through creating the TeleHome app. A HIPPA compliant, no login-required solution for hospitals to coordinate calls. 

After the initial wave in NYC, we focused on sending devices to underserved and rural communities throughout the US. As Covid hospitalizations thankfully declined, and fewer hospitals were requesting devices, we expressed the intention of connection through issuing grants to other nonprofits and helped communities in India. We used the remaining funds to make grants to US organizations addressing systemic inequality that was exacerbated during the pandemic, communities where food insecurity increased and death of family members threatened to impact children and their futures. We also expanded our reach to support communities in India. As Covid intensified there, we were able to fund projects such as building rickshaw ambulances, telehealth initiatives and food security programs. We’ve made grants to over 20 organizations. 

At Loop & Tie, our mission is about connection, whether it’s through gifting, or something as intense as Covid Tech Connect. In those early days of self-quarantine, like so many others, our employees wanted to help, but didn’t know how. Being able to channel this energy into Covid Tech Connect helped our Loop & Tie team be able to show up in service and feel a sense of purpose in how we could support our global community. We joined Pledge 1%, pledging time and product, because we wanted to join a community of like-minded companies who are owning the responsibility and opportunity we all have to be thoughtful stewards of our power and resources. Joining Pledge 1% helps us be a part of what we hope is the future norm of conscious company building. 

Five years ago, Taival was established to change the way company’s approach strategy and strategic change. Since then, one of our core values is to give forward to the community. This is why we have partnered up with StartUp Refugees in 2019, as we strongly believe in their vision and mission. StartUp Refugees is working together with companies, NGOs, universities, and others to offer refugees, immigrants, and asylum seekers support in finding employment and a chance to develop entrepreneurial skills. Through the partnership, our Taivaleers have worked together with many future entrepreneurs that were part of the Startup Refugees programs. One of these cases is Eleonora and her business. Watch the video to find out more.

This month, Lob.org hosted its very first company-wide Impact Week: Claws for the Cause. The goal of the event was to give all employees an opportunity t o have a positive social impact while at work. We virtually volunteered, learned and gave back in our core focus areas: Civic Action, Racial Justice, and Sustainability. Since the launch of Lob.org this past April, a key part of our approach has been to mobilize our people in addition to our product. The true test for us was to successfully host this week virtually. Spoiler alert: it can 100% be done!

While we are looking forward to safely volunteering in person in the future, we found creative ways to engage with organizations remotely:

On Tuesday, we built Kynd Kits for Casa de Paz that will support immigrants and asylum-seekers who were recently released from detention centers. Since we were focusing on Civic Action on this day, this was a great way to show up for our community. 

On Wednesday, we completed a Reentry Simulation with the Next Chapter team. The Reentry Simulation simulates the struggles and challenges faced by individuals who are transitioning from incarceration back into society. According to the California Innocence Project, more than 65 percent of those released from California’s prison system return within three years. The simulation was an important, emotional and eye-opening experience for our team. 

On Thursday, our Partner Team shared more insight into our company’s sustainability commitments. From the beginning, it has been Lob’s commitment to minimize our footprint and seek out new, creative ways to deliver sustainable, eco-friendly initiatives to our customers. For every employee that attended, we donated to the National Forest Foundation to plant one tree. We planted 76 trees on top of our tree-planting partnership with Eden Reforestation Projects, where we plant two trees for every one used in the production of our mailpieces.

On Friday, we closed out the week with an Ideathon. The question was simple, yet left so much room for interpretation. How might we use our resources to have greater impact in our focus areas? Our teams came up with incredibly innovative ideas. Stay tuned to see some of these ideas put into action. 

Fostering community and discussion, especially in this remote environment, is important to us. In addition to the actions above, we also posted a daily question in Slack for everyone to answer. At the end of the day, we did a raffle for those who participated and the winner received $100 to donate to an organization of their choice. Some of the organizations were: Black Girls Code, San Francisco Achievers, and the Edible Schoolyard Project. 

So, the result of the five days? 

• Over 50% of the company participated in some way during Impact Week


• Every department was represented


• 15 nonprofits were supported


• 38 Kynd kits were built and donated to individuals and families that were recently released from detention centers


• Over 180 hours were spent volunteering and learning in our core focus areas


• Over $2000 was donated to organizations our team cares about

Wow! We could not have done it without our incredible team and all of the organizations that shared their time with us. The Lob.org team believes giving back and educating ourselves is our responsibility given the immense privileges we have as tech employees. We are excited to continue this important work and increase our impact through future Claws for the Cause events! 

If you are a nonprofit leveraging direct mail, or are interested in doing so for your important work, we offer donated and discounted products through our Lob for Good program and we’d love the opportunity to work with you. If there are other ways we can work together, email us at lob-org@lob.com. 

Supporting the communities where we live and work has always been an integral part of Alteryx’s culture and our employee experience which is why we are proud to partner with Pledge 1% to donate our time to give back to our local communities. Our Alteryx for Good (AFG) program includes giving each associate 20 paid hours per year to volunteer with any verified nonprofit organization that is meaningful to them. Meanwhile, our Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) team curates quarterly events that invite our global workforce to engage with an outstanding network of nonprofit organizations we support, making it that much easier for them to give back, connect with one another, and take those much-needed brain breaks from their computers.

One of our most popular volunteering opportunities is with the The Ecology Center, a 28-acre regenerative organic farm, located in San Juan Capistrano, nearby to our corporate headquarters in Irvine, CA. During our most recent event there, 40 Alteryx associates from a variety of departments, including several C-level executives, contributed approximately 120 hours of their time to giving back. The Ecology Center is an amazing place. It is one of the last remaining organic farms in Orange County and it aims to teach volunteers and visitors the importance and critical need of creating and maintaining ecologically sustainable systems, better understanding where our food comes from, and to be a source for vocational training and apprenticeships.

Their mission aligns with one of Alteryx’s core CSR pillars: Sustainability.

At Alteryx, we are proud of the relationships we have formed with several nonprofits and various environmental organizations committed to building more sustainable and resilient local communities. In addition to our work with the Ecology Center, we also partner with the Boulder Watershed Collective in Colorado, the Newport Bay Conservancy in Southern California, the Thompson Island Outward Bound Program at the Boston Harbor Islands, and have raised money for One Tree Planted and charity: water.

We are also committed to integrating sustainable practices into our business and accelerating actions to reduce our environmental impact, because we know change starts at home. Our Alter.Eco employee resource group (ERG) was formed in 2020 and advocates for driving positive environmental changes, both at home and in the office, to create a more sustainable future. Alteryx is committed to being a more sustainable company and we are ready to accelerate investment in this space.

What’s next on our journey?

This year, Alteryx will conduct its first-ever environmental, social, and governance (ESG) materiality assessment, which will help identify ESG issues that are material to our company. It is the first step towards moving environmental and social considerations from siloed initiatives to a core criterion for company-wide decision-making. Following the results of the materiality assessment, we will audit our global carbon footprint to understand where our company generates the most negative impact on the environment and where we have opportunity to offset that negative impact, honing our strategy for subsequent reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.

To get a sense of how our sustainability partnerships operate, take a peek at the video we made that highlights our relationship with the Ecology Center. During our most recent volunteering event, we helped make several clay bricks from soil from the farm (it’s not easy work!) and managed to weed half a field of asparagus, which helped destroy one-quarter acre of weed seed!! Most importantly, however, we connected with the Ecology Center’s cause, each other, and the world around us in a deeply meaningful and impactful way.

A pillar of the San Diego, California community for more than three decades, Asset Preservation Strategies has dedicated time and resources to drive positive change. Founder John Jenkins, alongside CEO Greg Banner, and President Monica Szakos Cramer share a passion for serving others. Together, they have committed 1% of their firm’s profits and time from every calendar year for charitable giving. Their commitment has helped fuel social change for organizations such as Trees for the Future, Helen Woodward Animal Center, FACE Foundation, Promises 2 Kids and Jacobs Cushman Food Bank. Here in 2021, their pledge will go to Trees for the Future, whose mission is to end hunger and poverty by training farmers to regenerate their land. Recognizing the impact that the pandemic has had on the non-profit sector, the APS team’s commitment only strengthened, inspiring them to connect further with the San Diego community and organizations that have a direct, local impact. Read more about the 1% pledge at Asset Preservation Strategies HERE.

“Our entire leadership team is unified in the calling to serve. We value the fulfillment we receive in being able to make a true and tangible difference in the lives of others.” –John Jenkins, Founder and Chairman, Asset Preservation Strategies