This story was submitted as part of the #Pledge1Gives GivingTuesday campaign, which celebrates the many ways our member companies are having an impact around the world.

The entire business model of SeaFreight Labs (www.seafreightlabs.com) is based on the open-innovation principal that no single company has enough smart people, or all of the right people, to solve all of their mission-critical problems. This foundational tenet drives us to look outside for potential collaborators in all that we do. We look to the ‘global crowd’ as the source of expertise, innovation and creativity for our clients.

This worldview led us to join the Pledge-1% movement in May 2020 (read our press release here and our Pledge-1% blog posts here). The sheer number of 1%-pledgers and their great diversity excited us because we know the power of a large and diverse group to achieve great things when it focuses on a common goal. In this spirit, we pledged to donate at least 1% of our ‘product’ to global non-profits to aid their work on humanitarian issues.

After taking the 1% Pledge, we initiated two major projects to honor our product commitment: Habitat for Humanity (www.habitat.org) and World Vision (www.worldvision.org). Each organization is working on intractable problems where a solution would positively impact tens or hundreds of thousands of people. Both projects are soliciting the global crowd to find breakthrough ideas and solutions. We need solvers to engage in any of four different challenges that include:

1. Seeking ideas for improved construction- and demolition-waste management:  https://bit.ly/34wMzzW 


2. Making homes with no foundations more typhoon and/or earthquake resilient:  https://bit.ly/34yrvYG    


3. Seeking ideas for affordable rural single-family sanitation solutions:  https://bit.ly/3nChTF4 


4. Seeking low-cost chlorine monitoring for rural piped-water systems:  https://bit.ly/3er4ZWq 

The due dates for submitting solutions to the challenges are in January 2021. Prizes to winning solutions are up to US$25,000.

Participation in the 1%-Pledge movement emboldened us to seek strategic marketing collaborations with global innovation groups totaling over 1,000,000 members. Participating promotion partners include InnoCentive (www.innocentive.com), Engineering for Change (www.engineeringforchange.org), HeroX (www.herox.com) and the Maker Community (www.make.co). Each of these organizations has contributed time and resources to give all four challenges a better chance of success and to help SeaFreight Labs with honoring of our 1% Pledge. 

As of 11 November 2020, over 440 people have registered as potential solvers in the 4 challenges. They hail from over 45 countries. Each one has the potential to be the “elusive solver” with a new answer to an intractable problem. 

It is truly amazing what our commitment to the 1% Pledge has engendered. We are eager to continue our efforts to impact the world in collaboration with the global crowd and the Pledge-1% movement. 

This story was submitted as part of the #Pledge1Gives GivingTuesday campaign, which celebrates the many ways our member companies are having an impact around the world.

Empower your employees to give back at the individual level by downloading our new Virtual Volunteering Playbook, which includes ideas and best practices on how to excite and inspire individual giving.

Classy is a social enterprise that helps nonprofits build meaningful relationships with their supporters through a suite of world-class online fundraising tools. Nonprofits of every size and cause—from human rights to disaster relief—use the Classy platform to raise money, engage their communities, and advance their missions. Today, Classy’s staff of 200 people serves more than 6,000 nonprofit organizations, including The Salvation Army, Oxfam America, and Team Rubicon. 

Classy’s business model is uniquely designed to serve nonprofit organizations exclusively, and as a pending Certified B Corporation and Pledge 1% member, the technology company is built to power social impact. Classy recently formalized its stakeholder model and commitments to each of its primary stakeholder groups (customer, team, financial, and community). One of those investments was the creation of a new role overseeing sustainability and stakeholder impact. 

This major focus soon led to the launch of a reimagined employee volunteering program. ClassyGives is an evergreen customer connection program that enables employees to engage with nonprofits in meaningful ways, not only increasing customer empathy, but also delivering value to Classy’s nonprofit customers. A few ClassyGives initiatives include: 

• The ClassyGives Fundraising Competition, in which employees raise money for a Classy customer with the chance to visit and volunteer with the organization 


• The ClassyGives Idea Jam, in which employees are paired with Classy customers to solve pressing business problems within a day’s time 


• The ClassyGives Customer Day, in which several customers are invited to come and present their work and participate in employee-led workshops 

To further engage employees with this program, Classy rebranded its historical volunteer-time-off (VTO) policy to Impact Hours, defined as time that Classy employees spend engaging with the nonprofit customer outside of their typical work responsibilities. This expanded policy now includes participation in nonpartisan voter engagement activities, signing or starting a social good or civic engagement petition, serving on a nonprofit board, or serving as an advisor for a nonprofit. 

In addition, as part of its Pledge 1% commitment, Classy invests 1% of top-line revenue back to the nonprofit sector primarily through the Classy Awards, one of the largest impact awards programs in the country. 

Classy has never been more proud and motivated to give back and help nonprofits and social enterprises change the world for the better. As the world’s problems grow more complex, Classy’s ability to support these efforts has never been more important.

This story was submitted as part of the #Pledge1Gives GivingTuesday campaign, which celebrates the many ways our member companies are having an impact around the world.

Empower your employees to give back at the individual level by downloading our new Virtual Volunteering Playbook, which includes ideas and best practices on how to excite and inspire individual giving.

For Visit.org, corporate social responsibility is not just an aspect of its company culture — it is the heart of its business! As people around the globe are increasingly looking to contribute to causes they care about — in their personal lives as well as at work — companies are beginning to understand that perennial giving back opportunities are an indispensable part of a positive employee experience.

And that’s where Visit.org comes in. For companies that need help keeping #GivingTuesday’s momentum going through the holidays and beyond, Visit.org’s platform and service will connect them to nonprofit organizations and facilitate virtual volunteer activities that amplify the social impact of both the org and the company. Through this, not only do the nonprofits receive the financial support they need to continue their essential work, but the companies also benefit from a strengthened sense of community and purpose, which has positive effects on individual employees as well as on the corporation as a whole.

What Visit.org offers has been especially significant in 2020, as an unprecedented number of companies have migrated to a work-from-home model in the wake of COVID-19. While physical separation has become the norm for many, Visit.org has been able help teams from Moody’s, Samsung, Panasonic, and Colgate, among other Fortune 1000 companies, stay connected to each other, to their communities, and to causes they care about. 

CEO Michal Alter says, “Today, there is no other company who provides the same end-to-end service that we do.” By this, she means that Visit.org provides a robust inventory of online activities from all over the world and the opportunity for companies to fully customize their itinerary of events. The result: companies get to build an excellent giving back program that addresses employee interests and values in a way that keeps them coming back for more.

Whether the activity involves writing cards to isolated seniors in Australia, creating care packages for hospitalized children in the United States, performing virtual mock interviews for under-resourced students entering the job market in India, or participating in a cooking workshop led by a refugee chef in the United Kingdom — each participant, despite being remote, gets to make a hands-on impact that is both immediate and lasting. And with Visit.org, the opportunity to do it again (and again, and again) is available any day of the week, any time of year.

This story was submitted as part of the #Pledge1Gives GivingTuesday campaign, which celebrates the many ways our member companies are having an impact around the world.

 

Originally published on medium.com.

 

While these are clearly trying times, we see stories of generosity all around us as people and companies find new ways to show solidarity with those who are most in need. In an effort to help people and organizations throughout the global community find solutions to this crisis, many companies are making their products and services more accessible. From free technology tools for first responders and healthcare organizations, to assistance for struggling individuals and businesses, companies are doing what they can to support the cause and quicken recovery.

 

We’ve provided a roundup of resources being offered by Salesforce Ventures portfolio companies below. For more information about these programs, please reach out to the companies directly.

 

Benefits for first responders and healthcare organizations

 

BugCrowd is offering emergency response teams, hospitals, & care providers free access to their Vulnerability Disclosure Program and Attack Surface Analysis for the next 90 days.

 

Guild Education has partnered with Southern New Hampshire University and Penn Foster to build free training courses to assist workers on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic with staying safe.

 

JazzHR is providing JazzHR PRO for free to Primary, Emergency & Urgent Care providers.

 

Process Street launched COVID procedure templates for hospitals and clinics and offered free accounts for certain facilities.

 

Snyk’s cloud-native application security solution is free for six months to organizations in the healthcare, hospitality, travel and entertainment industries.

 

Free or discounted tools for organizations working on COVID-19 solutions

 

Algolia’s Pro Plan is free to any developer or team working on COVID-19-related, not-for-profit websites or apps.

 

Automation Anywhere has a free thirty-day trial of Automation Anywhere’s Enterprise A2019 to create bots for solutions to aid those affected by COVID-19.

 

CartoDB is offering its spatial analysis and visualization platform to private and public sector companies using maps to fight against the COVID-19 outbreak.

 

Copado announced the immediate availability of free access to its platform for anyone working on applications to fight COVID-19.

 

Dropbox Business and HelloSign Enterprise subscriptions are free for a three-month period to nonprofits and NGOs that are focused on fighting COVID-19.

 

Helpshift is offering their technology to community, government and healthcare organizations at no cost, enabling them to leverage the power of automation to rapidly scale operations without additional staff.

 

PropelPLM launched the Healthcare Manufacturer Community, a free and open community built on Salesforce Care which contains easy to navigate medical device designs, sourcing and component data, and documentation that allows companies to pivot and manufacture ventilators, as well as other life-saving medical equipment.

 

Free or discounted access for schools, teachers, and students

 

AdmitHub is offering free access to the AdmitHub platform and its AI-powered bot to the government & educational community for 90 days.

 

FutureFuel launched a free service to help all student loan holders get on federal repayment plans that lower monthly payments, all the way down to $0 for 12 months.

 

Hustle’s texting platform is free through June 30, 2020 (up to 10,000 messages) to help governments, NGOs, and schools to connect with their communities.

 

Vidyard is offering free access to Vidyard for Schools to enable teachers and staff to record and share secure video messages for better engagement with students, parents, colleagues, and the community.

 

Zoom is free to all new users and has lifted the 40-minute meeting limit for free Basic accounts for K-12 schools. Zoom is used by businesses for meetings, by families to keep in touch, and by teenagers who want to hang out with their friends.

 

Services that make it easier to give back

 

Beliive is using technology and time exchange to help individuals connect with one another. By sharing an hour of knowledge or experience with someone in the community, you receive a credit that can then be used to learn from someone else.

 

Catalant is waiving their fee on projects for qualified 501(c)(3)s that need to accelerate strategic work to help people affected by the pandemic.

 

Classy’s online fundraising software modernizes the giving experience and allows nonprofits to start fundraising in minutes with no subscription fees. They have enhanced their free platform offering through May 31, 2020.

 

UniteUs is offering an option for new communities to launch a rapid-response network for the immediate crisis that also provides the infrastructure to grow in the coming months.

 

Support for small businesses

 

Automattic’s WooCommerce has partnered with GoDaddy to offer 3 months of WordPress e-commerce and hosting for just $1.

 

BringgNOW, a last-mile delivery solution to immediately launch or scale your delivery operations is free for SMBs.

 

Digital Asset’s world-class legal team is available free of charge to advise small companies who may be struggling under the current circumstances.

 

Gusto has put together a compilation of federal, state, and private resources to help small businesses find loans, grants, and credits.

 

SmartRecruiters SmartStart is available to make hiring easy for teams and smaller organizations of up to 250 employees. SmartStart is entirely free with an unlimited number of users and candidates.

 

Narvar is offering its Simple Returns solution to all retailers for free.

 

nCino’s SBA solution helps to quickly respond to regulatory changes as a result of the CARES Act and the Paycheck Protection Program by decreasing loan processing time and increasing capacity for new loan applications.

 

Ureeka has partnered with Salesforce for the Salesforce Care Small Business Grants as the grant application, judging and community partner. Ureeka will provide businesses with grant application support, ongoing resources, and counsel.

 

Tools to help companies take care of their employees and customers

 

Demandbase is offering two of its ABM Certification courses, available for free through July 31, 2020.

 

Dialpad is offering 2 free months of its business phone line and video conferencing products to help businesses impacted by COVID. Apply by May 31, 2020.

 

GO1 has made all COVID-19 related learning resources available for free to help teams continue to perform and feel supported during this time of disruption and change.

 

Odaseva launched DailyExport.io, a free product that automatically exports Salesforce data every 24 hours, retaining it for 30 days.

 

Pymetrics is offering two free solutions, Digital Interviewing and Internal Mobility to companies interviewing or looking to move current employees to different roles.

 

Simpplr is waiving implementation fees and offering a two-week deployment to support organizations with an enterprise-wide internal communications platform to keep the workforce connected and aligned.

 

SurveyMonkey launched new, free survey templates designed by their in-house survey experts to help business leaders and individual managers stay connected.

 

Thousand Eyes is offering free use of their end-user experience monitoring agents for 90 days to IT teams that need to support remote workers at an unprecedented scale due to precautions businesses are taking in response to COVID-19. Reach out to their team by June 30, 2020.

 

Vidyard is offering its new internal communications tool, free through June 30, to help companies adjust and stay connected to your remote workforce.

 

Information and other resources

 

Forter has created this weekly report to share insights on consumer behavior and fraud trends during this unprecedented time.

 

Gusto has a resource hub that provides SMBs with updated news, information, and advice as you navigate this difficult time.

 

Traction on Demand, through their initiative, Respond Together, is sharing an online inventory of response solutions that highlight rapid development projects they’ve completed and made available to others who might benefit from their use.

 

Re-entering the workplace

 

Finalcad is offering part of its product for free, helping construction sites return safely back to work by digitizing their HSE (health, safety, and environment) processes more effectively.

 

Traction Guest launched ZeroTouch to help enterprises safely reopen during the pandemic. ZeroTouch automates proactive safety screening and fully contactless access for employees and visitors, mitigating current and future risks.

 

If you want to join or support the cause

 

COVID Tech Connect

 

Loop & Tie Founder and CEO Sara Rodell along with other technology leaders joined together to provide donated tablets to hospitals across the United States to connect critically ill COVID-19 patients with family members. Loop & Tie repurposed their operational structure to help receive orders from hospitals, device donations, and manage shipping and handling of devices to matching recipients.

 

#StoptheSpread

 

Spearheaded by Rachel Carlson, CEO of Guild Education, Stop the Spread (STS) is a coalition of 1,500+ volunteer CEOs working to unlock the collective potential of US businesses to catalyze action and bolster the public sector in response to COVID-19.

 

This story was submitted as part of the #Pledge1Gives GivingTuesday campaign, which celebrates the many ways our member companies are having an impact around the world.

Empower your employees to give back at the individual level by downloading our new Virtual Volunteering Playbook, which includes ideas and best practices on how to excite and inspire individual giving.

The summer of 2020 re-ignited an overdue conversation on the realities and effects of racial injustice in our country. We knew that we could not go back to business as usual when the protests, tweets, and news cycle died down. As part of Yelp’s commitment to doing better and laying the groundwork for change, we launched efforts to support 

Black-led and Black-serving organizations to help drive meaningful progress. 

To start, the Yelp Foundation donated $500,000 to the Equal Justice Initiative and NAACP Legal Defense Fund – two organizations whose work is uplifting and empowering Black communities across the country. To mobilize Yelp’s employees, the Yelp Foundation built on its employee matching program by raising the donation matching cap from $1,000 to $10,000 and double matching the employee donations made in the month of June to any of the following Black-led and Black-serving organizations: 

• Black Futures Lab


• Center for Policing Equity


• Common Future


• Equal Justice Initiative


• Know Your Rights Camp


• NAACP Legal Defense Fund


• National Black Justice Coalition


• The Bail Project


• The Movement for Black Lives

We were impressed with the generosity of Yelp employees. They donated more than $335,000 to all the organizations listed above, and those donations were double-matched by the Yelp Foundation to bring the total contribution to more than $1.5 million. Since then, Yelp has continued to engage with these organizations by inviting them to participate in internal fireside chats with their employees to build awareness and share their work. 

We’re proud that Yelp employee efforts will help build Black political power, improve Black communities, and lay the foundation for lasting change in our country.

This story was submitted as part of the #Pledge1Gives GivingTuesday campaign, which celebrates the many ways our member companies are having an impact around the world.

By Nipa Nobel

At MTX, our impact does not stop after we implement our product or solution. The MTX family is committed to using our platform to make a positive impact on our community. Corporate responsibility is woven into the MTX DNA, inspiring us to partner with organizations devoted to creating positive change. 

MTX is a proud member of Pledge 1%, committed to donating 1% of our revenue, time, and pro bono services to non-profit organizations and individuals in need. Through our Pledge 1% membership, MTX has contributed to groups like The Boys and Girls Club, St. Baldrick’s Foundation, Warriors on Wheels, the National Breast Cancer Foundation, and many more nonprofit organizations. Our donations accelerate causes that the MTX family believes in, including the advancement of science and research at colleges and universities like Siena College and the University of North Texas. 

Our commitment to corporate responsibility does not stop with donations. We are devoted to creating a world where everyone can succeed, which is why we partner with nonprofits to provide funding and provide our time and resources. MTX is a proud partner of nPower, an organization that helps transition US military heroes and their families into the workforce. By hiring and training veterans and their family members, MTX helps bring our nation’s heroes toward economic success. 

As we continue to grow rapidly as a company, we are dedicated to increasing our community impact. Our CEO and Founder’s humble beginnings have instilled in him a desire to use his success to impact the world, specifically through education significantly. Das plans to open 100 schools globally and has already begun accomplishing this with the first school: Kin Beh in Quintana Roo, Mexico. MTX has committed $1Million to this school and is excited to create more educational opportunities for children worldwide. Here at MTX, we invest in people.

This story was submitted as part of the #Pledge1Gives GivingTuesday campaign, which celebrates the many ways our member companies are having an impact around the world.

COVID-19 has impacted all of us in different ways. For our nonprofit partner, 1951 Coffee Company, COVID-19 means that they may not be able to keep their doors open in 2021. 

1951 Coffee Company, founded in 2015, is a non-profit specialty coffee organization that promotes the well-being of the refugee community in the United States by providing job training and employment to refugees, asylees, and special immigrant visa holders while educating the surrounding community about refugee life and issues. 

With the upcoming presidential administration change in 2021, we expect the number of refugees being invited to the United States to increase 8 fold (15,000 people to 125,000). Being able to find and secure employment for refugees will be a crucial part of making the relaunch of the US refugee resettlement program a success. 

As a hub designed to leverage the power of the coffee industry for the benefit of refugees, 1951 Coffee Company is the only industry specific training program that specializes in working with refugees in the Bay Area and one of only a few training programs for refugees in the whole country. We have an opportunity to do things better than they have been done before and secure refugee resettlement as a vital part of the fabric of this country. 

For the first time ever, we are sharing 1951 Coffee Company as our Charity of Choice this GivingTuesday. Our employee base at Postmates, specific teams, and community members are encouraged to donate here if you can. 

Every year we celebrate GivingTuesday, but this year is different for all of us. GivingTuesday was created in 2012 as a simple idea: a day that encourages people to do good. Over the past seven years, it has grown into a global movement that inspires hundreds of millions of people to give, collaborate, and celebrate generosity. 

Let us all do what we can to help get through this together.

This story was submitted as part of the #Pledge1Gives GivingTuesday campaign, which celebrates the many ways our member companies are having an impact around the world.

Empower your employees to give back at the individual level by downloading our new Virtual Volunteering Playbook, which includes ideas and best practices on how to excite and inspire individual giving.

The Appfire team is excited to participate again in this year’s Giving Tuesday campaign, especially since this year has been such a hard one for so many around the world. We’ve been part of Pledge 1% since the beginning, and while we encourage our employees to give back all year round, we like to take this time in particular to rally around this important cause. 

We launched our first-ever “Be Human” month this time last year, and to highlight all the ways our team participated, we started an internal Slack channel called #LivingThePledge. This channel continues to be a space for our team members to share philanthropic organizations they’re passionate about, volunteer opportunities they participate in, and other ways they give back. As our team has grown this year, with many joining us through several exciting acquisitions, it’s been amazing to see how both new and old members of the Appfire family have joined in on the fun! 

Here are some of the inspiring ways our employees have already started giving back this month in preparation for #Pledge1Gives GivingTuesday: 

• (Nashville, TN) — “I donated an old Xbox and PS4 to a local children’s hospital to provide a fun outlet for the kids.” 


• (Glasgow, KY) — “I am planning on donating to our Boys And Girls club to help get some of the kids there some chromebooks, so they can have a better machine to do their school work on!” 


• (US) — “To help kick things off a bit early, we’ve just made a helpful donation to Covenant House which helps to protect homeless youth from the impacts of COVID-19.”


• (Boston, MA) —  “We sent a big Instacart grocery delivery today to the Food Pantry based upon their November wish list.” 


• (Boston, MA) — “Happily made a trip to Tharros House today to donate a huge box of puzzles and games to those in recovery and stuck indoors during a strange time :).” 


• (UK) — “My dear photographer friend Ed is leading this initiative to help live music event technicians who have been affected by the cancellation of 2020. Prints for Music has been set up so you can buy prints of over 100 music artists taken by world renowned and celebrated photographers. 100% of the proceeds will be donated to Stagehand’s Covid-19 Crew Relief Fund, the only UK charity specifically dedicated to providing hardship funding for music stage crew who have fallen on tough times.”


• (Hyderabad, India) — “There is a young nurse who treated my grandmom like a dedicated family member. She would attend work anywhere between 8-12 hours and then come home to monitor the IV fluids for hours together. I am funding her nursing course she wishes to pursue, which she has been putting off due to financial constraints.”


• (Sofia, Bulgaria) — “At the beginning of September 2012, a charitable initiative called “Knit Warm” was launched. It targets a group of people who are often overlooked by such initiatives, namely homeless people and those in need. For most of us, the cold winter days come with a small wardrobe change of clothes; sadly, others should fight the cold in streets and shelters, needing the same basic things – light, food, warm clothes. This charity campaign is focused on building a bridge between those who seek and those who give. This is my small contribution to the cause, which I hope to warm not just someone’s day but its heart.


• (Boston, MA) —  “This month starting today, my Etsy shop has a 20% off sale. Proceeds support donating to Transition House, Embrace Race and also to charities via The Appfire Foundation. Also this winter wear gets donated to many.”

We know the team is just getting started and can’t wait to see what other causes our employees donate to today and in the future. 

There are so many ways you too can integrate the pledge into your life. So this Giving Tuesday, remember that you can start anywhere, no amount of giving is too small — you too can take the Pledge.

This story was submitted as part of the #Pledge1Gives GivingTuesday campaign, which celebrates the many ways our member companies are having an impact around the world.

Empower your employees to give back at the individual level by downloading our new Virtual Volunteering Playbook, which includes ideas and best practices on how to excite and inspire individual giving.

By Heather Jin, Global Head of Social Impact at Medallia

#GivingTuesday is a special day, mobilizing the world for acts of generosity, and this year’s means that much more. COVID-19, racial equity movements, and natural disasters have caused tremendous disruptions to the educational, health, and economic systems that we all rely on. As a result, nonprofits and social enterprises are more vital, yet more vulnerable than ever, and Medallia.org’s commitment to supporting them has deepened.

Back in June 2019, we became one of the first experience management companies to join Pledge 1%. We began by committing our two superpowers — employee time and product — for social good. As a natural evolution of Medallia.org, we’re excited to extend our pledge to monetary resources and start our fund.

We have done philanthropic giving previously, but this new fund allows our grant-making to be more mindful, sustainable, and swift. That is why we have partnered with Tides, the leader in corporate philanthropic strategy and management, to help us identify the greatest need in the community, provide the most streamlined experience for grantees, and grow our fund as our company expands.

We will be using this fund for three grant types and purposes:

1. Strategic grant-making — to support causes dedicated to creating equitable citizen, learning, and patient experiences. As a leader in experience management, we promote diversity + inclusion and embrace the power of technology in scaling the voices of the most vulnerable. For example, we are one of the inaugural members of Full Circle Fund’s “Social Justice in a Post-COVID World” Accelerator to enable tech-forward nonprofits working on solutions to systemic issues behind the disproportionately detrimental health impacts of COVID-19 on communities of color.


2. Emergency relief — to deploy immediate funds during emergencies, such as natural disasters and global human rights violations. For example, we donated direct relief to the Australian Red Cross during the 2019 wildfires, and have donated $200,000 to Black Girls Code, Black Girl Ventures, Code2040, and Equal Justice Initiative following the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery.


3. Gift matching — to support our employees in the organizations they are passionate about. For example, we currently match fundraising by our Employee Resource Groups to nonprofits that support identities typically underrepresented in a business context (read about our 2019 partners).

If you would like to support today, please consider donating to the nine nonprofits selected by our Employee Resource Groups (ERG) for our 2020 ERG Gift Matching Program.

Stay tuned as more information about our fund, grant rounds, and partners will come soon, and I wish everyone a wonderful #GivingTuesday.