Originally posted on GlobeNewswire
Coveo Partners With U-Go: Donates 100 University Scholarships to Help Young Women Access Education Across Low Income Countries
Coveo (TSX:CVO), a leader in AI platforms that transform digital experiences with intelligent search, recommendations, 1:1 personalization, and merchandising, today announced a new partnership with U-Go, a recently-launched nonprofit organization that helps young women in low-income countries including Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines and Vietnam to pursue higher education by providing financial scholarships. As part of Coveo’s commitment to the Pledge 1%, Coveo will be sponsoring approximately 100 university scholarships through the program.
UNESCO estimates that around the world, 129 million girls cannot access education. And only 21% of young women complete an upper secondary education. Gender parity and increased access to education for young women is one of the most transformative development strategies. A recent World Bank study estimates that the “limited educational opportunities for girls, and barriers to completing 12 years of education, cost countries between US$15 trillion and $30 trillion in lost lifetime productivity and earnings.”
“Knowledge and education are at the center of our 1% Pledge. We’ve chosen to prioritize programs that support young people in vulnerable social groups to give them equal, accessible, and unconstrained access to education. The U-Go scholarship program is the perfect fit,” said Sheila Morin, CMO at Coveo. “U-Go has already had a huge generational impact on families around the world. Access to education not only empowers women across nations, but can help lift their households, communities, and countries out of poverty. We could not be prouder to join U-Go to support these young women.”
“I’m so excited that we are announcing this new partnership between U-Go and Coveo,” said John Wood, Founder and CEO of U-Go. “Our team’s core belief is that while talent is universal, opportunity often is not. Access to education is one of the only ways to move a family from the bottom tier of income and wellbeing to the top, in a single generation. This year our goal is to increase the cohort of U-Go scholars to over 2,200, and with Coveo’s help we will be able to welcome 100 ambitious and promising young women into the U-Go family.”
Originally posted on Salesforce.com
Salesforce Philanthropy Q4 Recap: Catalyzing Education, Environment, and Economic Opportunity
Giving back is built into Salesforce’s DNA. When the company was founded 24 years ago, we committed to giving back 1% of our time, 1% of equity, and 1% of product to our communities – and that was before we even had anything to give.
Now, as we turn our focus to a new fiscal year, we reflect on the incredible impact this model has driven to date. At the close of the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2023 (January 31, 2023), Salesforce has:
- Donated a total of $614 million in grants
- Provided 7.8 million employee service hours
- Supported more than 50,000 nonprofit and higher education customers through our software
Read on to learn how our fourth quarter funds made an impact.
Expanding support to 20 new grantees of the Salesforce Catalyst Fund
In the fourth quarter, Salesforce broadened the impact of its Catalyst Fund by providing $2 million in flexible capital to 20 new grantees – including 10 Black-led organizations forging pathways to education and career success for U.S. youth, and 3 organizations closing the education gap and creating career pathways for Indigenous students in Australia.
The Salesforce Catalyst Fund, which launched in June, supports 20 nonprofits in Australia, the UK, and the United States, and provides critical, unrestricted capital to nonprofits led by underrepresented leaders to counter historic gaps in philanthropic investments.
Click through the slideshow here to see some of the latest Catalyst Fund recipients and their goals.
Elevating economic opportunity through giving
Today talent is everywhere — but opportunity is not. Only about 7% of people have college degrees, and many from underserved communities lack access to the education and networking opportunities needed to secure jobs in technology.
In the fourth quarter, we accelerated our longstanding mission to widen access to economic opportunity by providing $1 million total in grants to COOP Careers and Ivy Tech as they work to expand career opportunities in their communities.
Accelerating progress on $100M climate commitment
In the fourth quarter, we made strides towards Salesforce’s $100 million climate commitment, bringing total progress to date to $12 million. We also launched the Salesforce Accelerator for Nature to provide nonprofits with unrestricted funding, technology, and pro-bono support. The first cohort of the Accelerator is supporting Global Forest Generation (GFG), GreenWave, Island Conservation, and Rainforest Connection – helping ecopreneurs bring promising solutions to market.
Providing disaster relief to communities in need
At Salesforce, we are committed to supporting our communities, particularly in a time of crisis. We help prevent the impacts of future disasters through our technology and philanthropic grants, prepare humanitarian NGOs with proactive investments before disaster strikes, and empower our employees with the tools and resources to safely and effectively respond.
In response to the recent Turkey-Syria Earthquake, our early investments in disaster relief jumpstarted response efforts for our humanitarian partners, CARE, Save the Children, IFRC, and World Central Kitchen, so they could be on the ground within 24-48 hours. Within a matter of days, Salesforce employees mobilized a grassroots campaign to raise more than $850,000 in employee donations and corporate matching.
Within a matter of weeks, Salesforce employees mobilized a grassroots campaign to raise nearly $1 million in employee donations and corporate matching.
Moving forward, our vision remains focused on using our business as a platform for change and leveraging our philanthropy to build a more equitable and sustainable world for all. We look forward to the many opportunities ahead to drive impact in 2023 and beyond.
CTA Architects P.C.
New York, New York, United States
Number of employees: #58
https://www.ctaarchitects.com/
CTA Architects P.C. (CTA) is composed of talented, hands-on architects well-versed in traditional urban building types and new technologies. The firm has garnered respect from a myriad of clients from both the private and public sectors and specializes in new design, historic preservation, adaptive reuse, building restoration and rehabilitation. They have committed to pledging their profit and time towards helping the community.
While CTA Architects P.C. (CTA) has been dedicating a portion of its time and profit to valuable causes and nonprofit organizations since its founding, we only recently signed on to Pledge 1% in 2022. We have been uplifted and inspired by the community stories shared and have continued to take on new ways in which we can give our time and profit to causes in need of support.
One of the newer causes that we supported beginning this year was the New York Architect’s Regatta Foundation. CTA sponsored a boat for the 2022 New York Architect’s Regatta hosted in September 2022, and had five of its very own sailors aboard a J-24 sailboat in the Hudson River, racing to support providing waterfront access and educational experience to a wide audience of various socioeconomic backgrounds.
Over the past few years, the Regatta helped to realize some amazing feats such as:
• Successfully lobbied Congress and the NYS Legislature to enact laws that protect our drinking water supply
• Modified a fleet of sailboats so that people with spinal cord injuries, many of them combat veterans, can sail
• Taken classes of elementary and middle school students out for a day of sailing mixed with science lessons, on the Long Island Sound
• Provided leadership training, social services, college application support, STEM classes, and scholarships to students all over the NYC area
• Supported the US Olympic Sailing team, and especially, the US sailing team representative to the Paralympic Games
One of CTA’s very own employees came across this opportunity about a month before the event, and asked the Partners if we would be able to support the cause with a short timeframe. Without hesitation, an office-wide message was sent out asking for interest and participants for the regatta. Five members of CTA staff (also known as the “sailors”) volunteered and committed to raise a minimum of $2,500 to participate in the regatta. The sailors reached out to contractors, consultants, friends, family, and employees of the company, to gain financial support necessary to secure a sailboat on race day, with CTA itself making a generous donation to our team’s cause. At the end of the fundraising period, CTA was proud to have raised a total of $3,445 in just two and a half weeks, an achievement that we are very proud of.
The team was a group of all first-time sailors, and welcomed the challenge of sailing on a rainy day in the Hudson River with a great attitude and determination for success. The sailors, Nadja, Christian, Saša, Ben and Isabel, along with their trusty skipper Thomas, took to the waters and utilized their communication skills and strong sense of teamwork to excel during the races. CTA’s sailboat placed 6th in race one, 4th in race two, and 7th in race three. For a boat of first-time sailors, our skipper assured us that our listening skills, teamwork and above all else, our goal to have fun, helped us excel.
It was very encouraging to be able to support a new cause and get involved in something we had no exposure to, all while making a difference. We hope to continue supporting this cause on an annual basis and host a boat in the competition in future years!
Their #1 tip or advice for companies?
It is most important to base and build an impact program upon values and causes that your company cares about, and to give employees the ability to bring their own foundations and causes close to their hearts to the table for discussion of support. More progress is made when employees are passionate about the causes we support.
Originally posted on Olo For Good.
In an effort to integrate social responsibility and impact into our business, Olo joined the Pledge 1% movement and created Olo For Good in March 2021. Since then we’ve committed one percent of Olo’s time, product, and equity to foster sustainable contributions to the communities in which we live, work, and serve.
Olo For Good supports organizations that are aligned with our mission and values, including those focused on:
- Advancing all aspects of racial, ethnic, and gender diversity, equity, and inclusion
- Providing relief for the restaurant industry and its front-line workers
- Ending childhood hunger and increasing access to food
- Protecting natural resources and reducing waste and emissions
As part of that commitment, we intend to donate one percent of Olo shares over 10 years to an independent donor-advised fund sponsor, Tides Foundation, in conjunction with our Olo For Good initiative. So far, a total of $7 million in grants has been donated to the following organizations:
- American Forests
- Appalachian Trail Conservancy
- Black Girls Code
- Clean Air Task Force
- Emma’s Torch
- Feeding America
- FoodCorps
- Girls Who Code
- Giving Kitchen
- Heart of Dinner
- The LEE Initiative
- Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC)
- Okra Project
- Partnership with Native Americans
- World Central Kitchen
These nonprofits are focused on diversity, supporting restaurant workers, environmental initiatives, and the fight against hunger. We are committed to working closely with each organization to ensure continued success.
Here are a few examples:
Emma’s Torch
Emma’s Torch is a nonprofit social enterprise that provides paid culinary training to refugees, asylees, and survivors of human trafficking and helps them find meaningful careers in the food industry.
When the pandemic forced Emma’s Torch to halt in-person dining, the organization needed a way to scale its business, including adding pick-up options for guests. And so, in addition to a grant, we donated our time and resources to get them set up with Online Ordering and Dispatch for restaurant delivery, and waived the usage fees.
Since then, Olo has helped Emma’s Torch streamline operations by eliminating manual work, improve order accuracy, and increase its reach throughout New York.
We remain committed to increasing online ordering capabilities for Emma’s Torch, assisting the organization as it expands to new locations, and leveraging each team’s strengths within the culinary industry to build a stronger community.
Giving Kitchen
Giving Kitchen supplies emergency assistance to food service workers through financial aid and a network of low or no-cost community resources.
When a food service worker experiences an injury, illness, housing disaster, or other trauma, they can apply for financial assistance to cover living expenses. Additionally, Giving Kitchen’s Stability Network connects people to resources related to mental health and substance misuse, employment, housing, social services, and more.
Formed out of an overwhelming community response to the terminal cancer diagnosis of Chef Ryan Hidinger, the nonprofit has provided over 6.7 million dollars to food service workers in crisis since 2013.
The pandemic underscored the value of Giving Kitchen, with 2,500 individuals served in 2020 alone, and set its intentions for the future. We’re proud to help the organization in its efforts to increase awareness within the restaurant industry and expand beyond Georgia and Tennessee to serve food service workers in need throughout the United States.
Partnership with Native Americans
Partnership With Native Americans (PWNA) provides consistent material aid, educational support, and community-based services to Native Americans living on remote, isolated, and impoverished reservations.
After an Olo employee nominated the nonprofit, PWNA received a grant to support its first-ever ancestral foods distribution to Tribal communities in the Northern Plains and Southwest regions of the U.S. Alongside PWNA’s Native-led, peer-to-peer ancestral foods training that teaches individuals how to prepare traditional Indigenous meals, this distribution will complement the organization’s food sovereignty efforts.
PWNA will also use a small portion of the grant to purchase and distribute portable solar lights from Watts of Love to Tribal communities that lack sufficient electricity and lighting infrastructure to be safe and productive.
We’re grateful to partner with an organization that is working to eliminate food insecurity and increase safety among the Native American population.
How to Get Involved
Individuals or nonprofit organizations that want to get involved with Olo For Good or explore potential partnership opportunities are encouraged to reach out to oloforgood@olo.com.
Stay tuned for the announcement of our next batch of Olo For Good grant recipients in April 2023.
For more information about how Olo supports nonprofits via Olo For Good, and our ESG work, visit www.olo.com/esg.
John’s Crazy Socks
Farmingdale, NY U.S.A.
Number of employees: #34
John’s Crazy Socks is a social enterprise spreading happiness by showing what people with differing abilities can do and giving back. They have committed to pledging their profit and product towards helping the community.
Giving Back is an essential part of our mission at John’s Crazy Socks. Giving Back is baked into everything we do. The idea is simple: we do not believe it is enough to just sell things, we have to give back. Giving back is a way of saying thank you and expressing our gratitude. Giving back is a way to serve our community. Giving Back is an essential part of our social enterprise.
We Give Back in many ways:
- We pledge 5% of our earnings to the Special Olympics.
- We donate 5% from our Sock of the Month Club to the Special Olympics.
- We donate 10% from our awareness socks to our charity partners.
- We donate boxes of socks to non-profits to use in fundraising efforts such as auctions and raffles.
- We support local and selected charities with donations.
- We operate a Charity Fundraising Program to help non-profits raise money.
Giving Back to the Special Olympics
John and many of our colleagues are Special Olympic athletes and we see first-hand the many benefits of that organization. Without the Special Olympics, there would be no John’s Crazy Socks. John has learned many valuable skills and values through competing in the Special Olympics.
From the day we opened, we have pledged to donate 5% of our earnings to the Special Olympics. When we added our Sock of the Month offering, we committed 5% from the subscriptions to the Special Olympics. Thus, every time you purchase a subscription to the Sock of the Month, you are making a donation to the Special Olympics.
We have created special socks that both celebrate the Special Olympics and raise money for them.
- Polar Plunge Socks: John does a Polar Plunge every year to support the Special Olympics and we created Polar Plunge Socks both to celebrate the Polar Plunges, but also to raise money. We donate 10% from the sale of those socks to the Special Olympics.
- Shark Socks: John plays basketball and competes in track and field with the Commack Sharks. He loves that team so much that John designed Shark Socks and we donate 10% from the sale of those shark socks to the Special Olympics.
Beyond these donations, John and John’s Crazy Socks does all we can to support the Special Olympics:
- Polar Plunge: Each year, we enter a team in the Polar Plunge to raise money for the Special Olympics and have raised thousands of dollars through those efforts.
- Giving Tuesday: On Giving Tuesday, we donate $1 for every order placed with John’s Crazy Socks to the Special Olympics.
- Donations of Gift Boxes: We donate boxes of socks for auctions and raffles that the Special Olympics uses to raise money.
- Custom Products: We have made custom socks and masks for the Special Olympics that they have re-sold as fundraisers or used as incentives for donors.
- Supporting Fundraisers: John has assisted at many special Olympic fundraisers and gotten onstage to help raise money. At John’s Crazy Socks, we use our social media and email list to promote special Olympic fundraiser events.
All of these efforts with the Special Olympics are a crucial part of our Giving Back program.
Their #1 tip or advice for companies?
The more we do for others, the better off we are.
GoSquared
London, England
Number of employees: #10
GoSquared is a email marketing and web analytics tools developer. They have committed to pledging their product towards helping the community.
Did you know that over 300 billion emails are sent every day, emitting between 4g and 50g of carbon per email? – BBC Science Focus
It’s not possible to stop sending emails. But what is possible is to offset the carbon generated through how we market our business including email campaigns – something most of us don’t even realise is contributing towards the climate emergency. This is the mission of GoSquared, with the product we have created called EcoSend.
Having partnered with Tree Nation, we have made it possible to plant a tree for every 5,000 emails sent on our platform. Although still in its infancy, through EcoSend we have already planted over 1,000 trees on behalf of our clients.
For businesses, we’ve ensured the benefits to them couldn’t be sweeter, meaning they do not have to compromise on any essential tools or technologies due to switching to a green marketing platform. We founded GoSquared in 2006, and offer a comprehensive range of tools so that businesses can intuitively send marketing campaigns to generate the right results. Our EcoSend customers also benefit from this broad range of features.
Our original products, GoSquared Engage and Web Analytics are trusted by thousands of businesses, including Deloitte, GlobalData, L’Oréal, Estée Lauder and many more. We are now looking to inspire clients new and existing with EcoSend to tackle a section of the climate emergency that is yet to be addressed by other marketing platforms.
Most importantly, everyone on our team has a genuine passion and enthusiasm for the climate. As part of our efforts to do our bit, we also organise regular team litter picks around London.
“We are honoured to be a part of the 1% pledge, and it has been a springboard for us to learn about how we can make even more of an impact in the wider world, both in terms of our EcoSend product as well as individuals. The EcoSend, and the wider GoSquared team ethos very much aligns with how we are pledging our time, profit and most importantly our energy to helping our climate. “
-James Gill, CEO of GoSquared, creators of EcoSend.
Their #1 tip or advice for companies?
That doing good for others is one of the best things you can do for yourself. Every single person on the team feels far better than they ever expected after taking part in our Pledge 1% activities.
Get Agile
London, United Kingdom
Number of employees: #1
Get Agile is a CRM and Salesforce consultancy. They have committed to pledging their profit, product, and time towards helping the community.
Get Agile is showing how diversifying impact can make a difference on giving back. From 1% of time to 5% product sales, we have donated to PepUp Tech, an organisation that offers computer science and technology programs to underrepresented groups to help diversify the industry and start careers in technology), donated to Wiltshire Wildlife Trust, and provided volunteer training to RefugeeForce (empowering refugees to find work)
The latest release: a cookbook, “FoodForce for Good,” is a collection of Trailblazer recipes, with all profits going to Action Against Hunger UK.
“Regardless of organisational size and role, each one of us can make a difference,” The question is – are we willing to be part of the solution? Be part of the solution and take the #PledgeForImpact today. For anyone that may want a hand to get started, just reach out.
Their #1 tip or advice for companies?
Start Small. Learn Fast
Thinqloud Solutions Pvt. Ltd.
Pune, Maharashtra, India
Number of employees: #70
Our value discipline is to “deliver exceptional customer experience” Our Salesforce consulting services strength which is our differentiator lies in our “approach” to designing efficient business processes. This is supported by our exposure to diverse business domains, experience in solution architecting, and our platform development track record. Thinqcloud has committed to pledging their time towards helping the community.
At Thinqloud we work with a few select non-profits helping them with their technology using Salesforce NPSP. The work we do here is pro bono and we have developers assigned to these non-profits to get their processes digitized. The major impact is helping them keep their costs under control and moving them away from manual processes. Cancer care, mental health, and alcohol de-addiction are the areas these non-profits focus on.
Please find links to the blogs that discuss these initiatives here:
Donor, Donation and Impact Management
Mental Health Patient Management System
Alcohol De-addiction Patient Management System
Belmar
Vancouver, BC, Canada
Number of employees: #37
Founded in 2002, Belmar Consulting Group is an award-winning Salesforce consulting firm, who works with various organizations and enables them to succeed in their digital transformation journey. They combine our intimate knowledge of the public sector and the nonprofit industry with Salesforce to create and implement innovative solutions for our clients. They have committed to pledging their profit, product, equity and time towards helping the community.
For the past 20 years, Belmar has consistently evolved to achieve impactful results for our clients, partners and community. As an organization, we work to both create and deliver unique business solutions – enabling organizations to perform at greater speeds, with greater efficiency so that they can achieve greater success. Our core values make up Belmar’s identity and can be broken down into five key pillars that we stand by: embracing excellence, fostering community, trusted partnerships, living with intergrity, and the use of a founders mentality. Each of these identifiers lead us to our goal of creating lasting impact through technology.
Although we have grown in terms of people and projects, our mission remains the same. Our identity is rooted in the fact that we bring technology, processes, and people together in order to facilitate a greater impact in the community. Throughout our time working with nonprofits, we have become well acquainted with the vastly different needs of a nonprofit organization. With this knowledge, we have been able to set our focus on the reduction of complexity, ability to scale, and an increase in donations. As a smaller firm with an experienced delivery team, we have the ability to support complex transformation projects while still being nimble, responsive, and laser-focused on client success. Due to this, we are able to maintain our expert ability in adapting to various changes in order to continuously fulfill our commitment of putting our projects and clients first.
We recognize that nonprofit organizations are integral to our community fabric and we are committed to helping them transform and achieve greater success through the use of Salesforce. We have completed over 500 projects focused on both public and nonprofit sectors; clients we have worked with consist of various nonprofit organizations such as Housing Matters, Oceanwise, Trans Canada Trail, Asian Americans Advancing Justice, JABC, Small Business BC, Innovate BC, YMCA of Greater Vancouver, Coast Funds, HeroWork, the BC SPCA and the BC Centre for Ability. A few examples of our digital transformation projects include:
- Enabling the BC Centre for Ability to deliver an integrated client experience while tracking key outcomes required for reporting across multiple departments
- Alleviating the YMCA of Greater Vancouver big pains of reporting, collecting data, and tracking a client’s entire journey in a program from intake, to enrollment, to exit
- Supporting Coast Funds’ continued growth and operations through implementing Salesforce so their staff can now seamlessly capture and record grant/fund applications and consolidate these forms for board review.
Belmar has undertaken the Pledge 1% commitment as part of a global movement to inspire, educate and empower entrepreneurs, companies and employees to be forces for good. We pledge 1% of our time, equity, product and profit to organizations that help communities in need. To execute on this commitment, we donate $1,000 for each completed project in addition to our ongoing community initiatives and activities. In the past few years, our Founder and CEO has also held internal dollar matching donation initiatives toward nonprofit organizations, fulfilling our mission towards the profit sector of the Pledge 1%.
One of our most hands-on and impactful initiatives was created through our partnership with Ally Global Foundation, a local charity that works with local partners in Nepal, Laos and Cambodia to create safe homes, education and job training to help survivors thrive. We’ve partnered with Ally in 2021 and 2022, and on August 6, 2022, the Belmar team took part in Ally’s annual charity event called Move for Freedom.
For Belmar’s Move for Freedom event, we planned a Spikeball tournament. With over 100 attendees joining us from all across the Lower Mainland, we surpassed our goal of $10,000 and raised $11,058 toward Ally’s inspiring initiatives – nearly tripling last year’s fundraising efforts. We were featured on Daily Hive, and also recruited generous local donors to sponsor our event. Some local businesses that supported this event were Evo, Steve’s Poke, Vancouver Mysteries, and Grounds for Coffee. Along with other Move for Freedom participants across the globe, we’ve helped raise $607,564 to support survivors of human trafficking.
Our goal this fiscal year is to promote our growth in giving back and to make sure that our staff are well informed and equipped to provide the best service possible. Now, how better to do that than to get involved in our own communities?
Through our close working relationship with Ally Global Foundation over the last two years, we have learned all about the inner workings of fundraising and the importance it holds to nonprofit organizations. To generate more impact across different communities, we are excited and committed to partner with Palm Beach County Food Bank as our charity of choice this year. Additionally, during our team annual retreat, we all took part in assembling school supply kits for North Shore Neighborhood house. These school supply kits will be distributed to various students whose households do not have the means to afford school supplies.
At Belmar, we are executing our growth in community contribution through the recent introduction of a new Volunteer Time Off Policy for all employees. Paid volunteer days are available to Belmar staff with the intention of fostering community both within and outside of the organization. We believe this will help spark community engagement as well as provide motivation for busy working individuals to simply take time to give back. We also recognize that participating in volunteer activities enriches the lives of our team and their communities, while directly contributing to the community culture we strive to emulate as an organization.
How we define success at Belmar directly correlates with the impact we can contribute to those around us. To solidify this, we chose to commit to the Pledge 1% to even further this impact. Our business model allows us to help nonprofits thrive with technology, but we are adamant in providing opportunities to directly help our communities as well. By embracing all four pillars of service through acts like paid volunteer days for our staff, matching campaigns, and fundraisers, we are working towards this reality; we are excited for these upcoming initiatives and cannot wait for our team to experience it together!
Their #1 tip or advice for companies?
Get buy-in from your team, choose a cause that resonates with your team.