By Paul Polizzotto, Founder & CEO of Givewith
This piece is shared as part of Pledge 1%’s #GivingTuesdayNow campaign, which highlights how Pledge 1% members and the business community are coming together as a force for good to combat COVID-19.
In the wake of COVID-19, companies are looking for a solution that supports their customers, clients, and communities, while also solving the complex and critical business challenges they’re now facing. Whether it’s continuing to drive sales, engaging a dispersed workforce, or managing investor expectations – the reality of COVID-19 is that it’s putting the vitality of businesses in jeopardy too.
At the same time, the nonprofits on the frontline of the crisis are being asked to do more with less. Now more than ever, nonprofits need funding to address critical issue areas including health supplies, nutrition and food access, children’s education, and more. It’s time for the business community to step up and fill these funding gaps in a way that doesn’t shrink their profitability but actually generates value for their organization. This is the only way we can create a sustainable funding stream that doesn’t run the risk of depleting.
That’s why Givewith has developed a COVID-19 Response Initiative, allowing companies to route a small percent of their business-to-business transactions to pre-vetted nonprofits supporting those affected by the crisis.
Sales teams can easily add Givewith to their proposals, differentiating themselves from competitors to close deals and retain customers. On the flip side, procurement teams can add Givewith to their RFPs to generate more business value,enhance their role as a social innovator within their company, and build stronger relationships with their suppliers.
In return for closing deals with Givewith, both the buyer and supplier will receive valuable assets for their business. This includes metrics on the services provided to people in need during the crisis and a variety of high-quality storytelling content including videos, photos and press releases. Both companies will receive support from Givewith’s dedicated customer success team to help communicate the impact to customers, employees, communities, and other key stakeholders. In fact, research by BCG shows that companies that use these assets can see an increase in employee engagement and retention up to 5% to 7% – a boost in Net Promoter Score (NPS) by up to seven points – and positively influenced environmental, social and governance (ESG) ratings.
To illustrate our commitment, Givewith is providing full business value to buyers, suppliers, and other stakeholders at no cost.
To ensure the health and longevity of companies and their communities, we need new social impact solutions that deliver growth and value for businesses, while also creating a robust and sustainable funding stream to address the fallout from COVID-19 as well as systemic issues like climate change, educational inequality or disparities in wealth. The time is now for companies to step up. Businesses’ responses today will determine our tomorrow.
Learn more about Givewith’s COVID-19 Response Initiative at givewith.com and reach out to contact@givewith.com to learn how you can get involved.
This piece is shared as part of Pledge 1%’s #GivingTuesdayNow campaign, which highlights how Pledge 1% members and the business community are coming together as a force for good to combat COVID-19.
Language Lizard, a leading supplier of bilingual books and audio resources in over 50 languages, is offering free lesson plans and book giveaways to encourage students to read and engage in multicultural activities to enhance distance learning. The company, a Pledge 1% member, is also continuing to support Room to Read’s global literacy efforts during the COVID-19 crisis.
Language Lizard launched a special book giveaway to promote reading. Entrants will have opportunities throughout the coming months to win packages of books in many different languages. In addition, all entrants receive a free lesson plan with activities for students to celebrate diversity and their unique family heritage. All interested readers can sign up here.
Language Lizard is also supporting the efforts of Room to Read to ensure continuity in education in the face of unprecedented challenges. Room to Read and Language Lizard offer resources such as guided educational activities that parents can use to help their children learn.
Room to Read is moving quickly to keep programs and resources accessible, including examining the book supply chains and identifying government partners and other local relationships to find ways to get books to children who cannot go to school and visit libraries.
Students can view and read books from around the world produced by Room to Read authors and illustrators through the digital platform, Literacy Cloud, with more than 180 children’s books and learning resources.
“We know that education is a fundamental human right. It gives people the skills they need to improve their circumstances in life, advocate for themselves and overcome setbacks. Education can be a comfort, an escape, a source of inspiration, a window into another world. “ – Geetha Murali, CEO, Room to Read
While these unprecedented times are challenging for students, parents, and teachers alike, Language Lizard believes that reading good books is a healthy way for children to manage stress and unwind. One simply needs to keep in mind the realization of the title character in the bilingual book Augustus and His Smile by Catherine Rayner. Augustus is sad and believes he has lost his smile, but in doing things he loves, he learns that he carries his smile with him, “…for happiness is everywhere around him.”
This piece is shared as part of Pledge 1%’s #GivingTuesdayNow campaign, which highlights how Pledge 1% members and the business community are coming together as a force for good to combat COVID-19.
At EMPAUA, we are committed to our customers and we have been helping them even in hard times. We are proud to have donated nearly 30K € value of our services in pro bono work to Social-Bee and accomplish the mission of #GivingTuesdayNow. Social-Bee is a non-profit organization that brings together refugees looking for jobs and businesses that offer vacant positions not currently being taken by any other applicant. We would like to thank everyone at Social-Bee for choosing EMPAUA as their partner, for their contribution and dedication. The projects we have rolled-out would have not been possible without the combined effort of your staff working closely with our team members.
This piece is shared as part of Pledge 1%’s #GivingTuesdayNow campaign, which highlights how Pledge 1% members and the business community are coming together as a force for good to combat COVID-19.
Even before the work from home order came from the Governor of Virginia, Ostendio had a crisis management plan in place. We had talked to our employees about working from home and our concern for their safety. As a leading provider of cybersecurity and risk management software, we know about the benefits of having a Business Continuity Plan in place. Our team in the US was prepared to work from home and our India team was able to quickly transition to home offices too.
“Ostendio realizes that not all companies are prepared to face this kind of crisis,” said Grant Elliott, President and CEO of Ostendio. “That is why we are offering free MyVCM Select licenses to new and existing customers to ensure cost is not an impediment to security during this pandemic.”
Companies can quickly set up all employees and remote workers to take advantage of the MyVCM platform. By using the platform they will be able to manage and locate assets such as laptops that are issued to remote workers, have a central location for employee emergency contact information, manage policy changes, track exceptions due to the crisis and keep employees up to date on training.
For existing customers, Ostendio has also offered a free COVID-19 vendor assessment template within the MyVCM platform to help companies manage their vendors during this time of increased risk.
Ostendio continues to support its community during the COVID-19 pandemic, including providing Arlington Free Clinic and La Clinica Pueblo with free access to the MyVCM platform. Ostendio is also continuing its long-standing relationship with the Mattie Miracle Cancer Foundation with a donation to support their virtual walk on Sunday, May 17th. This wonderful organization is dedicated to increasing childhood cancer awareness, education, advocacy, research and psychosocial support services to children, their families, and medical personnel.
Ostendio is supporting employees with equipment to set up a home office and paid time off due to illness caused by COVID-19 (either to themselves or a family member). We were recently honored as a Best Place to Work 2020 company by the Washington Business Journal and have been a Pledge1 member since 2017. Find out more about Ostendio at www.ostendio.com or on Twitter @Ostendio.
This piece is shared as part of Pledge 1%’s #GivingTuesdayNow campaign, which highlights how Pledge 1% members and the business community are coming together as a force for good to combat COVID-19.
It’s been 7 weeks since our team locked our office doors and started working from home in Bahrain as social distancing guidances were issued due to the COVID-19 spread in the country. It’s been a challenging time for us, as we try to navigate the things that we took for granted before this. One of the most challenging things has been the maintenance of effective and efficient communication.
As the world comes together to combat the COVID-19 pandemic, many students are not attending schools due to the closure of educational institutions. It is now more important than ever to keep students and parents informed. As we all have to adapt to the new realities caused by the spread of the virus.
For the many schools that shifted to Virtual Learning, Springring is committed to keeping the communication lines as efficient and as easy as possible. With parents having to embrace the role of a teacher, communication between the home and school is essential.
As our responsibility towards our communities, we want to lend a helping hand in offering Springring for free. Until this pandemic is under control, we need to make sure that learning doesn’t stop. And until the educational system is back to normal, Springring will remain free with no obligations or strings attached.
We know how powerful it is when we all come together and collaborate. We want to help. It doesn’t matter where you are in the world, we’ll help set up the school account, and onboard all staff, teachers, and parents.
This piece is shared as part of Pledge 1%’s #GivingTuesdayNow campaign, which highlights how Pledge 1% members and the business community are coming together as a force for good to combat COVID-19.
2020 was a very different year for us and for our community. COVID-19 brought a world of challenge and change to our pest control industry. We were tasked with first and foremost, finding a way to stay afloat. But in all of that searching, we continued to look for ways to stay close to our commitment to Pledge 1%.
When COVID-19 hit our community, we were struck and amazed by the dedication of folks in our local medical and first-response fields. We started to ask ourselves if there was any way that a company like ours–a pest control company–could find a way to give to our community and help with COVID-19. We saw how hard it was for the families of medical and first-responders to manage household tasks; and we thought, well, maybe there’s a way for us to take care of the little things, while these folks take care of the bug things. And that’s what we set out to do.
We created a special pest control program for medical and first responders that provided pest control with zero profit for ourselves. The program was an immediate hit. Folks were appreciative of the steep discount, and the peace of mind our service provided them. We are dedicated to providing this service at zero-profit for the rest of the year.
You can read more about our commitment to medical and first-responders on our Facebook and our website.
This piece is shared as part of Pledge 1%’s #GivingTuesdayNow campaign, which highlights how Pledge 1% members and the business community are coming together as a force for good to combat COVID-19.
The rapid spread of the novel COVID-19 has created an atmosphere of uncertainty for all of us. Reports from across India have solidified the grave impact that this pandemic has had on vulnerable communities. Large-scale migration of workers and laborers back to their villages and increasing reports of violence against women has increased challenges for communities across the country.
As a grant-making organization, EdelGive Foundation‘s first response was to ensure that our 43 NGO partners spread across 14 states are safe and able to cope with the situation. Our endeavor from the beginning was to ensure that their work with marginalized and vulnerable communities in some of the most remote locations of India, is not hampered. In the span of 3 weeks of the declaration of the lockdown, we were able to influence over INR 3 crore to support these organizations. We have also committed INR 10 crore for the first quarter to our NGO partners.
Simultaneously, we continued to reach out to the larger philanthropic ecosystem, connecting them to initiatives that were aiding poor, displaced and vulnerable communities. We understood early on that the need of the hour was to collectivize our efforts; being strategic, but timely with our funding; and ensuring we are leveraging our networks at both ends (funders and NGOs) optimally. This also paved way for the formation of the ‘Common Charter for Indian Donors and Philanthropic Community’, which EdelGive is Founding Signatory too. Vidya Shah, CEO, EdelGive Foundation along with Rohini Nilekani, Founder and Chairperson of Arghyam; Rishad Premji, Chairman, Wipro Limited; Amitabh Behar, CEO, Oxfam India and Ford Foundation, have developed and signed this charter, pledging support to their civil society partners, by introducing flexibilities and undertaking measures in their grant-making and monitoring mechanisms.
Through this engagement, we were also determined to share our learnings from our partners on the ground to others within the sector. We highlighted these learnings in two pieces, one titled, ‘How to approach your funding during COVID-19’, written by our COO, Naghma Mulla and published in India Development Review which explores the ways in which funders can be more empathetic and strategic when dealing with NGO partners; the second titled, ‘Will women bear the brunt of COVID-19’, written by our CEO, Vidya Shah which explores the increasing cases of domestic violence against women and the need for our relief initiatives to adopt a gendered approach.
Through all our initiatives, Edelweiss Group has continued to be our largest support system. Additionally, Edelweiss has contributed INR 2 crore to the PM-Cares fund and INR 50 lakh to the Chief Minister Relief Fund in Maharashtra respectively. Employees across Edelweiss have also been able to come together and raise over INR 12 lakh for our NGO partners in providing relief to over 35,000 families from vulnerable communities with cash transfers, food grains, and safety equipment. Individually, our employees are also doing their small bit towards helping those in need by providing financial aid to their house help and security guards, supporting senior citizens and participating in community kitchen activities.
Even with the unending challenges, we believe this pandemic has also given us a rare opportunity to stand in solidarity with each other. It has reflected the human spirit of giving, which shines through in these times and is a strong catalyst for change.
“As governments, businesses and civil society continue to play their respective parts in this crisis, there is also a lot we can individually do to support these communities in their time of need. Be it financial contributions, support to our house-help, or just leveraging our networks to spread useful information forward – all are small steps that will go a long way in curbing this situation.” – Vidya Shah, CEO, EdelGive Foundation
“By no means, is this an easy time for governments or civil society; there are too many complex, inter-related health, economic and humanitarian challenges. However, I do believe that Including a women-centric response to the crisis by supporting civil society organizations with knowledge and expertise will lead to a better-gendered approach to the crisis.” – Vidya Shah, CEO, EdelGive Foundation
“While large commitments to manufacturing masks and sourcing ventilators are welcome—and much needed, we (funders) also need to think about those who are on the brink of vulnerability to the virus and struggling with hunger and homelessness. Rehabilitation would ensure that the homeless, hungry, and jobless get self-employed or re-employed and have access to food and income security. Thus, large funders should set aside some of their energies and funds for the longer haul.” – Naghma Mulla, COO, EdelGive Foundation
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This piece is shared as part of Pledge 1%’s #GivingTuesdayNow campaign, which highlights how Pledge 1% members and the business community are coming together as a force for good to combat COVID-19.
The activation of the national defense law in the beginning of the crisis put a stop to services provided by gym studios and training services across the country. In the beginning, all registration and bookings made through the Connect to Fit application stopped completely.
Given that we already have a strong and operational online cashless payment system, we immediately launched online live fitness training sessions and encouraged our community of service providers to do the same.
Staying active at home during lockdown is not only important to maintaining our physical status, but is indeed important to maintaining a healthy and balanced mental status.
The lockdown pushed gyms and trainers to pivot and we started to deliver virtual workout sessions (both group, and one-on-one). This allowed gyms and trainers to maintain their source of income, and for those at home to maintain their sanity!
To that extent, we continued to encourage our trainers and gym owners to pivot and deliver classes virtually. We launched a campaign through which we directed proceeds generated towards the national COVID-19 fund.
This piece is shared as part of Pledge 1%’s #GivingTuesdayNow campaign, which highlights how Pledge 1% members and the business community are coming together as a force for good to combat COVID-19.
The spread of COVID-19 has put healthcare workers from all around the world on the front line of a rough battle, so has it in Taiwan. With the hard work and bravery of every healthcare worker, Taiwan is able to successfully keep the confirmed cases under 450, despite being only 1,300 miles from China.
Since the end of January, for almost three months, healthcare workers in Taiwan have been working non-stop, testing and treating patients. Long working hours plus frequent hand sanitization made them suffer from dry, cracked hands. Not only are these dry cracks painful, but they can also be dangerous as potential entry points for bacteria and viruses into the bodies.
We saw how we can contribute to beating the virus by protecting the healing hands of healthcare workers. In response to combating COVID-19, Inna Organic has donated 1000 dual-certified organic hand creams to hospitals in Taiwan including Keelung Hospital, Taoyuan Hospital, Changhua Hospital, National Cheng Kung University Hospital. By offering hand creams that are designed for sensitive or delicate skin, we helped relieve the pain and concern of cracked skin from healthcare workers so that they can put 100% energy into saving more lives.
We are proud to be a #ForceforGood with Pledge 1% and #GivingTuesdayNow, because we believe that any action of kindness can be the drop that starts the ripple. The small streams of individual kindness can eventually converge into a great, powerful river. This is the true power of 1%. When we start caring for our skin, ourselves, our community and the whole humanity, we begin to realize our capacity to care for others is infinite.