Pledge 1% and Austin Gives team up to help foster a culture of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and philanthropy among businesses in the Austin region
New partnership drives greater opportunities for Austin businesses to prioritize social impact
Austin, August 29, 2023 – Pledge 1%, the global movement that inspires, educates, and empowers every entrepreneur and company to be a force for good, and Austin Gives, a philanthropic initiative run out of the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce, announce today a new strategic collaboration to encourage business philanthropy in the Austin region.
Both Pledge 1% and Austin Gives share a strong commitment to helping entrepreneurs and businesses develop corporate philanthropy and social impact programs. This new collaboration will leverage Pledge 1% and Austin Gives’ combined expertise, peer networks, and resources to provide more recognition and support to Austin companies interested in social impact.
“We are thrilled to work with the Austin Gives team and member community on creating new opportunities for businesses to have a positive social impact,” said Jan D’Alessandro, Chief Philanthropy Officer leading Pledge 1% equity pledge initiative. “This partnership will help Austin companies unlock new ways to engage their teams, customers, and community around their values and philanthropy, using Pledge 1% flexible framework of donating time, product, profit, and/or equity to causes they care about.”
“This collaboration reflects Austin Gives’ commitment to promoting a culture of corporate social responsibility in the regional business community and demonstrates the power of local businesses to drive positive change,” said Bethany Leffingwell, Senior Advisor for Social Impact at the Austin Chamber leading Austin Gives. “Data shows consumers and employees expect businesses to demonstrate a commitment to purpose in addition to profit. Austin Gives is leading the charge to empower corporate generosity in Central Texas.”
Already nearly 300 companies in the Austin region have joined the Pledge 1% movement, committing to giving 1% of their assets to local causes and charities. Austin Gives has a base of more than 100 members, who will now be invited to join Pledge 1% and gain access to their tools, resources, and peer community. Together, Pledge 1% and Austin Gives will host special events and conversations with business leaders, IPO-prep and equity roundtables and sessions to explore new solutions to have an impact, and will provide Austin companies with access to an expanded knowledge center of resources and support.
Austin Gives members can find resources and information at https://www.austinchamber.com/austin-gives-member-resources. Companies are also invited to join Pledge 1% at https://info.pledge1percent.org/pledgenow.
“The Austin Gives program has experienced tremendous growth over the last few years as companies in our region seek to create and expand their social impact programs. This timely partnership will provide a powerful value-add to our member companies,” said Bobby Jenkins, Chair of Austin Gives. “Purpose-driven companies have a higher employee retention rate, enjoy a faster brand value growth rate, and are more appealing to current and future investors. We believe doing good is good for business and our community.”
Sara Rodell, CEO of Austin-based Pledge 1% member company Loop & Tie will keynote the Austin Gives luncheon today, discussing the power of impact-focused leadership and how joining Pledge 1% has positively impacted her business. By working together on collaborative events, community knowledge-sharing, and best practices, Pledge 1% and Austin Gives are creating a new partnership model that will equip and empower more businesses in Austin to leverage their assets to do good.
About Pledge 1%
Pledge 1% is a force multiplier and global movement to inspire, educate, and empower every entrepreneur, company, and employee to be a force for good. Over 18,000 members in 100 countries around the world have used Pledge 1%’s flexible framework to ignite billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of volunteer hours in new philanthropy. To learn more about Pledge 1%, and how your company can get involved, visit https://pledge1percent.org/.
About Austin Gives
Austin Gives™ is a program for the business community that recognizes and encourages business philanthropy in the Austin region. In April 2015, Austin Gives officially became a program of the Chamber in order to meet the demand for expansion and growth of the business community’s commitment to giving back. Members range from small family businesses to large corporations. To learn more about free membership, visit https://www.austinchamber.com/about/austin-gives.
Each year, Bessemer Venture Partners, Salesforce Ventures, and Forbes release the Cloud 100 List, a ranking of the top 100 cloud companies. We are delighted to announce that nearly 30% of the companies on this year’s Cloud 100 List are Pledge 1% members.
These companies are not just leading with their products and business; they’re changing communities and having a real impact via their Pledge 1% programs. The 28 Pledge 1% members on this year’s list include: 6sense, ActiveCampaign, Algolia, AppsFlyer, Arctic Wolf, Automation Anywhere, Automattic, Canva, Celonis, Checkr, Collibra, Contentful, Dialpad, Guild Education, Harness, Kong, LaunchDarkly, Mambu, Notion, OwnBackup, Personio, Rubrik, Sentry, ServiceTitan, Snyk, Talkdesk, Workato, and Yotpo.
To celebrate, we are highlighting these members live on the Nasdaq Tower in Times Square on August 8, 2023. In particular, we are spotlighting 6 companies on this year’s list who are not only creating a positive social impact today, but also setting aside equity for ongoing impact in the future. We are proud to work with Canva, Contentful, Checkr, Guild, Personio, and Snyk on harnessing a new model for businesses to make a difference. Learn more about what it means to pledge equity.
We are proud to see so many Pledge 1% members recognized on this year’s Cloud 100 List and look forward to honoring these members and announcing the 2023 Pledge 1% Impact Award Winner at this October’s Cloud 100 event!
Originally posted on newrelic.com
New Relic 2023 Impact Report
The team at New Relic just launched their FY23 Impact Report. Find it here.
A Silver Lining in the Cloud: Ferrilli Helps Hartnell College Leverage Cyberattack Recovery to Modernize IT Infrastructure with AWS
Executive Summary
After a cyberattack disabled Hartnell College’s entire IT infrastructure, Ferrilli helped the institution get back online in days with a new cloud-based infrastructure built on AWS. The scalable, flexible, and stable infrastructure can grow with Hartnell College’s needs for the future. Ferrilli built the infrastructure on AWS Control Tower, and Hartnell is utilizing Amazon AppStream 2.0 to enable remote access to powerful applications.
Seizing an Opportunity
It’s usually hard to find a silver lining in a cyberattack, but for Hartnell College, one of the oldest higher education institutions in California, a security breach gave the IT team the opportunity to build a modern new infrastructure to better serve students, faculty, and staff.
IT leadership at the community college first became aware that something was amiss on a Sunday morning in October 2022. When they received alerts that the network was down, it didn’t take long to discover the college had become the victim of a ransomware attack that disabled its entire IT infrastructure. “A ransomware group had accessed some of our critical data and demanded money to unlock our servers and systems. It was a nightmare scenario,” said Dr. Chelsy Pham, vice president of information technology resources at Hartnell.
With networks, wi-fi, and phones down, Hartnell faced pressure to get systems back online quickly to minimize disruptions. For that, the institution turned to AWS Partner Ferrilli, its trusted IT partner.
“Under normal circumstances, migrating an institution’s entire infrastructure to the cloud could be a long and difficult process taking months or even years, but we couldn’t wait. Luckily, AWS and Ferrilli had all the tools, resources, and expertise we needed to rebuild our infrastructure very rapidly.”
Dr. Chelsy Pham
Vice President of Information Technology Resources, Hartnell College
Recovering and Rebuilding in the Cloud
Ferrilli is a leading technology services provider exclusively serving higher education institutions. With colleges and universities increasingly becoming the targets of cyber criminals, Ferrilli is dedicated to helping institutions recover, which is why the first phase of the recovery effort was supported by Ferrilli’s Pledge 1% commitment. Pledge 1% is a global movement that encourages and empowers companies to donate 1% of their staff time, product, profit, and/or equity to a cause of their choosing. As a Pledge 1% partner, Ferrilli donates 100 hours of security services to institutions that have fallen victim to a cyberattack.
Although not everything was retrievable, Hartnell had backups of a good portion of the College’s data, which provided a foundation for rebuilding what was lost. However, the institution’s IT infrastructure was a traditional on-premises setup, which the CIO had wanted to migrate to the cloud. Rather than rebuild the outdated infrastructure, they decided it was time to quickly transition to an Amazon Web Services (AWS) environment. “Under normal circumstances, migrating an institution’s entire infrastructure to the cloud could be a long and difficult process taking months or even years, but we couldn’t wait,” said Dr. Pham. “Luckily, AWS and Ferrilli had all the tools, resources, and expertise we needed to rebuild our infrastructure very rapidly.”
Within a matter of days, Ferrilli helped Hartnell get its student information system back online and access staff data so that they could make payroll. Then they were able to finish rebuilding the AWS infrastructure to best support the institution moving forward. “We’ve had a long relationship with Hartnell, so they knew they could trust us to help them recover quickly,” said Robert Ferrilli, CEO, Ferrilli.
Building an Infrastructure for the Future
Since they were building the cloud structure from scratch, the team was able to design the cloud-based architecture to be more scalable, flexible, and stable so that it would last many years into the future. Ferrilli built out everything to AWS’ best practices using AWS Control Tower landing zone.
Hartnell and Ferrilli also deployed Amazon AppStream 2.0 to enable remote access to powerful applications — like AutoCAD and Adobe’s design suite — from any location, device, or operating system. “By deploying AppStream 2.0, we were able to provide more flexibility for students and faculty, who previously could only access such programs through a computer lab on campus,” said Ferrilli.
With security a major priority, Ferrilli built a disaster recovery plan into the new AWS-based infrastructure and rolled out CrowdStrike Falcon, a cloud-based platform to prevent all types of cyberattacks. The team ran double scans on all devices to make sure they were safe for the rebuild. They also set up Duo Single Sign-On with multifactor authentication to enhance security and user privacy.
Looking Ahead
In less than two weeks after experiencing a devastating cyberattack, Hartnell had a modern, cloud-based infrastructure with all systems recovered. Since building the new AWS environment, Hartnell’s IT team has seen network stability vastly improve. The modern infrastructure designed by Ferrilli provides the security and flexibility needed to support the institution’s educational mission well into the future.
Hartnell is still in the beginning stages of its cloud journey. Moving forward, the institution plans to work with Ferrilli to implement additional AWS tools and resources to improve efficiency and security. AWS is constantly adding new capabilities, and Ferrilli and Hartnell are looking forward to continuing the modernization journey together.
Originally posted on LiquiDonate
LiquiDonate Joins the Pledge 1% Movement with a Donation of Time, Product, and Equity
With a growing presence across all 50 states, LiquiDonate is proud to announce that it’s joined Pledge 1%, a global movement that inspires, educates, and empowers entrepreneurs, companies, and employees to be forces for good in (and beyond) their communities.
LiquiDonate will contribute 1% of equity to a donor advised fund, held at ImpactAssets, where assets will be invested and granted towards organizations advancing the circular economy. “We’re psyched and humbled to contribute 1% of LiquiDonate’s equity to accelerate the world’s transition to a circular economy and make second-use the first choice,” says Diz Petit, LiquiDonate’s CEO and co-founder.
“There are thousands of forward-thinking, innovative organizations out there confronting some of the world’s toughest challenges that have joined Pledge 1%, and we’re thrilled to be among them.”
Pledge 1% has a growing membership of over 17,000 global companies that, collectively, inject half-a-billion dollars into diverse philanthropic causes in more than 100 countries. It’s a simple—yet hugely impactful—project: organizations have the flexibility to donate 1% of their product, profit, equity, and/or staff time to any charity of their choice, sparking a multifaceted approach to a diverse range of causes and missions.
“There are over 1.5 million nonprofits and more than a million retail establishments in the U.S. At this scale, matching reclaimable goods from retailers to nonprofits is possible only with tech. LiquiDonate’s tech-enabled donation platform has social impact built into it,” says Chai Nadig, LiquiDonate’s CTO and co-founder.
While “making the world a better place” may be a phrase many in Silicon Valley and beyond have rightfully grown wary of, LiquiDonate puts its profit where its mouth is. Since its inception, all LiquiDonate employees have received 24 hours of paid volunteer time to dedicate to philanthropic efforts across the country, including a recent volunteer event put on by A Meal With Dignity, a San Francisco-based nonprofit on whose Board of Directors Petit currently sits.
The San Francisco-based climate tech company recently received its California Green Business Partner certification, and is embedded with nonprofits and community activism. LiquiDonate is building upon its earlier relationship with Pledge 1% from being a Builder Company at Postmates, ringing the opening bell on Giving Tuesday, and contributing to multiple free how-to user guides on giving back to the community.
“There are so many compassionate and community-minded nonprofits confronting some really tough problems, and we’re proud to help them get the goods they need to further their missions,” says Renee Barker, LiquiDonate’s Director of Nonprofit Partnerships.
By Amanda Lenaghan, Director of Social Impact, Cruise
Read more: https://getcruise.com/cruiseforgood/
Food insecurity and food waste are connected, worsening –– and impacting the planet
Over 30 million people in the US and ten times as many globally are facing food insecurity. At the same time, food waste in the U.S. is worsening — there were 91 million tons of surplus food in 2021 — contributing significantly to greenhouse gas emissions. In other words, our hunger crisis sits at the intersection of a major sustainability crisis.
Three years ago, Cruise began dedicating a portion of our all-electric, driverless fleet to deliver meals to San Francisco residents in need. Now, as our driverless service expands to new cities across the country, so too will our work to fight food insecurity, and now food waste –– together with Replate.
I’m proud to share that Cruise for Good is teaming up with food rescue platform Replate to tackle these competing challenges head on, through something that’s never been done before: a first-of-its kind, driverless, all-electric food rescue initiative that we aim to scale nationally.
Bringing a sustainable cycle of food rescue to communities nationwide
Replate is a nonprofit that blends innovation and impact, implementing a food recovery model to mitigate food waste in cities across the country. By connecting organizations that have surplus food to communities facing hunger, Replate helps to increase food access, reduce waste, decrease carbon emissions, and save water.
Our all-electric fleet will integrate with Replate’s existing national network of food recovery partnerships –– picking up extra food from local businesses and name brand restaurants and delivering to local organizations in need –– creating a sustainable cycle of food rescue to fight hunger and waste in the communities we serve.
We’ll start our partnership in San Francisco, and quickly scale our operations as Cruise enters new cities, in line with our pledge to dedicate a portion of our fleet to meet community needs everywhere we drive.
Food insecurity and the unequal impacts of climate change are massive challenges that no one effort can solve. But through this partnership, we aim to support Replate’s capacity to serve communities across the country, and explore how new solutions can address complex problems.
The value of collaborative partnership
The most innovative, authentic and effective social impact programs are forged with organizations who know their communities best. In our experience, nonprofits like Replate, San Francisco-Marin Food Bank, and SF New Deal have the expertise to best understand how we can support our neighbors in need — and push us to truly think outside the box in terms of how we generate impact.
When we started Cruise for Good three years ago we began by delivering meals to home-bound individuals experiencing food insecurity in partnership with San Francisco-Marin Food Bank and SF New Deal. While we’re proud of the 2.4 million meals and 105 tons of CO2 emissions we’ve offset since that time, we’re eager to expand our commitment to serve communities, everywhere we go. This partnership with Replate is that next step. As Replate CEO and Founder, Maen Mahfoud, puts it, our collective goal is to “make a big impact with an even smaller footprint.”
Originally posted on Justworks.com
Justworks’ Impact Update: People Powered. Powering People.
Introduction from Our President and CEO
All of us at Justworks feel that we have a special company with the potential to make entrepreneurship accessible for all.
We sum up our approach to Impact as ‘People Powered. Powering People.’ This focus on people runs through what we do, both for Justworkers and for our customers.
Our customers are mostly modern entrepreneurs. In fact, approximately over 70% of the people using Justworks today were born after 1980. We are at the front of the curve on a massive shift in workforce preferences and behaviors. Our customers want products that show off their values and a partner who takes a stand on important issues.
They also look to us to lead by example—from how we foster a culture of belonging and acceptance, to how we provide development opportunities for employees and adopt sound business practices.
As we look ahead to the future, we seek to lead with compassion and integrity to create more opportunities for more people—as we stand at the side of the entrepreneurs and small businesses who contribute so much to our economy and society.
-Mike Seckler, Justworks President and CEO
This is Justworks, Inc.’s (‘Justworks’) inaugural Impact Update and it is meant to serve as a baseline for the future. Unless otherwise stated, the reporting period for this report is Justworks’ fiscal year 2022 (i.e., June 1, 2021–May 31, 2022). When we are referring to this period we may state it as FY22. If we refer to the year 2022, we are referencing the calendar year. The data in this report is not assured by a third party.
Impact Highlights
Our Approach: People Powered.
Our people power our business. We aim to foster an inclusive culture of belonging in which Justworkers can thrive, grow and realize their potential.
Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, & Belonging: Our DEIB mission is to help every Justworker realize their full potential. Justworks is a place where no matter what you believe in, what you look like, or where you come from, you can apply yourself, embrace our values, and grow both as a professional and as a human being.
Employee Engagement and Development: Our mission is to help people realize their potential—and this applies as much to our own employees as to our customers. Our focus is on hiring, developing and retaining great people.
Employee Health and Wellbeing: We believe supporting our employees’ health and wellbeing is central to helping our employees realize their potential.
Our Total Rewards Philosophy: We foster belonging and take care of our employees as reflected in our Total Rewards Philosophy, which covers our approach to pay and having a stake in company ownership, and our comprehensive package of benefits.
Powering People.
We believe our people are driven by our mission to help entrepreneurs and businesses grow with confidence. These businesses create jobs, strengthen communities and spur innovation. They are an important part of our economy and our society. Through our social impact programs, we aim to create more equitable access to entrepreneurship. This is good for our business and good for the world.
Advocating for Our Customers: We focus on issues that relate to our mission to break down the barriers to entrepreneurship, our DEIB efforts, and our sustainability goals. We also engage on issues that directly impact the way in which our customers operate and the lives of the 160,000 worksite employees we serve.
Just Thrive: supporting underrepresented founders: The Just Thrive program supports underrepresented founders who are Justworks customers by providing more equitable access to the basic business infrastructure needed to get up and running.
Jusworks.org: We set up our business to help other entrepreneurs to succeed. Through our Justworks.org program, we are reaching out beyond our own customer base to help break down barriers to access to entrepreneurship. We are specifically focused on supporting the growth of Minority and Woman Owned Enterprises (MWBE)
How We Do Business.
How we operate provides strong foundations for our business, from ensuring digital security and data privacy to using energy efficiently, and applying high ethical standards.
Climate and energy: As we grow at Justworks, we plan to continue exploring how we can improve our impact on climate change. We aim to continue to evaluate our processes and policies, analyze our relevant business activities, and work to find ways to lower our Greenhouse Gas emissions(GHG).
Our FY22 GHG footprint includes the Justworks office located in New York City, New York. Where data was not available, the calculation was based on estimates, as noted in the report.Justworks’ emissions were calculated following the guidance of the Greenhouse Gas Protocol (GHG Protocol). Except as otherwise noted in the report, industry-standard estimates based on spend have been applied to calculate all Scope 2 and Scope 3 categories. None of the GHG emissions data cited in the report have been verified, assured, or audited by a third party.
For more details on our GHG emissions and assumptions embedded within our calculations, please see the Climate and Enegey section in our report.
Digital Security and Privacy Our objectives for data privacy are to fulfill our obligations as a co-employer in the collection, use, and safeguarding of sensitive information, and to know how to respond (including with respect to disclosure obligations) in accordance with applicable laws and regulations.
Business Ethics: Business ethics principles govern how our employees interact with each other, customers, vendors and other third parties. For us, it’s not just about complying with the rules, but also approaching each situation with our COGIS values and ethical lens as our anchor.
Access the full impact report here.
Originally posted on PR Newswire
Fluxx and UpMetrics Announce Global Partnership to Bring First-of-its-kind Grantmaking, Impact Management and Analytics Solution to Philanthropy
The partnership between Fluxx and UpMetrics comes as a response to the growing need for foundations and grantees to deepen relationships through access to real-time data and analytics. By leveraging these two powerful technologies, foundations can reduce the time-consuming process of data collection and analysis, drive alignment across grants management, program and evaluation teams, and make it easier to evaluate their grantmaking.
“We are excited to collaborate with Fluxx to provide a first-of-its-kind solution that empowers foundations and grantees with the ability to better leverage information and relationships to support communities at scale,” said Drew Payne, CEO of UpMetrics. “To effectively take on the most pressing social and environmental challenges, the ability to use real-time data to drive insights, effective decisioning, and collaborative learning is critical. Through increased data transparency and information sharing, foundations can reimagine reporting towards learning and accelerating measurable outcomes.”
The partnership will benefit shared clients, including the Ford Foundation, Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, Walter & Elise Haas Fund, and many others. By partnering, Fluxx and UpMetrics are working to modernize how foundations and grantees manage and measure impact, providing a more comprehensive view of their collective work towards achieving their goals.
Originally posted on Business Wire
Zuora Reaches 100% Renewable Energy, Maintains Carbon Neutrality and Progresses DE&I Efforts in Latest ESG Impact Report
REDWOOD CITY, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Zuora, Inc. (NYSE: ZUO), a leading monetization platform provider for recurring revenue businesses, today launched its second annual Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) Impact Report.
The second annual report underscores the creation of Zuora’s global, cross-functional ESG leadership team to guide its overall strategy. This includes the development of publicly facing metrics and goals for “Human Capital Management,” “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” and “Environmental Management” that align to Zuora’s company values.
Zuora’s fiscal year 2023 ESG Impact Report highlights the following accomplishments:
- Reached 100% renewable energy for Zuora’s global real estate footprint.
- Maintained carbon neutrality for the second year in a row, reaffirming the company’s commitment moving forward.
- Built a more inclusive and equitable team: 42% of Zuora employees self-identified as members from underrepresented groups, progressing toward the company’s goal to have 50% of its global workforce self-identify as members from underrepresented groups by the end of fiscal year 2025.*
- Upheld Zuora’s Pledge 1% commitment: Zuora donated over $1 million to mission-aligned nonprofits around the world, and 81% of Zuora employees gave back through volunteer hours or company-matched donations.
- Obtained ISO 27701 certification, a certification standard for privacy information management systems (PIMS) that helps protect privacy rights when an organization processes personal information.
“Zuora’s purpose is to help people subscribe to modern ways of doing business – ways that are better for people, better for companies and ultimately better for the planet,” said Tien Tzuo, Founder and CEO at Zuora. “This inspires how we approach ESG authentically at Zuora, the progress we’ve made and our commitment to expanding these efforts.”
The report reiterates Zuora’s ESG focus areas and provides comprehensive updates to its ESG strategy and execution. As the company continues to scale, ESG will continue to be a top priority to drive long-term business success.
To access the full report, visit here.