Originally published ongrowthanimals.com. Written by Chris Thornhill
Growth Animals joins the Pledge 1% Movement and Pledges to Donate a minimum of 1% of Time and Product to Charities
Growth Animals announced today that it has joined Pledge 1%, a global movement to create a new normal for companies of all sizes and stages to have a positive social impact through their business. Growth Animals is joining thousands of companies around the world who have committed to Pledge 1% of either their product, profit, equity, and/or staff time to a charity of their choosing. Growth Animals is proud to announce its commitment to donate 1% of Time and Product to a wide range of charity partners. Co-Founder and CEO, Chris Thornhill, explains what that partnership means and how it’s only the beginning of the company’s social impact journey.
What will the partnership mean in practice?
Every member of Growth Animals has made a commitment to provide free expertise to at least one charity per year. That means pledging a minimum of 1% of our Time and Product to pro bono charity consulting. This will provide invaluable marketing support to charities looking to grow awareness and donations to their cause. Furthermore, each member of the team will have the freedom to choose which charities they want to partner with and support.
What gave you the idea to Pledge 1%?
I’ve been actively involved with Dementia Support for over a year now and in my position as Trustee, have become a strong advocate for corporate philanthropy. I’ve experienced firsthand the benefits of pledging time and expertise to charity and am excited for the whole team to get a taster of that too. Doing so through Pledge 1% seemed like a brilliant way of formalising our commitment, with an organisation that has a track record of encouraging other companies to take the pledge and leverage their business as a force for good. Contributing to this relatively small proportion of time and product feels like a no-brainer. The charities will really gain from my team’s wealth of experience and the team will feel incredibly proud and empowered.
What’s next in your ethical marketing journey?
Over the coming weeks, we’ll be revealing more partnerships that we’ve been working on, that will further extend our ethical credentials with some of the most exciting and innovative organisations in the world. This will include pledges across climate change, social impact and of course, ethical marketing. As an ethical marketing consultancy, we believe in establishing a new standard of marketing in which everyone wins, enabling clients to accelerate business growth through clever and conscious ethical marketing which helps and inspires, as opposed to persuades and psychologically manipulates. To help clients do that, we’ll shortly be launching our Ethical Marketing Healthcheck. Based upon our existing and highly popular Growth Healthcheck, it will give businesses a snapshot of where they currently stand from an ethical marketing point of view and provide useful tips and tactics they can employ to drive their growth, while doing so in a positive and ethical manner.
About Pledge 1%
Pledge 1% is a global movement that inspires, educates, and empowers every entrepreneur, company, and employee to be a force for good. Over 12,000 members around the world have used Pledge 1%’s flexible framework to ignite half a billion dollars in new philanthropy. To learn more about Pledge 1% and to take the pledge visitwww.pledge1percent.org.
In this episode of Indie Pioneers, we chat with the co-founder of Inna Organic about the brand’s challenging journey towards pioneering the concept of an organic-certified facial sheet mask.
In today’s market, the notion of creating an organic product would not bat an eyelid. But when Cecily Pan and Jimmy Wang set out to develop an organic-certified sheet mask five years ago, the pair had to contend with an industry that did not even understand how to make that dream possible.
“At that time, there was not even one factory in Taiwan that was certified, and people didn’t know how to get it certified. We had to survey more than 20 manufacturers and ask if they want to join the journey with us,” said Wang, the co-founder of Taiwanese beauty brand Inna Organic.
Furthermore, their organic vision was rebuffed by naysayers who did not believe the Asian market was ready for organic products.
“Before we went into the market, I consulted people with experience in the industry and they kept telling us not to go for it, that the market was too small, and that people didn’t really care about organic products,” said Wang.
Despite the obstacles, the business partners pushed ahead with their goals.
“At that moment, we decided to do what we really wanted to do. This was the only way that could drive us to make things the best because we were on the path to pursue our dream and goals,” said Wang.
Today, Wang is excited about the introduction of many new and existing brands on the market that are launching their own organic sheet masks.
“With more brands in the market, this helps to boosts the customers’ awareness. At the same time, it’s also a driving force to inspire us not to be satisfied… we have to keep the momentum to make ourselves better, make our products better.”
As a pioneer in this space, Wang said sharing the company’s story would hopefully help another brand on their own journey in the organic cosmetics space.
“As a pioneer, we share with other brands in Taiwan about how to get products certified organic. We believe that if we are only one in the market doing this, we can’t create public awareness. And ingredient developers can also see the market is growing and will be more willing to develop quality ingredients.”
Aside from creating organic beauty products, the pair is passionate about giving back to organisations that champion children’s education.
“We need more people to care about children’s education so that the next generation cares about the environment. We can keep this momentum up to make the world better,” said Wang.
To learn more about Wang and Inna Organic, check out the podcast above or on Apple Podcasts. See all episodes here.
Originally posted: January 11th, 2021
Originally published onbotronsoft.com. Written by Teodora.
“Imagine a world where being philanthropic is part of starting a business, and not simply the result of a successful one.”
That’s what Randall Ward, the CEO of Appfire, said after joining the Pledge 1% mission in 2015. Pledge 1% is a corporate philanthropy movement dedicated to making the community a key stakeholder in every business. It empowers companies to donate 1% of product, 1% of equity, 1% of profit, or 1% of employee time to improve communities worldwide. We support their mission and strongly believe that performing a small wholehearted action today can have a huge impact tomorrow.
That said, we are delighted to make the following announcement —
Appfire is donating $5000 to the Pledge 1% foundation on behalf of its good friends and Marketplace partner, Deviniti!
Deviniti implements Apps SPI
Recently, Deviniti dedicated time, energy, and resources of their engineers to implement Configuration Manager for Jira’s Service Provider Interface. This integration means that their customers can seamlessly incorporate and transfer Deviniti app data and configurations when they make changes in their Jira instance using Configuration Manager for Jira. As much as we believe that this program and the data capturing capabilities of Configuration Manager are a game-changing experience for all app vendors, we also know that allocating time and resources toward a new project can be challenging. And this is our way of saying “thank you” for helping improve the data migration experience for the Atlassian ecosystem.
Creating lasting change together
We are deeply thankful to all partners who approach our solutions with confidence and trust. With the Pledge 1% donation, we can extend our gratitude one step further. This additional step helps us make a difference in our data migration community and for a cause bigger than all of us. As we continue to face insurmountable challenges, companies — their employees, customers, and partners — are playing an even bigger role in being a part of the solution. Joining Pledge 1% allows companies to put their stake in the ground and show their commitment to creating lasting positive change in their communities.
To all marketplace vendors:
We understand how valuable your time and team members are. To say thanks for allocating time and energy to join the Apps SPI program, we’ll be giving away $5000 to the Pledge 1% Foundation on your behalf. Let’s drive impactful change together!
Cashrewards has become the first ASX-listed company to pledge 1 per cent of its equity to charity, hoping to inspire other Australian businesses to take this philanthropic approach.
The e-commerce platform – which gives customers cash back when they buy products online – is part of the Pledge 1% movement, which involves companies pledging 1 per cent of their equity, product, and employee time to their communities.
Cashrewards also donates 1 per cent of every transaction on its platform to the Starlight Children’s Foundation.
The company officially listed on the ASX last Wednesday, with Starlight now one of its shareholders.
Founder Andrew Clarke told Pro Bono News he was inspired to give back to charity through Cashrewards after witnessing his child successfully battle cancer.
“I spent a lot of time in the hospital with my child and so many people helped us so much. And I saw all the benefits from the various fundraising initiatives,” Clarke said.
“Starlight was doing a lot to help us during that time so I wanted to really embed giving back into the business.”
Cashrewards has delivered more than $100 million in cash back since its inception in 2014, with more than 800,000 members and over 1,500 merchant partners including Adidas, Amazon and Apple.
Clarke said the company’s strong social purpose was a driving force behind its success.
“We would not have achieved what we’ve achieved without having purpose so built into our business,” he said.
“It’s just made such a difference. It’s really why we do what we do, and what gets our team motivated.”
Clarke said with the company’s initial public offering this week, the business was set to grow even further.
“This means that more and more Australians are going to save money and we’re going to help more and more kids,” he said.
“Starlight haven’t been able to run their events, and this extra boost is significant for them to round out what’s been a difficult year for them, as it has been for most charities.”
Clarke said he hoped he would now inspire other ASX-listed companies to join the 1% pledge.
He noted that he himself was inspired by the actions of the pledge’s founding partners Salesforce and Atlassian.
“In the early days I went and met [Atlassian co-founder] Scott Farquhar, who was encouraging other businesses to join,” he said.
“And that helped us because meeting with [him] and hearing about the power of purpose was just so inspiring.
“We’re looking forward to going out there and encouraging many other businesses to join the pledge as well.”
Originally posted: December 9th, 2020
Written by Toby Yoder. Originally published onlinkedin.com.
Altitude Integrations is proud to announce that we will be donating one percent of our equity, product, and time to charity as part of the Pledge 1% global movement. I joined the team at Altitude Integrations only four months ago in the midst of a pandemic. Despite global uncertainty, we’re committing to give back to our community, and with COVID-19 cases on the rise, it’s more important than ever for every company, big or small, to give back.
We’re joining the Pledge 1% movement with more than 12,000 members in 100 countries to ignite half a billion dollars in new philanthropy. As a company, our mission is to provide proactive and innovative IT solutions to small and medium-sized businesses around the globe, while focusing on our three core values of Trust, Integrity, and Dedication. We’re aiming to become a leader in giving back to the community, while encouraging others to do the same. Pledge 1% inspires, educates, and empowers every entrepreneur, company, and employee to be a force for good.
Any company that has the ability to participate and help with their technology, time, or revenue will have an impact on those that need it. We are a small company today, but we will grow, and when you multiply that potential across millions of small companies in the US alone, it can and will have an incredible impact. It reminds me of the story of the woman who was gently throwing starfish back into the ocean one at a time after the tide went out. She was approached and asked, “Why are you bothering to do that? There are miles of these starfish on the beach, and you can’t possibly make a difference.” She picked up another one and threw it in and said, “I made a difference for that one.” If we can help our community and encourage one additional company to think about giving back, we immediately double our impact.
Before joining Brett Ramberg and the rest of the Altitude team, I spent 11 years leading sales teams at Salesforce, the global leader in Customer Relationship Management, and one of the founding companies that spearheaded the Pledge 1% movement. My experience at Salesforce and its 1-1-1 philanthropic model for giving back inspired me and the team at Altitude to sign with Pledge 1%. The Salesforce model illuminated the power of giving back; not only the impact it has on the nonprofits it helps, but also how it brings people together in the company. Everyone felt good about doing good. At Altitude, we want to give back to the local community we serve, and our employees feel the same. There is a greater sense of purpose in our work when we can support the causes that move us personally.
Joining the Pledge 1% movement alongside juggernauts like Atlassian, Box, and DocuSign is only step one. Our goal is to influence other small businesses to follow in our footsteps, and not be deterred by thinking they’re too small to inspire change, even if it’s just one starfish at a time.
Originally posted: December 9th, 2020
2020 has brought about unprecedented challenges, on both a local and global scale. Yet we remain inspired by the creative and impactful ways our Pledge 1% members around the world are stepping up to support those in need.
We’ve seen more and more companies join the Pledge 1% movement and use our new tools and resources to launch impact programs that safely engage employees, activate their products, and donate their profits and/or equity. Today, in the spirit of the global day of giving GivingTuesday, we are thrilled to recognize our members and celebrate the now 12,000 companies who have joined Pledge 1%.
As we navigate this new world, we have been forced to pause, learn, and create new tools to help companies safely and effectively have an impact. With the help of our Builders and our Covid Coalition, we’ve created a number of tools to help companies of all sizes and stages stop the spread. From our covid-19 resource page to our new Virtual Volunteering Playbook, we are working in partnership with our members to share ideas, brainstorm solutions, and publish free tools to help other companies safely engage their teams during this pandemic. For example, Twilio, in partnership with Pledge 1%, Okta, and Zoom, recently launched WePledge, a new program that empowers individuals and company employees to build positive change around the world by contributing 1% of their personal time or resources to do good.
We’ve also seen a new trend in companies pledging equity on the road to IPO. Setting aside equity for social impact allows companies to demonstrate their long-term commitment, differentiate themselves from competitors, and sustainably fund their social impact work for years to come. In the last 3 years alone, top companies who set aside equity for social impact have ignited over $500 million in new philanthropy via their IPOs. You can learn more about how to pledge equity by downloading our Equity Playbook today.
With all of the challenges and changes we’ve faced this past year, we are constantly reminded of the innovation and generosity from our community. To recognize all that they’ve done and continue to do, we’re highlighting how our members around the world are giving back this GivingTuesday with our #Pledge1Gives series. On our blog and social media we will be posting a story every hour throughout the day. Whether you have an established giving program or are looking to implement one, we hope these stories will provide you with inspiration and hope.
Quiip has achieved carbon neutral status and joined Pledge 1%, a corporate social responsibility model to commit one per cent of the company’s time, product, profit, and/or equity to charity.
The announcement:
Reflectingits commitment to meeting the highest standards of social and environmental responsibility, Australia’s leading social media and online community management specialist Quiip has achieved carbon neutral status and joined Pledge 1%.
The significant milestones follow Quiip’s 2019 B Corp commitment to accelerating the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions to reach net zero by 2030. Quiip became B Corp certified in 2018, and was among the first 300 Australian companies to do so.
As an entirely distributed company with no central offices, achieving carbon neutral status meant calculating carbon emissions of all team members’ home offices as well as business activities, web hosting and travel. Quiip’s carbon neutral status will aid biodiversity protection, with its chosen carbon offset project a rare pocket of intact native vegetation at Mount Sandy in South Australia.
Quiip joins the likes of Atlassian and Salesforce by taking the global Pledge 1%, a new model of corporate social responsibility that sees companies commit to donating 1% of staff time, product, profit, and/or equity to charity. Quiip has pledged to donate 1% of revenue to its chosen charities and 1% of its team’s time to supporting not-for-profits and social enterprises.
The business has already provided its social media strategy, social media management and online community expertise to eight organizations working to address issues including homelessness and youth suicide.
“We’ve always believed in the power of business for good and both these achievements are important steps in our journey and our commitment to balance profit with purpose. Because the Pledge 1% initiative doesn’t just stop at financial donations, we have gone a step further by also pledging our time to give back to the community. Our carbon neutral achievement is a great first step towards our ambitions to reach NetZero 2030. While we’re thrilled to achieve carbon neutral status and working with a fantastic carbon offset project, this is just the beginning,” Quiip CEO Alison Michalk said.
Businesses now more than ever understand the deep benefits of social responsibility. It’s been well documented that positive social impact leads to better employee retention, happiness and meaning in the workplace. We’ve seen studies with powerful data, showing that companies with giving programs have 2.3X the employee retention rate.
While the benefits of corporate giving is clear, the details and implementation of a meaningful program are much more murky.
One program that addresses thisis Pledge 1% , a global movement that inspires, educates, and empowers every entrepreneur, company, and employee to be a force for good. Over 10,000 members in 100 countries have used Pledge 1%’s flexible framework to ignite half a billion dollars in new philanthropy.
The legacy CSR playbook has a host of ways for corporations to give back; a company backed matching program, one-off volunteer initiatives, or bulk grants allocated and decided upon by company leadership. All of these are impactful programs that lay the groundwork for a culture of giving.
Bringing employee engagement into your CSR program
GoodToday was founded on the principle that generosity is a muscle, and when exercised often, transforms one into a giver. We started off with a daily newsletter that highlights a timely cause and two related organizations. Initially, individual subscribers would sign up to donate 25¢/day to one of featured charities, all with one click, and then track our collective impact in real-time. It wasn’t long before socially conscious companies asked if they could also receive the newsletter and sponsor daily giving for their employees.
We launched GoodToday for Teams, with a mission to make giving charity a daily habit, build a muscle of generosity and humility. Through our new Slack/Email app, teams can now cultivate and implement a habit of giving for their employees. Companies sponsor their employees for 25¢/day and we send a daily message featuring one timely problem in the world and two charities tackling the issue in a different way.
Donating Via GoodToday’s Slack App
It’s been humbling to see teams rally together in the midst of the many issues we are currently facing, to make giving a habit. Employees seem to truly cherish the opportunity to give back daily remotely, and it has shown with 30–50% of the 12,000+ employees engaging daily.
It’s no wonder we’ve found that some of the first companies to adopt our employee centric workplace giving platform have been Pledge 1% companies. MediaMath, Jefferies, Jebbit, Litify and other Pledge 1% members are all onboard GoodToday and use it to power daily discovery and giving for their employee base.
MediaMath is a leader in CSR, having built a .org initiative that threads through every aspect of their business. Since adopting GoodToday’s slack app on their team last year, the team has engaged over 40% EVERY SINGLE DAY, using it as a tool for their team to educate themselves on timely causes and take action in the same morning moment.
Michael Quinn, Director of MediaMath.org said, “GoodToday provides a daily dose of perspective on issues around the world and a habit-forming act that will hopefully help us all become more kind and giving individuals at work, at home, in our communities, and the broader world at large.”
So, what’s next? We’re continuing to work with people-first companies that are providing actionable ways for their employees to build positive habits. If you’re an HR Leader, Founder, or anyone else who wants to make giving a foundational part of your company culture, check us out!
By joining GoodToday you’ll instantly boost the overall impact of our community while transforming the daily habits of your entire team. Check back here as we share more on how over 30 companies and 10,000 employees use GoodToday to build daily positive habits all while making an impact.
To learn more about Pledge 1% and to take the pledge visit pledge1percent.org.
Solunus Inc. is glad to announce it has joined the 1% Pledge movement, a country-wide not-for-profit initiative, encouraging businesses to actively contribute to noble causes. The employees and the leadership team of one of the fastest-growing Salesforce partners in North America will now join hands with the movement and spend 1% of their time to support underprivileged sections of the communities they live in.
“At Solunus, we conduct various programs to help the community we live in,” said Sudhakar Pennam, founder and CEO of Solunus Inc. “We know our partnership with the 1% Pledge will enable us to serve our community better; we can understand its needs and meet them more effectively. The movement gives us one more opportunity to serve the society, and I’m very thankful for it.”
For years, Solunus Inc. has been actively engaged with various charitable institutions and non-governmental organizations to further the cause of the needy. For instance, the company arranges to serve food to more than 100 underprivileged visually-impaired kids at Nethra Vidyalaya, a not-for-profit residential school and care center, in Visakhapatnam, India on the birthdays of its employees. The company also helps the children with free homeopathic medicines and medical consultation services on alternate Sundays of every month. Likewise, its staff members serve over 4500 meals to poor kids at the North Texas Food Bank (NTFB) in Dallas. The employees volunteer to prepare the nutritious meals for the less fortunate children. “Small acts of kindness can make a big impact. The satisfaction we get by helping these kids is immense – the smiles on their faces provide a truly gratifying experience. Community service activities are very dear to our CEO’s heart. We always receive excellent support from him for our volunteering activities, and this motivates us to do more for the society,” said an employee who has been participating in the program for the last 3 years.
1% Pledge is a national philanthropic initiative backed by Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff and Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman. Nearly 1,000 organizations in more than 30 cities have already joined the initiative; the movement relies on strong collaboration and partnership of its members to create a better tomorrow. “As a company, we collaborate and partner with our customers to meet their needs,” said Mr. Pennam recently, while inaugurating a program sponsored by the company, at the Roanoke Community and Senior Center in the Dallas area. “The same values also guide us in our activities for the community.”
“Corporations can play an important role in helping the underserved, especially those in their twilight,” he added. “We’re fully aware no one company can fully resolve the problems of all poor senior citizens in the country. But, by working together, we can certainly make a difference.”
So, what are Solunus Inc.’s future plans for the community? “We’ll continue to work with our social partners and 501(c)(3) organizations and contribute our time for activities that help build a better society,” said Mr. Pennam. “We intend to launch more volunteer-led initiatives and focus on areas where we can make the maximum impact. We’ll share more details in the coming weeks, so keep track of our blog and networking channels.”
About Solunus:
Solunus, a North-American based Salesforce Partner, prepares businesses for their next-generation customers. Established in 2014, we simplify Salesforce for you to build more meaningful customer relationships. We partner for a win-win arrangement with a clear ROI that the client realizes by the end of the engagement. Our 350+ years of cumulative industry exposure and Salesforce experience underpin our position as the right Salesforce partner. We are a team of Salesforce Certified Professionals, CRM Architects, and certified Agile Scrum Masters with a passion for making a difference.
