#GivingTuesday may only be one day per year, but a lifetime committed to giving can define your legacy
A simple conversation around major life events (marriage, kids, first homes, and more) in the summer of 2017, led to the beginning of Trust & Will. We set out to achieve our vision to be the modern category leader in estate planning, helping the millions of families who have not yet set up their trust or will.
As you’ve probably picked up on family is our guiding value. It’s a tribute to those who came before us, and a reminder everyday as to WHY we are building this company. To be able to help people at scale is one of the beautiful things about building a technology company. And with growth and success, comes assessing your priorities. We knew early on that one of those priorities would be helping others, which is why we were inspired by companies like Salesforce, Atlassian, Classy and more to give back as our journey unfolds.
We made the commitment to Pledge1% upon incorporating Trust & Will in October 2017 because Pledge1% aligns with our personal values, and is injected into our company culture.
Our team is based in sunny San Diego and proud of the work we are doing to help the everyday family leave their legacy. We proudly display the Pledge1% logo at the entrance to our office to remind our team, visitors, and passerby the importance of giving back.
Since Postmates began FoodFight!, they’ve made some pretty significant leaps and bounds in their journey to reduce hunger and food waste in the US. FoodFight! currently operates in Oklahoma City, Nashville, Detroit, and Los Angeles, and are actively working on expanding their reach. Between their four established cities, Postmates caters to over 600 FoodFight! enabled restaurants.
If you have a restaurant, a food truck, a taqueria or any kind of food business and would like to become a part of FoodFight!, email Postmates at FoodFight@postmates.com.
On this Giving Tuesday, Postmates is proud to tell our story about a transformative technology product we built thanks to our partnership with Pledge 1%: FoodFight!
FoodFight! allows restaurants that partner with Postmates to have a member of our fleet pick up their leftover food and take it to a local shelter at the touch of a button!
Thanks to our pledge of time and product, we put together a coalition of employees passionate about solving America’s dumbest problem, food waste, and leveraging our existing product to do so. We knew that we could use our logistics superpower for good, and so we did.
After meeting with shelters and restaurants to determine the most useful and efficient way for Postmates to support the connection between leftover food and those who need it, this coalition met once a week starting in May 2018 to put together a plan to build a first of its kind technology solution.
Employees volunteered their time from product management, design, data, communications, operations, engineering, account management, merchant support, and more to help us launch in Los Angeles on October 1, 2018. This cross team effort was inspiring to watch as it happened, and as our first FoodFight! Delivery happened in Los Angeles, we all celebrated.
The coalition isn’t done yet! Since October we have added additional employees into the FoodFight! Coalition in an effort to expand the program to additional cities with the goal to offer this service nationwide by the end of 2020!
Want to learn more or join the FoodFight? Click here!
About Postmates:
Postmates helps people unlock the best of their cities – and their lives, with an insanely reliable on-demand “everything” network. Launched in 2011, Postmates is the first and leading company in the on-demand space – helping customers in over 400 cities get whatever they need, whenever they need it. Postmates has the largest on-demand fleet in the U.S. – with 200,000 Postmates and the biggest network of merchants. While some companies try to build a warehouse outside of a city and funnel goods into it, Postmates believes that our cities, our towns, and our communities are our warehouses. Postmates is helping transform the way food and merchandise move around cities – by connecting the city to customers while helping local brick and mortar businesses better compete against retail goliaths.
Originally posted: November 27, 2018
Originally published by PRWeb
The SAFe 4.6 role-based curriculum is designed to increase success rates for global enterprises and government agencies using Lean, Agile, and DevOps
BOULDER, Colo. (PRWEB) November 09, 2018
Scaled Agile, Inc., provider of the leading framework for enterprise agility, today announced the availability of training and certification for the 4.6 version of SAFe®. The new and enhanced courses are designed to help enterprises accelerate their competitive advantage in the marketplace through the practice of Lean, Agile, and DevOps.
The unifying theme throughout Scaled Agile’s role-based curriculum is the Five Core Competencies of the Lean Enterprise, a SAFe 4.6 initiative that focuses on creating a culture of continuous improvement and value creation for the end customer with minimal waste and processes.
The SAFe 4.6 training program includes 10 courses and professional certifications designed to meet the needs of Lean-Agile professionals from the beginning of their learning journey through their veteran years as they practice, consult, or train others in SAFe:
Core courses updated to SAFe 4.6:
- Leading SAFe® with SAFe® Agilist (SA) certification—Developing the Five Core Competencies of the Lean Enterprise
- SAFe® Scrum Master with SAFe® Scrum Master (SSM) certification—Applying the Scrum Master role within a SAFe® enterprise
- SAFe® for Teams with SAFe® Practitioner (SP) certification—Establishing team agility for Agile Release Trains
- SAFe® Product Owner/Product Manager with SAFe Product Owner/Product Manager (POPM) certification—Delivering value through effective Program Increment execution
- SAFe® DevOps with SAFe® DevOps Practitioner (SDP) certification—Enabling Release on Demand for the Lean enterprise
Advanced courses updated to SAFe 4.6:
- Implementing SAFe® with SAFe® Program Consultant (SPC) certification—Implementing the Scaled Agile Framework® for Lean Enterprises
- SAFe® Advanced Scrum Master with SAFe® Advanced Scrum Master (SASM) certification—Advancing Scrum Master servant leadership with SAFe®
- SAFe® Release Train Engineer with SAFe® Release Train Engineer (RTE) certification—Facilitating Lean-Agile program execution
New SAFe 4.6 core courses:
- SAFe® Agile Software Engineering with SAFe® Agile Software Engineer (ASE) certification—Enabling technical agility for the Lean enterprise
- SAFe® for Government with SAFe® Government Practitioner (SGP) certification—Applying Lean-Agile practices in the public sector with SAFe®
Scaled Agile’s role-based curriculum leverages the latest in learning science to create learner-centric experiences that propel success for the individual and the business. “The design and development of our curriculum is informed by learning theories and practices from the fields of cognitive psychology, education, and neuroscience,” said Jennifer Fawcett, Director of Learning and Certification, Scaled Agile. “Classroom experiences combined with valuable resources in the SAFe Community Platform provide each student with an active, engaging, and collaborative learning environment.”
Chris James, Scaled Agile’s President and Chief Operating Officer, noted, “As the practice of SAFe continues to expand globally, the demand for SAFe training and certification is accelerating. This new offering of courses represents the next, most important step in meeting that demand and building out Scaled Agile’s role-based curriculum. We remain laser-focused on providing world-class courseware that is standardized to produce the most consistent results, even in the most complex and diverse environments.”
Descriptions of each course and registration information for public SAFe classes can be found at scaledagile.com/which-course.
About Scaled Agile, Inc.:
Scaled Agile, Inc., is the provider of SAFe®, the world’s leading framework for enterprise agility. Through learning and certification, a global partner network, and a growing community of over 300,000 trained professionals, Scaled Agile helps enterprises build better systems, increase employee engagement, and improve business outcomes. Scaled Agile is a contributing member of the Pledge 1% corporate philanthropy and community service movement. Learn about Scaled Agile and SAFe at scaledagile.com and scaledagileframework.com.
Originally published by SmartCompany
Social impact and philanthropic gestures have long gone hand-in-hand with the world of startups, as billion-dollar companies and investors strive to put their wealth to good use.
Bill and Melinda Gates’ foundation has all but eradicated polio, Salesforce founder Marc Benioff and his wife Lynne have donated millions to healthcare organisations, and Warren Buffett has donated over $40 billion dollars since the turn of the century.
And while this may seem to many like the exclusive realm of the mega-rich and mega-successful, the founders of Aussie startup success story Atlassian say they want every company, big or small, to do their bit for charity.
This is in part because Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar have been doing their bit for charity since the early days of the company, creating the basis for what’s known today as the Atlassian Foundation just a few years after the company’s founding in 2002.
Speaking to StartupSmart, head of the Atlassian Foundation Mark Reading says the two’s philanthropic efforts date back to the SaaS company’s formative years, with the two founders pledging from early on to follow Marc Benioff’s 1-1-1 model of giving back.
This model sees a company pledge 1% of its resources, equity, profit and employee time towards philanthropy and giving back, and to date, the Atlassian Foundation has donated over $23 million to charities and over 37,000 hours of employee time.
Reading says the founders decided “the most impactful” thing they could do was change the lives of disadvantaged youths, choosing to donate to education-focused charities.
However, four years ago, the company decided to kick it up a notch, and partnered with Salesforce and Rally to create a new movement to get other companies involved with the 1-1-1 model.
“We began the Pledge 1% movement to make giving back a core part of more organisations,” Reading says.
“If every single founder embedded giving 1% back into their business model, we could mobilise some serious global resources for social good.”
Reading says the push is based on the founders’ belief business has a huge opportunity to contribute positively to society, and them wanting as many businesses as possible to make a 1% contribution to make it the “new normal”.
“Just the same way you save a portion of equity in a new business for future employees, we want every business to commit just 1% of their equity for good,” he says.
“I couldn’t imagine starting a new business today without investing at least 1% of your resources for good.”
And while 1% may not sound a lot for a small startup in its early days, Reading says as long as its embedded in the company from the beginning, the amount given will scale as the company does.
Due to Atlassian’s long-standing commitment to philanthropy, Reading claims the Atlassian Foundation is the second-largest foundation of its type in the country.
“The earlier you get on board, the easier it is,” he says.
Reading even says the pledge has been a “great business decision” for Atlassian too, though an unintended one, as the company has found it easier to attract great talent due to its prominent dedication to giving back.
Social enterprise sector still lagging
As part of the efforts, Farquhar will be participating in the ‘Fastest Executive Race’ for education charity Room to Read in Sydney this week. Though he admits he hasn’t seen Farquhar run, Reading says the word in the Atlassian corridors is the executive has “Buckley’s chance” of coming out on top.
Looking broadly at the social enterprise space in Australia, Reading says there’s definitely “room for improvement” locally compared to efforts being made in the US and the UK.
“We’re probably not as advanced as some other countries, but we’re definitely doing great things. I think it comes down to the whole ecosystem doing its part,” he says.
“It has always been said the not-for-profit sector achieves so much with so little, and the for-profit sector achieves so little with so much, so we’re hoping to do our part to flip that on its head.”
Originally published by Webwire
Northern California IT Startup Joins Growing List of US Companies Devoting Resources to Philanthropic Causes
Cloud Pathfinder Consulting (CPC), an emerging IT startup enabling business clients to fully harness the capabilities of Salesforce customer relationship management (CRM) software tools, today proudly announced it has joined the Pledge 1% movement. Founded in 2014 as a joint philanthropy project of Salesforce, Atlassian and Rally, Pledge 1% encourages progressive companies of any size to formally devote one percent of resources—equity, time, product or profit—to nonprofit organizations serving their local community and beyond.
In keeping with the goals of the Pledge 1% movement, CPC will formally commit at least one percent of employee time and net profits to directly aid Merivis Foundation. A Texas-based nonprofit, Merivis shares CPC’s core mission of rewarding America’s military veterans and their families with valuable Salesforce skills training, certifications and job placement as a starting point for prosperous civilian careers.
“We recognize Pledge 1% as a terrific pipeline for companies to ’give back’ to their communities,” said CPC founder and CEO Jesse Grothaus, an Army Reserve veteran who served several overseas deployments. “Merivis Foundation is a perfect match for us to lend our specific Salesforce expertise—and share our success with a larger group of fellow veterans.”
“We’ve already achieved great success stories in training and mentoring veterans with the in-depth Salesforce skills so many employers are struggling to find,” said Hector Perez Jr., president of Merivis Foundation Board of Directors. “We couldn’t find a better partner than CPC, and we gladly accept their assistance toward helping give veterans a leg up in today’s competitive job market”
About Cloud Pathfinder Consulting
Founded in 2017, Cloud Pathfinder Consulting (CPC) enables business clients to reap maximum advantages from the Salesforce customer relationship management (CRM) platform, from navigating front-end setup (consulting, planning, training and migration) through back-end support, including full data integration management, reporting and advanced analytics, with a range of service tiers tailored to meet the needs of companies of every size. CPC is also among select recipients of the Salesforce Impact Fund, Salesforce Ventures’ $50 million commitment to accelerate promising new companies which utilize Salesforce tools to benefit society. A veteran-owned small business based in Northern California. For more information, visit www.cloudpathfinderconsulting.com .
About Merivis Foundation
Merivis Foundation supports veterans preparing for their next missions through training, mentorship and job readiness for Salesforce cloud technology positions. With a growing need for Salesforce certified professionals and an increasing numbers of underemployed veterans in the country, they bridge the gap to help veterans transition to civilian life and find great careers. Learn more at www.merivisfoundation.org .
About Pledge 1%
Pledge 1% is an effort spearheaded by Atlassian, Rally, Salesforce and Tides to accelerate their shared vision around integrating philanthropy into businesses around the world. Pledge 1% encourages and challenges individuals and companies to pledge 1% of equity, profit, product and/or employee time for their communities, because pledging a small portion of future success can have a huge impact on tomorrow. Pledge 1% offers companies turnkey tools and best practices, making it accessible for any company to incorporate philanthropy into their business model. To learn more or to take the pledge, please visit www.pledge1percent.org .
There’s open source and there’s open source.
There’s genuine free and open source software (FOSS) and then there’s largely locked down proprietary non-dynamic library open source that is generally supplied as a commercially supported version of an open source kernel base that doesn’t see whole lot of real world code commits — and, no, there’s no acronym for that.
Then, there’s other ways of evidencing real open openness such as non-technical contributions (could be language translation/localisation etc.) and then there’s plain old contributions.
Scale-out Postgres database technologies Citus Data is donating 1 percent of its equity to non-profit PostgreSQL organisations in the US and Europe.
The United States PostgreSQL Association says it has received the stock grant and will work with the PostgreSQL Europe organisation to support the growth, education, and future innovation of the open source Postgres database in both the US and in Europe.
To coincide with Citus Data’s equity donation, the company is joining the Pledge 1% movement, alongside technology organisations such as Atlassian, Twilio, Box etc..
“When people think about contributing to open source and building sustainable open source communities, there are different approaches,” said Citus Data CEO Umur Cubukcu. “You can open source software you’ve created, you can maintain certain features and projects, and you can contribute to events with speakers and sponsorships — all of which our team spends a lot of time on.”
Founded in 2011, the founders of Citus Data set out to bring the performance and economics of scale-out systems to the field of relational databases.
To give applications the memory, compute, and disk resources of a distributed database cluster, the team at Citus Data created an extension to Postgres that transforms PostgreSQL into a distributed database — something that was previously not possible with any other relational database, whether proprietary or open source.
Originally published by PRNEWSWIRE
Fastest Growing Top 5 Enterprise Software Company to Significantly Expand Regional Headquarters in Atlanta
Salesforce , the global leader in CRM, announced Salesforce Tower Atlanta, significantly expanding the company’s regional headquarters in Atlanta. As part of the expansion, Salesforce plans to add 600 new jobs locally, over the next five years, helping fuel the city’s economic development. The company will grow its footprint in The Atlanta Plaza in Buckhead, which will now be known as Salesforce Tower Atlanta.
Salesforce Tower Atlanta joins the ranks of other Salesforce regional headquarters, including Salesforce Tower New York, Salesforce Tower Indianapolis, Salesforce Tower London, and the company’s worldwide headquarters, Salesforce Tower San Francisco.
Salesforce employees will start moving into the newly renovated floors beginning in 2019. Plans for the building include a renovated immersive lobby experience and top “Ohana Floor” – an open hospitality space for Salesforce employees, customers and partners, which is also available for nonprofits and local education groups on weeknights and weekends at no cost.
“Salesforce continues to reach new heights and we’re thrilled to further our commitment to the city of Atlanta,” said Elizabeth Pinkham, EVP, Real Estate, Salesforce. “Salesforce Tower Atlanta provides a one-of-a-kind workspace where all of our employees can do the best work of their lives while supporting the community by giving back.”
“Atlanta is a fantastic market for world-class talent and we’re thrilled to grow our presence in the region,” said Warren Wick, EVP, Commercial Sales, Salesforce. “Many of our top customers call the city home and we’re excited to support these trailblazers in connecting with their customers in whole new ways.”
“Salesforce joins other market-leading global brands that have recently announced plans to grow their operations in Atlanta,” said Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms. “We are proud to be a top choice for companies looking for a talented workforce, quality-of-life, and a welcoming and inclusive business community. The Salesforce cloud will be an exciting addition to our ever-evolving skyline.”
New Tower Supports Salesforce’s Continued Growth in Atlanta
Salesforce has been named one of Fortune’s Best Places to Work for the past 10 years and was recently ranked one of Atlanta’s Best Places to Work by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Salesforce Tower Atlanta will be a hub for world-class, diverse talent, enabling the company to deliver new innovations to its more than 150,000 customers around the world. Salesforce has nearly 600 employees in the Atlanta area and more than 32,000 employees worldwide. Atlanta is home to many Salesforce customers including Coca-Cola, InterContinental Hotels Group, SunTrust and Kabbage.
Giving Back—Committing to 25,000 Volunteer Hours Next Year
Today, Salesforce employees in Atlanta are committing to deliver 25,000 total employee volunteer hours to local nonprofits in 2019. To date, Salesforce technology has powered more than 37,000 nonprofit and higher education institutions; Salesforce.org has provided more than $230 million in grants; and Salesforce employees have logged more than 3.2 million volunteer hours throughout the world. Employees in Atlanta have supported a variety of organizations including Big Brothers Big Sisters of Metro Atlanta, Camp Sunshine, Open Hand Atlanta and Junior Achievement of Georgia.
In addition, more than 6,000 companies from 100 countries have committed to Pledge 1%, an initiative spearheaded by Salesforce that encourages and challenges individuals and companies to pledge 1% equity, product and employee time for their communities. Local Atlanta companies that have joined Pledge 1% include accessnow USA, Chaplain&co, Medric Networks and QASymphony.
Salesforce—Fastest-Growing Top 5 Software Company
Salesforce is the global leader in customer relationship management (CRM), helping companies connect with their customers in a whole new way. Founded in 1999, Salesforce enables companies of every size and industry to take advantage of powerful Fourth Industrial Revolution technologies—cloud, mobile, social, internet of things, and artificial intelligence—to get closer to their customers. The Salesforce Customer Success Platform includes industry-leading services spanning sales, service, marketing, commerce, communities, collaboration and industries, all on a single trusted cloud platform.
Originally published by BizWest.
FORT COLLINS — Innosphere, the incubator for startup and scaleup science and tech-based companies, is partnering with the Community Foundation of Northern Colorado and Pledge 1% to help Innosphere companies participate in long-term giving.
Pledge 1% has a philanthropic model that allows companies to pledge 1 percent of equity, annual profit, employee time or company product to nonprofits of their own choosing.
“We’ve seen a rise in the number of companies that want to make the community a stakeholder in their companies,” said Scott Sampl, Innosphere operations director, in a prepared statement. “It’s an easy way for entrepreneurs to give and it starts with an easy pledge form on the Pledge 1% Colorado website.”
The Community Foundation will help startups consider their community impact and decide how best to provide their philanthropy.
Innosphere does not take equity in the companies it supports. But companies that decide to pledge 1 percent of equity can choose to direct a portion of their funds to Innosphere’s 501(c)(3) to help the incubator launch new initiatives. The Community Foundation of Northern Colorado will work with all companies on their philanthropic goals, regardless of location. Innosphere companies not based in Northern Colorado could select to give back to other Colorado foundations such as the Community Foundation of Boulder County, the Rose Community Foundation or the Denver Foundation.
“We’re excited to offer every Innosphere company the opportunity to invest in philanthropy when there’s an exit,” Sampl said.
Founding partners for Pledge 1% include Salesforce, Altassian and Rally Software.