Pledge 1% is thrilled to partner with Bessemer Venture Partners, Forbes and Salesforce Ventures for their Cloud 100 event, which honors the top 100 private cloud companies in the world. Cloud 100 Pledge 1% members have had incredible impact- donating their time, product, and profits to their communities. To recognize this, we formally launched the Pledge 1% Impact Award to recognize one company who has gone above and beyond in leveraging their time, talent, money, and resources to make a difference. We are thrilled to share that the 2017 Pledge 1% Impact Award winner is DocuSign.
DocuSign IMPACT is committed to harnessing the power of DocuSign’s people, products, and profits for good. Their goal is to make a difference in the global communities where their employees and customers live and work. In addition, they match employee donations to qualifying 501(c)(3) organizations and global equivalents.
We congratulate all Pledge 1% companies for making this year’s Cloud 100 list. You can learn more and view the full list here.
By Grand Central Tech on September 22, 2016, originally published on their website in News
When Grand Central Tech started in 2014, we did so with the goal of creating a single point of density of the best technology companies in NYC. And with that goal came a twofold mission:
First, to provide GCT companies access to key resources at the very best terms possible, and materially accelerate their progress. Earlier this week, we announced the ongoing evolution of this component of our mission with the opening of the Hub, which expands our footprint to over 100,000 square feet and allows us to work with even later stage companies working on what we think are some of the most important challenges facing the world today. Apply here.
Second, to set an example for how New York could “do tech differently” by more fully integrating the tech sector into the broader economy/community that surrounds it in a way that wouldn’t detract from any company’s likelihood of success – but would in fact augment it.
To date, this twofold mission has been adopted enthusiastically by all of our participating GCT companies — something we’re deeply proud of. Last summer alone, we took on about 50 interns from local schools (thanks to GCT company Code2Work!), of which over 80% came from either 2 or 4 year community colleges. Drawing interns from a broader talent pool isn’t just “nice” to do; across the board ~80% of these interns were offered jobs afterward… Challenging preconceived notions around where talent comes from and what it tends to look like creates a strategic advantage for companies smart enough to do so.
Today, we’re excited to announce that Grand Central Tech is partnering with Pledge 1% — a global movement to integrate giving back into the DNA of companies of all sizes as early as possible. Launched a little over a year ago, over 900 companies in 30+ countries have taken the pledge to donate 1% of time, equity, profit, and/or product including Twilio, Atlassian, General Assembly, Salesforce, Box, Yelp, MediaMath, Appnexus, and Okta.
As part of our partnership, all GCT companies automatically qualify for inclusion in Pledge 1%, in recognition of all the hard work and time they’ve committed to giving back to the community and making New York the best place in the world to start and build a company.
We’re proud to partner with Pledge 1%, and encourage you all to take the pledge too. It only takes 30 seconds, and together we can continue to be an example to the rest of the world about how New York does tech. And, if you/your company can’t necessarily take the pledge outright, you can sign up to be an Ambassador!
To read the original article and to learn more about Grand Central Tech, visit: http://www.grandcentraltech.com/grand-central-tech-is-proud-to-partner-with-pledge-1/
You can also get involved and join our growing community at www.pledge1percent.org.
To celebrate reaching 1,000 members and to help kick-off the campaign, we are offering YOU – our amazing Pledge 1% community – an additional BONUS PERK from now through September 27.
Any person that recruits a new pledge in these next two weeks will receive a free #PledgeItForward t-shirt.
Pretty cool, right?
Let’s get out those asks and show the world how our community can #PledgeItForward!
By Shana Franti. Originally published on the Salesforce blog.
Pledge 1% is a corporate philanthropy movement spearheaded by Salesforce.org, Atlassian, and Rally for Impact and Tides dedicated to making the world a better place. It encourages and challenges individuals and companies to pledge 1% of time, equity, product or profit to improve their communities — because pledging a small portion of future success today can have a huge impact tomorrow.
Today, as we kick off Salesforce World Tour Melbourne, we’re thrilled to celebrate the incredible Pledge 1% members in Australia and New Zealand. We’ve had an unbelievable year — since our local launch last year, 80 Australian and New Zealand companies have taken the pledge.
And we’re just getting started
Here are just a few of the local companies that are leading the way and making the community a key stakeholder in their business:
· Ansarada has pledged 1% of equity, 1% of time and 1% of product.
· Arxxus has pledged 1% of time.
· Blackbird Ventures has pledged 1% of profit and 1% of time.
· BrickX has pledged 1% of equity, 1% of time and 1% of product.
· Campaign Monitor has pledged 1% of time.
· Culture Amp has pledged 1% of equity, 1% of time and 1% of product.
· eWay has pledged 1% of equity, 1% of time and 1% of product.
· Goodcompany has pledged 1% of time and 1% of product.
· Hit 100 has pledged 1% of equity, 1% of time and 1% of product.
· Hoist has pledged 1% of time and 1% of profit.
· Industrie IT has pledged 1% of equity, 1% of time and 1% of product.
· Ivy College has pledged 1% of equity, 1% of time and 1% of product.
· Pozible has pledged 1% of equity and 1% of time.
· Premonition has pledged 1% of time and 1% of product.
· Propeller Aerobotics has pledged 1% of equity, 1% of time, 1% of product and 1% of profit.
· Safety Culture has pledged 1% of equity and 1% of product.
· Wilson Asset Management Group has pledged 1% of profit and 1% of time.
“The business of business is not business. The business of business is improving the state of the world. “ – Marc Benioff
Did you know that companies that integrate corporate citizenship into their businesses have 2.3 times the employee retention and an increase of 29 per cent in new hire commitment than companies that do not? Employees want to work with an organisation that matches their social values and gives back. This is of particular importance to Millennials with Deloitte finding six out of 10 Millennial employees say that a “sense of purpose” is part of the reason that they chose to work for their current employers.
Will you pledge 1%?
It’s easy to get started. The Pledge 1% website details how companies can pledge 1% of their employee’s time, equity, product or profit. By providing a turnkey solution featuring tools, best practices and relevant information, the website is intended to make it easy for any company or person to incorporate philanthropy into their business model from the beginning.
Thinking about building giving back into your company culture? Join the movement today at www.pledge1percent.org.
By Miguel Milano, President of Salesforce in EMEA. Originally published on The Huffington Post.
The over-arching theme of the World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting at Davos this year was the Fourth Industrial Revolution. According to Professor Klaus Schwab – founder and Chief Executive of the WEF – we’re on the cusp of this revolution, where technology will have enormous ramifications not just on the economy, but on all aspects of our lives.
This idea has really resonated – since then, through all the news about oil prices, tech shares and financial uncertainties, it’s continued to gain traction among business and political figures as well as economists.
And the idea of this impending revolution is gaining traction because Schwab is absolutely correct.
If you think about it, innovations like cloud computing, social media, mobile tech, data science and the Internet of Things are already transforming virtually every aspect of life: from entertainment and shopping, to transport, agriculture, banking, and healthcare through to human interaction itself. We’re also seeing breakthroughs in areas like artificial intelligence, quantum computing, robotics and genetics, but their impact – which is predicted to be massive – is yet to be fully felt. We truly are riding the crest of a wave of digital transformation.
With all this change come challenges too. Remarkable innovation doesn’t just create huge economic opportunity, it can also turn lives upside down and create enormous inequality. For example, it is likely that machine intelligence and robotics will replace some jobs that exist today. And those who are already digitally marginalised could easily become even more so. The elderly, for example, are set to benefit the most from digital healthcare, but as it stands in the UK, they have the lowest chance of being able to access it.
We have long talked about the issue of the digital divide here in the UK. As the Fourth Industrial Revolution takes hold, for me, the key to its success is ensuring that it reduces, rather than exacerbates this divide, and that all of us are swept up in positive change.
And it’s the tech industry, which has so much to gain from this Fourth Industrial Revolution, that has a pivotal part to play in ensuring its benefits are felt across society.
Fortunately the wheels have been set in motion. One example of how the industry is stepping up is the Pledge 1% initiative that was recently launched in the UK. Twenty-eight UK entrepreneurs have joined 592 of their international peers in committing one percent of their equity, product, and employee time to their communities. A high percentage of these entrepreneurs are from tech companies. These individuals are not just donating money, they’re actually empowering communities with technology and their technology know-how.
In fact, countless NGOs are today benefitting from technology that they have been given – or that has been created or customized for them by volunteers.
The Polaris Project – dedicated to combating modern-day slavery – is a great example. Data aggregation is enabling Polaris to improve both the speed and the quality of its response to human trafficking situations. It does this by using the type of technology digital marketers do when they create a single view of their customer. Except in this instance, with a little customisation, it’s allowing case management, hotline and policy teams to track data together. The result? Faster response times to help those who are in desperate need of it.
Or take a look at Sanergy, where technology is enabling great change in poorer communities. The charity, focused on communities in Kenya, addresses three issues that are rife in slums the world over: sanitation, compromised female safety and high unemployment. Cloud-based technology empowers operators to weigh, record and sell waste as organic fertilizer or renewable energy (both of which are in huge demand in East Africa), to predict when toilets are going to need removing and when and where new projects should be launched.
I am continually amazed by the number of technology influencers that I meet – from academics and inventors, to business people and bloggers – who express an interest in applying their skills to ensure technology is indeed making the world a better place. And I sincerely hope they do get involved. I am convinced that when future generations look back on the Fourth Industrial Revolution, we will be judged not only on the ingenuity of the innovation, but how we worked to ensure it benefitted everyone in our communities.