The 2023 Edelman Trust Barometer has been released.
“A lack of faith in societal institutions triggered by economic anxiety, disinformation, mass-class divide and a failure of leadership has brought us to where we are today – deeply and dangerously polarized.
- Business is the only institution seen as competent and ethical.
- Fifty-three percent of respondents globally say that their countries are more divided today than in the past.
- CEOs are obligated to improve economic optimism and hold divisive forces accountable.”
Download the report here.
Pledge 1%’s #WomenWhoLead series celebrates female leaders who are paving the way for the next generation. While our featured leaders come from a variety of backgrounds and industries, they are united in their efforts to promote equality for all women in the workplace. We’ve asked them to share a bit about their journey to success, as well as lessons they’ve learned along the way.
Libby Ziemelis
Customer Success Manager, DemandBlue
Chandler, AZ, USA
What is your current role? Briefly describe in 1-2 sentences.
As a Customer Success Manager with DemandBlue, I am the single point of contact for my clients. I work with nonprofits to understand their needs and business processes, create user stories and play the role of the voice of the customer all the while keeping my clients up to date on the progress we’re making as we work through projects.
What’s the best part of your job? What do you enjoy the most?
The best part of my job is an opportunity to be passionate about the missions of my clients. Supporting nonprofit organizations is core to who I am and my job allows me to explore alongside them ways to utilize technology to meet their missions.
We’ve all faced personal and professional challenges, especially during these past two years – what motivates you to keep going?
I’m reminded that who I am and what I do has an impact on those around me. First and foremost, I want my kids to see that small setbacks are not insurmountable and the simplest way to move forward is to make that decision to move forward and take action. Giving oneself grace to have feelings and process the challenges is important, but so is knowing that those challenges should not stop any forward progress.
What’s the best piece of advice you ever received?
Interestingly enough, the best piece of advice that comes to mind is one that was directed toward my son. One of the main focuses at my son’s school is on building the child’s growth mindset. That was a concept that I hadn’t been exposed to previously but learning the importance of living a life intentionally to have a positive outlook on learning really changed the way I take on challenges.
What does generosity mean to you?
Generosity to me is giving something of oneself to others without the expectation of something in return. That can be the giving of anything from time, or money to patience or kindness.
If you could describe yourself in one word what would that be and why?
Genuine. This word is very important to me, and in both my professional and personal life. Several years ago, I made a conscious decision to live an authentic life, to speak truths to both myself and others.
Is there anything else you’d like to share?
When I’m not spending time supporting nonprofits through my job, I love spending time with my kids and husband outdoors.
Social Champ
Social Champ is a social media management tool supporting eight major networks and multiple advanced automation features.
Social Champ joins hands with Pledge1% each year to give back to the community that gives us SO much love. We donate 1% of our time and product to a variety of charities around the world.
Not only that, but Social Champ also actively takes part in the betterment of the community by helping NGOs and offering them 50% off on all plans. Currently, countless charities, educational institutes, and NGOs are a part of our customer pool.
Apart from that, in the hard times that we have endured in the past two years, Social Champ made sure to offer our product free of cost to small and medium-sized businesses for a limited time. Till they are able to make it back on their feet.
Co-founder Sameer Ahmed Khan is a humanitarian who believes in being honest with the patrons & keeping the policies as transparent as possible. He also makes sure to take out the time to train young entrepreneurs by helping them with his part startup experiences. Even during the time of the pandemic, he gave multiple online sessions to students and young start-up owners. Apart from that, he regularly gives one-on-one sessions and social media training.
According to Sameer;
“I believe that giving back to the community to co-create an ecosystem that is beneficial for all”
Furthermore, the co-founders at Social Champ ensure that all employees are dealt with full consideration for their personal and professional lives.
Social Champ and its team pledge to always help those around them and would encourage other companies to take the leap!
Watch this video of our Chief Executive, Amy Lesnick, live on-stage at this year’s Web Summit! Amy is joined by David Cohen, Founder & Chairman of the Board of TechStars, to talk about how companies can use the Pledge 1% framework to turn equity into social impact.
Watch and share with your teams!
Sauter
São Paulo, SP, Brazil
Number of employees: #70
Sauter is a digital transformation partner specializing in Data, DevOps and Cloud services. Our mission is to enable companies for agile, assertive and cost-efficient digital processes. They have committed to pledging their Profit, Product, and Time towards helping the community.
Sauter contributes to society in many pillars . Here are 2 of our current fronts:
1) Sorriso do Futuro
Sorriso do Futuro is an NGO that helps needy children in a community on the outskirts of São Paulo. Sauter supports monthly with cash donations and promotes specific actions throughout the year. In December 2021, for example, we promoted a campaign in which employees were invited to make a cash donation and Sauter doubled the donation amount. We also offer children a lunch with Christmas items.
2) Sauter University
Sauter’s educational pillar that contributes to society by promoting education in the area of technology, free and online, giving preference to the participation of black, women and/or low-income people. The idea of the program is to train people for the job market. In the last edition of the program, in addition to training, we hired some women to work on the Sauter staff.
Their #1 tip or advice for companies?
Provide opportunities: for the community to evolve, for children to have a better future, for people to gain access to quality training to have the opportunity for personal and professional development. These are small actions, but always consistent.
Wet Cement
Matawan, NJ USA
Number of employees: 4
Wet Cement helps unlock fearlessness to drive personal, professional and business growth. They transform behaviors and mindsets through training, coaching, consulting and keynote speaking services focused on leadership, inclusivity and business development. They have committed to pledging their profit and time towards the community.
I provide counsel (at no cost) to the Founder of the non-profit Working for Women, Beth Bengtson, and serve on their Business Development Committee, to help drive awareness of this incredible non-profit that supports the socioeconomic empowerment of women. Just this week I had a coaching session with her to set her up to make a positive impact at an upcoming speaking engagement at a Room to Read fundraiser. I also pledge a minimum of 1% of our profits to their organization–but it generally ends up exceeding that amount.
We provide FREE workshops for women, young leaders and Entrepreneurs achieve their potential. Topics include how they can build more gender equitable cultures, network to drive win-win relationships and success and understand their impostor syndrome and limiting beliefs and learn how to overcome them. The most recent one was this August to celebrate Women’s Equality Day. I’ve also done programs for the IAB, Disability:IN community, Princeton Mercer Chamber of Commerce, Diversity Alliance for Science and Rutgers Entrepreneurial Pioneers Initiative, among others.
We regularly provide pro bono coaching to help women advance at work, and other aspiring or early-stage Entrepreneurs on how to build their businesses (when we believe in their vision and mission). Within the past month alone, I’ve coached Erin Lowrey, an entrepreneur providing services to enhance Emotional Intelligence amongst small-to-mid-sized businesses.
I also regularly provide guidance and advice to other entrepreneurs on how they could and should pursue receiving their diverse certifications, whether they are owned by someone with a disability, woman, LGBTQ+ community member, Racial/Ethnic minority or veteran.
Our biggest challenge is growing our business and marketing our programs, because the more we make the more we give! The pandemic negatively impacted our business in a major way, and we are re-building now. We would really appreciate help with marketing and promoting Wet Cement.
Their #1 tip or advice for companies?
Aligning our impact program with our mission is what has been most critical and makes it easy to provide the greatest value for the work that we do.
Originally published on Parquet Development.
Parquet Development 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. Parquet Development is joining over 12,000 companies around the world who have committed to Pledge 1% of either their product, profit, equity, and/or staff time to whatever charity of their choosing.
Parquet Development is proud to announce its commitment to donate 1% of its time (pro-bono Salesforce services to eligible non-profits) and/or a percentage of its revenue. If you’re a non-profit organization in need of Salesforce services, please contact us to learn more about this offering.
Parquet Development is exceedingly proud to join the Pledge 1% community and encourages other companies to take the pledge and leverage their business as a force for good.
To learn more about our program and commitments, view our Social Impact page.
Read the full announcement here.
Each year, we work with Salesforce Ventures, Bessemer Venture Partners, and Forbes to honor one company from the Cloud 100 list with the Pledge 1% Impact Award. We are delighted to share that this year’s winner is Snyk.
Snyk joins the ranks of past winners DocuSign, Twilio, Slack, Procore, Canva, and Guild Education, and is featured this year alongside 26 other Pledge 1% members on the Cloud 100 List. We are so proud to have so many Pledge 1% members featured on this year’s list! You can read more about each of their impact programs below and connect with them directly in the Community to learn more about how they are leveraging Pledge 1% to be a force for good:
- 6sense – By setting aside equity for impact, 6sense is helping charities like Girl Rising that concentrate on developing quantifiable solutions that assist and develop local and global communities.
- ActiveCampaign -Through their Digital Study Halls, ActiveCampaign is helping clients continue to learn from their Education team.
- Algolia – As a company that prioritizes care as a core value, Algolia has various impact programs ranging from charitable donation matching to supporting open-source projects to providing mentorship for local organizations to give back to organizations such as Techfugees and Konexio.
- Alloy – The leadership team at Alloy believes it is crucial that we take a more overt stand in support of reproductive rights. In addition, to support for their team, they provide financial donations to organizations that support reproductive rights, such as Planned Parenthood, The Center for Reproductive Rights, and the National Abortion Federation.
- Arctic Wolf – Arctic Wolf’s “Pack Gives Back” initiative is dedicated to helping employees become involved in the impact program by supporting local charities.
- Automation Anywhere – Through its partnership with the Center for Humanitarian Technology, Automation Anywhere is automating humanitarian efforts for thousands of families across Ukraine. Their “Telegram for Humanity” bot will help refugees receive aid more quickly and save hundreds of hours per week of manual processing.
- Automattic – Through Five for the Future, Automattic commits 5% of its workforce to core projects, including development, documentation, security, support forums, theme reviews, training, testing, translation, and any other tasks that further WordPress’ purpose.
- Canva – Canva is dedicated to ‘Be a Force For Good’ with both the Canva Company and Canva Foundation, leveraging their equity pledge to ensure social impact funds for the future, and by donating products and services to 250,000 nonprofits.
- Celonis – The Celonis Academic Alliance was created in collaboration with the top colleges and schools in the world to support and inspire the upcoming generation of process miners. Celonis also utilizes technology for good and works to make a difference by developing inventive solutions that benefit both its ecosystem and clients.
- Checkr – Through Checkr.org, Checkr is creating possibilities for all through the design of technology.
- Collibra – Collibra has implemented a hybrid ESG plan this year to increase its focus on sustainability initiatives. They are actively working to increase their attention on climate change to make sustainably aware and equitable choices.
- Dataminr – Dedicated to supporting humanitarian response, first responders are informed of breaking events through Dataminr’s First Alert product for the public sector, enabling the quickest real-time response.
- Flutterwave – Flutterwave, supported charities working in Nigeria during the pandemic.
- Front – Through the Front Foundation, Front donates 1% of its time, equity, and output from its team to the community. They partner with organizations such as CHAYN, Empower Work, and Code For America to improve their communication and increase their impact globally.
- Guild Education – Through fair access to education, skill development, and professional routes, Guild Education is on a mission to open up economic and employment opportunities for everyone.
- Harness – Harness is committed to #BreakTheBias in tech (and beyond) by working towards a gender-equal world.
- Kong Inc. – In order to increase employee engagement, Kong Inc. places a strong emphasis on employee wellness and welfare. Additionally, they utilize the Donut Slack plug-in to encourage and promote teamwork.
- LaunchDarkly – LaunchDarkly launched the LaunchDarkly Foundation to donate time and money to education, housing, and climate groups that are bringing about meaningful change.
- Mambu – Passionate about the impacts of climate change, Mambu is leveraging its Pledge 1% program s to minimize the environmental impact of business operations.
- OwnBackup – OwnBackup supports well-known relief organizations in the healthcare, social and legal services, education, and environmental advocacy sectors by donating backup and recovery services and offering product discounts to a variety of non-profits.
- Personio – Through the Personio Foundation, outstanding and forward-thinking teams in the fields of education and climate change mitigation are given support through Personio Foundation’s Impact Portfolio and Impact Accelerator.
- Rubrik – Rubrik has implemented its official Corporate Social Responsibility Program, Rubrik Beyond Work (RBW), through which the company commits 1% of its staff time each year to volunteering, with the objective to spread corporate principles to underserved communities and bring about positive, long-lasting change.
- ServiceTitan – ServiceTitan helps fund cancer research and organizations that help children fight cancer and other deadly diseases, like St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.
- Shippo – Through their Pledge 1% program, Shippo gives 1% of its profits, employee time, and sales to the community.
- Snyk – Through Snyk Impact, the company is empowering social impact groups with its technology, operating as a CarbonNeutral certified company, supporting programs that have a positive effect on communities, and by promoting inclusion, equity, and diversity both internally and toward the larger developer community. Snyk is this year’s Pledge 1% Impact Award Winner!
- TalkDesk – The TalkDesk team volunteers it’s time to the community and actively works to minimize its carbon footprint via its remote-first workplace system.
- Workato – Workato created an integrated non-profit suite, so organizations may now use best-of-breed apps and have them function seamlessly, increasing efficiency, scalability, and growth.
Once again, congratulations to our members who made the list this year, and a particular thank you to our Boardroom Allies and the coalition of firms for helping businesses set aside equity for impact. This enables us to establish a new standard for corporate giving and make sure businesses can have a lasting impact on the communities they serve, as demonstrated by the Cloud 100 event.
35-year-old Canva founder Melanie Perkins got rejected by 100 VCs. Now her $26 billion design startup is ready to take on Microsoft and Google
Originally published on Fortune.
Originally published on Cision PR Newswire.
Study.com, one of the most transformational companies in edtech, received the Primary Education award in Tech & Learning Awards of Excellence: Back to School 2022 for its Keys to the Classroom education initiative.
Study.com helps aspiring educators prepare for and pass their teacher certification exams with this initiative. Through scholarships to utilize Study.com’s teacher test preparation programs, Keys to the Classroom aims to ensure prospective educators of all backgrounds and ethnicities can access the profession and positively impact educational outcomes.
Study.com launched Keys to the Classroom in 12 states in less than a year, partnering with two state Departments of Education and the Vermont state chapter of the country’s largest teachers’ union – the National Education Association. Additionally, Study.com has partnered with Clark County School District (the 5th largest school district in the country) and the Center for Educator Recruitment, Retention & Advancement in South Carolina.
“We launched Keys to the Classroom to diversify the teacher pipeline and help reduce the teacher shortage by removing the barriers to becoming a teacher,” said Dana Bryson, SVP of Social Impact at Study.com. “The Keys to the Classroom program, along with our partnerships with school districts and teacher preparation colleges across the country, has allowed Study.com to make a difference in access and equity of education for underserved learners, non-traditional students and educators alike.”
Tech & Learning’s Awards of Excellence: Back to School celebrates exceptional technology that supports educators, students, and parents as they head back to school. Study.com was selected alongside 55 other edtech companies.
“As we head into another uncertain year in education, technology will continue to be one of the key drivers for innovation,” says Tech & Learning Group Publisher Christine Weiser. “Our judges chose the winning products recognized here for their versatility, compatibility, value and ability to help schools solve challenges and support continuous instruction. Congratulations to all of our winners.”
In addition to Tech & Learning’s award, Study.com was named to the GSV EdTech 150, a list of the world’s most transformative growth companies in digital learning. Study.com’s CEO Adrián Ridner was recently named a 2022 Innovator of Color award recipient at this year’s ASU+GSV Summit, as well as being named one of the Latino Leaders Worth Watching by Diversity Journal.
Study.com is a leading online education platform providing academic support for learners and educators. Recognized on the GSV EdTech 150 as a leading EdTech company, Study.com simplifies learning for over 30 million learners and educators a month. Study has donated $25 million in-kind value across social impact programs committed to Making Education Accessible through our Pledge 1% partnerships and programs focused on increasing access and equity in education for underserved learners.
Read the article here.