Pledge Now

We built Salesforce on the idea that business can be a platform for change. When Salesforce was founded in 1999, we committed to giving back 1% of our time, equity, and product to our communities, pioneering the Pledge 1% model alongside Atlassian. Because of this model, our social impact has grown exponentially, alongside our business. That small commitment has resulted in nearly $1 billion in philanthropy, 10 million volunteer hours, and more than 60,000 nonprofits and schools using free and discounted Salesforce technology. We’re even more inspired by the 19,000+ companies that have joined the Pledge 1% movement, igniting $3 billion in equity to fund social impact globally.

Today, on Giving Tuesday, we’re shining a spotlight on a program that is the ultimate fusion of our Pledge 1% pillars — combining our time, equity, and product to scale AI innovation in the nonprofit sector.

The Salesforce Accelerator — Agents for Impact program empowers nonprofits to harness the transformative power of AI to tackle the world’s most pressing challenges. By providing grant funding, our Agentforce technology, and invaluable pro bono expertise from Salesforce employees, the Accelerator helps organizations confidently build and deploy customized AI agent solutions. In just a few short years, the Accelerator has provided $11 million in grant funding and 3,700 pro bono hours, supporting 39 nonprofits that are making a real difference in communities every day.

Meet Pip: Pledge 1%’s New AI-Powered Impact Navigator

Now, we’re incredibly excited that Pledge 1% is the newest participant in the Accelerator program.

Dedicated to activating companies to contribute to a better world, Pledge 1% is amplifying its mission with the Impact Navigator Agent, affectionately known as Pip.

For the 19,000+ Pledge 1% members committed to creating lasting impact, Pip is the responsible business advisor they need, powered by Agentforce — the agentic layer of the Agentforce 360 Platform. Built on insights from thousands of purpose-driven companies, Pip provides a personalized roadmap for embedding social impact into any business.

In its first phase, Pip guides corporations through customized onboarding. It starts with a quick assessment of the company’s size, industry and goals then suggests personalized first-step actions, like announcing their commitment. Pip can then instantly draft press releases to formalize the commitment, helping founders move from intention to action faster than ever. With the help of Pip, Pledge 1% anticipates that members will more actively engage— with 70% attending welcome calls within the first 45 days of joining and 50% designating a social impact lead.

By combining the expertise of the Pledge 1% community with responsible AI from Salesforce, Pip frees the Pledge 1% team to focus on the heart of their mission: empowering every company to leverage their unique assets for good. With Pip’s added capacity, the Pledge 1% team can spend time on high-value work, like providing expertise and guiding companies along their journeys to creating lasting impact.

AI is the most transformative technology of our time, capable of unlocking unprecedented growth and positive impact. Together, Salesforce and Pledge 1% are committed to providing a blueprint for action to help every company scale their social impact in the AI era and confidently move from good intentions to great, measurable, and lasting change.

Are you ready to scale impact with AI? Learn more about the Salesforce Accelerator — Agents for Impact program here.

How Techstars Supported the Growth of the Pledge 1% Movement

Pledge 1% is a global force for entrepreneurial philanthropy, embraced by over 10,000 companies and responsible for billions of dollars in pledged equity. Long before it became a worldwide movement, Techstars played a key role in supporting its early adoption and embedding it into the culture of startups.

On a recent episode of the Give First podcast, Techstars Co-Founder Brad Feld and Sameer Dholakia reflected on how Techstars helped encourage founders to give back from day one, and why the movement aligns naturally with Techstars’ Give First ethos.

Where It Started:

In 2006, Rally Software Co-Founder Ryan Martens approached Brad Feld with a bold vision: build a company that gives back from day one, inspired by Salesforce’s early 1% model. That conversation led to the creation of the Entrepreneurs Foundation of Colorado, one of the earliest examples of formalized startup equity philanthropy.

Techstars Leads by Example:

Techstars was not just an observer. It committed early and helped set the tone.

By encouraging founders early, Techstars helped the Pledge 1% approach gain traction well before it became a global movement.

Proving the Model Works:

As Techstars portfolio companies grew and exited, their pledged equity turned into real philanthropic capital. This success demonstrated the power of startup giving and inspired leaders like Atlassian’s Scott Farquhar and Mike Cannon-Brookes to scale the movement globally.

A Natural Fit for “Give First”:

Pledge 1% aligns with Techstars’ core value: helping without expecting something in return. For many founders, Techstars provided their first exposure to the pledge and gave them a path to embed impact into their culture from day one.

A Lasting Impact:

Today, the movement has generated more than $3B in pledged equity. Many Techstars alumni continue to adopt the pledge as they scale, extending the ripple effect that began in Boulder.

In 2025, we rebranded and relaunched Wellness Privé Portugal with a simple belief: wellness should feel meaningful — not only for the people who travel, but also for the communities they touch.

As a boutique travel company, we curate luxury wellness retreats at handpicked 5-star hotels featuring on-site medical wellness clinics, integrative medicine teams, and specialist consultations — all under medical supervision. Our retreats are designed to help guests improve their overall health and wellbeing through structured, personalized programs. The focus is on small-scale experiences that help people restore balance, rejuvenate deeply, and reconnect with themselves.

From the beginning, I believed that wellbeing should ripple outward. When we relaunched Wellness Privé Portugal, we built this belief into our model — which is why we joined Pledge 1% right after launching, committing to weave purpose into our service offering from day one.

Why We Joined Pledge 1%

As a small and growing company, we wanted a framework that allowed us to make a meaningful contribution no matter our size. Pledge 1% gave us exactly that: a simple and powerful model to ensure our impact grows alongside our business. It has also helped shape how we communicate our brand. “Luxury Wellness, Crafted with Purpose”. 

Every booking made through Wellness Privé Portugal includes a donation to Make-A-Wish Portugal, our official charitable partner. Their mission resonates deeply with us: supporting children facing critical health conditions. Since our retreats focus on improving health and wellbeing, this partnership creates a natural and heartfelt connection. Our guests invest in their own health while contributing to the wellbeing of a child. A wellness retreat becomes more than self-care — it becomes a source of hope for someone else.

Wellness Retreats for Small Executive Groups

As more companies prioritize employee wellbeing, we’ve expanded our offering to design wellness retreats for small executive groups, leadership teams, and founders, hosted at Portugal’s selected longevity and spa hotels. These retreats combine scientifically developed approaches with flexible, high-end hospitality. Each experience can be customized in length and focus to meet individual or group goals, including stress management, anti-aging and rejuvenation, cardiovascular health, and diabetes prevention. Every retreat blends evidence-based therapies with restorative practices, helping teams reset, reconnect, and return inspired. Through our Pledge 1% commitment, organizations choosing these retreats also help grant wishes for children through Make-A-Wish Portugal — giving their offsite purpose beyond the boardroom.

Looking Ahead

In the years ahead, we aim to deepen our partnership with Make-A-Wish Portugal and continue demonstrating that even small businesses can create meaningful change — one guest, one retreat, one wish at a time.

I’ve been looking at edges lately. Not just organisational boundaries, but the spaces where things meet: where exchange happens, where abundance flourishes. Just looking at a garden. Birds communicating across species at the tree line. Opportunistic plants filling every gap. Constant flow, constant exchange. And THAT got me thinking: we’ve been getting boundaries all wrong in business.

This year, I released my latest book (https://www.routledge.com/9781032967967) exploring the “edge effect”; how 3.8 billion years of nature’s strategy refinement shows us that the magic doesn’t happen in the neat, compartmentalised centres. It happens at the messy, irregular edges where one thing meets another.

The same principle applies to impact.

My Pledge Journey: Seven Years of Edge-work

Since joining Pledge 1% in 2018, Get Agile Ltd has committed to giving above 1% of employee expertise and time, plus over 1% in product donations aligned with SDG 4: Quality Education. But I’ve never seen this as just “giving back”: it’s integral to how I operate, embedded in our value chain and decision-making.

2024 Impact by the Numbers:

But numbers only tell part of the story.

Creating Exchange at the Edges

Reflecting on last year’s impact report, is giving focused on creating “edges”: intersections where diverse groups meet and exchange.

Quick-Program-Intro

The Nature Connection

My new book argues that natural abundance flourishes at edges: riverbanks, estuaries, forest boundaries… These aren’t tidy spaces with straight lines. They’re irregular, dynamic, constantly reorganising. They increase the perimeter for exchange, resource collection, and resilience.

Get Agile impact program mirrors this. We don’t have a “neat” CSR department tucked away in a corner. Impact is woven throughout: in client selection, banking choices (we scrutinise appointed banks and pension funds), energy suppliers (switched to renewables in 2020), material decisions (books published digital and print-on-demand only), and daily operations.

We’ve joined years ago Business Declares, acknowledging the Climate and Ecological Emergency. We’re part of the Race to Zero Campaign. Get Agile is one of the organisations in action for the Doughnut Economics Action Lab. We offset 105% of our emissions, including household.

Why This Matters

As I write in my guiding ethos: “Building a sustainable future by enabling customers to have a positive and better impact on well-being, communities and the planet we live in, through all that I do.”

There are no real boundaries. We all breathe the same air. Our home (Earth) is not ours alone.

Companies are composed of individuals, and we can do both: do well and do good. In fact, with sustainability, happiness, and profit as a focus, they nourish each other. You really can have all three.

We’re in a pivotal moment. Past generations didn’t have the data, skills, technology, and influence we have. Future generations won’t have the timing.
The question is: Are you willing to be part of it?

Looking Ahead

As I continue this journey, I’m focused on increasing “edge perimeter”: creating more spaces for exchange, more opportunities for diverse groups to intersect, more irregular boundaries where abundance can flourish.

At Get Agile Ltd, we’re choosing to design with nature, not against it.

Ines Garcia is an organisational coach and the Founder and CEO at Get Agile, dedicated to helping businesses to deliver better value and reduce waste, focusing on impact. Her new book is Nature’s Blueprint For Business: Harnessing the Hidden Power of Edges (Routledge; September 8, 2025 https://www.routledge.com/9781032967967). She offers hands-on programs for Agile, Project, and Product professionals at www.inesgarcia.me. She’s been a Pledge 1% member since 2018 and publishes annual impact reports which can be fount at her website.

On Giving Tuesday, we’re reminded that gratitude can be expressed through action — giving back with time, energy, creativity, and care. From Appfire’s earliest days, our people have shown up for their communities in meaningful ways — volunteering with local nonprofits, supporting education initiatives, contributing to open-source projects, and donating to causes close to their hearts.

That spirit hasn’t changed. But, like any growing organization, we have.

Where we are today: Growing in reach and responsibility

Today, Appfire is more global and focused than ever. We are innovators, technologists, and collaborators working across continents — united by a shared purpose: to improve how teams work.

With that growth comes a new opportunity — and responsibility — to create meaningful, measurable impact. Just as our tools help customers focus on what matters most, we see our skills and expertise as enablers to make a difference in our communities. We’re reimagining our CSR strategy with that same ambition. By applying our talent, creativity, and problem-solving where they can have the greatest impact, we aim to help work — and the world — flow better.

Where we’re going: A focused, dedicated approach to CSR

Our CSR approach is evolving — from many small acts of good to focused, sustained, and strategic initiatives that leverage our technical expertise and global network.

By aligning our resources and purpose around clear goals, we can amplify impact. This Giving Tuesday, we celebrate both reflection and renewal — honoring generosity and causes close to our hearts while stepping into a new era of purpose-driven impact.

Investing in People Through Mentor it Forward

AIUC Global was created to bring clarity to how AI is used in the world. The AI Usage Classification™ gives creators, organisations, and communities a practical way to communicate how AI contributed to their work. The framework brings transparency, which builds trust, and trust strengthens the relationship between people and technology.

This commitment to ethical and responsible practice naturally extends to social responsibility. AIUC Global, being part of the Pledge1% movement, directs a fixed portion of its revenue to Mentor it Forward. This is far from being a symbolic gesture. It reflects a view that progress in technology should always be matched with progress in opportunity and human development.

Mentor it Forward  (MiF) is a community built around access to the workforce. Many professionals begin their journey with motivation, skill, and potential, yet struggle to gain a foothold in the industry. The mentoring ecosystem provides guidance, structure, and the network that individuals need in order to step into their first real opportunities. AIUC Global invests in this work because it recognises that trust in innovation begins with trust in the people who create it.

The people behind Mentor it Forward

The link between AIUC and MiF sits in shared values. Both organisations operate with a focus on empowerment, clarity, and fairness. AIUC supports transparency in the use of AI so that creators can stand behind their work with confidence. MiF helps people build the confidence and capability they need for their early career journey. Both aim to reduce barriers, simplify complexity, and lift communities into stronger positions.

Joining Pledge1% helps formalise this intent. It sets a consistent expectation that AIUC Global will continue to direct part of its success toward programs that support development, inclusion, and talent growth. As AI becomes more widespread, it becomes even more important to invest in individuals who are preparing to build the next wave of innovation. Supporting MiF helps create that foundation.

For AIUC Global, responsible practice includes more than classification badges and policies. It includes the decision to strengthen the community that surrounds the technology. By contributing to Mentor it Forward, AIUC affirms that the future of AI should be shaped with care, opportunity, and shared progress.

At Team4Tech, we’re not just connecting dots—we’re igniting sparks. As a nonprofit impact accelerator, we bring together purpose-driven companies and powerhouse nonprofits to advance digital equity through skills-based volunteering. With flexible program models that meet companies where they are, we help unleash employee talent for good. Just ask our trailblazing partners—and proud Pledge 1% champions—Cadence and Salesforce. Over the past 8 years, Cadence has worked with us on 35+ projects, mobilizing 275+ rockstar employees for more than 15,700 hours of tech-forward service. Their stories? A symphony of impact, from quick hits to deep dives, all driving nonprofit innovation.

Recent skills-based volunteering features from our partnership with Cadence:

Meanwhile, Salesforce has been making a difference too—20 capacity-building projects in just three years, with 7,000+ volunteer hours valued at nearly $1.4 million. Want to learn more about the employee experience? Read reflections from Salesforce changemakers like Michael Kennedy, Jackson Gambrill, and Cynthia Mastrodomenico as they share how purpose and passion intersect in the field. 

Recent skills-based volunteering features from our partnership with Salesforce:

Skills-based volunteering isn’t just generous—it’s transformative. When professionals apply their expertise to nonprofit challenges, they unlock capacity, spark innovation, and build lasting impact. It’s a win-win: nonprofits gain critical support in technology, strategy, and operations, while employees grow into leaders, collaborators, and changemakers. Whether through immersive projects or bite-sized engagements, skills-based volunteering turns purpose into practice—and helps companies live their values while driving real-world change.

Zr3i — origin and mission


Zr3i started in early 2022 with a clear conviction: smallholder farmers in Egypt and the Arab world deserve the same precision, prediction, and market access that large agribusinesses use. We build Arabic-first, mobile‑friendly tools that translate satellite imagery, AI, and local agronomy into actionable guidance farmers can use the same day. Our mission is to boost yields, reduce input waste, strengthen market linkages, and build climate resilience for small farms.

What Zr3i does

A global first: carbon sequestration for date palm trees

Zr3i is now integrating carbon‑sequestration measurement for date palm trees into our platform — the first time this metric has been included at scale globally. By combining high‑resolution remote sensing, field calibrations, and crop‑specific carbon models, we can estimate carbon stocks and sequestration rates for date palms and translate those measurements into credible, farmer‑level climate benefits. This capability unlocks new pathways for climate finance, carbon incentive programs, and sustainability claims that directly benefit palm-growing smallholders and their communities.

Impact to date and scalable uses

Pilots have validated our remote‑sensing workflows, mobile delivery, and farmer adoption, producing measurable improvements in decision timing and input efficiency.

The date‑palm carbon module enables farmer access to emerging carbon markets, pay‑for‑performance programs, and donor investments that reward climate‑positive land management.

We prioritize gender‑sensitive outreach and subsidized access for the most vulnerable cooperatives to ensure benefits are broadly shared.

Why we pledge with Pledge 1%

Committing product, equity, and time through Pledge 1% institutionalizes our social mission: it makes it easier to guarantee subsidized access, fund local extension, and open anonymized datasets for research and policy. Pledge 1% helps convert technical capability into verified, long‑term benefits for smallholders and for landscape‑level climate outcomes.

How contributions will be used

Invitation

We invite the Pledge 1% community to join us in a pilot to validate farmer‑level carbon payments for date palms while scaling agronomic benefits across 1,000 smallholder plots over 12 months. Together we can prove a model where precision agritech, verified carbon finance, and equitable access combine to raise incomes, strengthen resilience, and reward climate stewardship.

Willamette Technical Fabricators is a structural metal manufacturing company whose mission is to build sustainable infrastructure and sustainable careers. We focus on building transportation and clean energy infrastructure, as well as other custom, complex fabrication projects. We were founded in 2020 and certified as a Benefit Company in 2022 by Benefit Corporations for Good. Each year we publish an annual benefit report detailing how we are demonstrating our commitment to a quadruple bottom line of people, planet, profit, and purpose.

People: As a minority- and woman-owned small business, we strive to create a truly inclusive workplace. We work closely with community-based organizations to offer high-skill, high-wage, high-demand career opportunities to the communities that need them the most, including women, people of color, and people affected by the criminal justice system. We have retained our employees with extremely low attrition thanks to: transparent and highly competitive wages that reflect our budget for a given position instead of applicants’ compensation history; promotions based exclusively on merit; paid on-the-job training and tuition assistance; unlimited paid time off for salary workers, generous PTO for hourly workers, and flexibility for everyone to have a healthy work/life balance; the same comprehensive healthcare benefits for all employees and their families, and a company match of up to 4% total compensation for 401(k) contributions.

Planet: We have strategically located our facilities on the Willamette and Columbia Rivers to minimize the carbon impact of shipping heavy materials. We are conducting US Department of Energy-funded robotic welding research to improve the cost-competitiveness of American manufacturing for floating offshore wind and pumped storage hydropower, so that clean-energy infrastructure that makes us more resilient and energy-independent can be built locally instead of being shipped across the Pacific while keeping those jobs local. We recycle all of our scrap metal and purchase almost exclusively materials made with recycled content and manufactured in the USA. We adapted our production work schedules and support flexibility for those able to do their jobs from home to minimize carbon emissions from commuting. We use high-efficiency power sources for our equipment to minimize energy consumption, and electric vehicles in our fleet.

Profit: As a for-profit company, Willamette Technical Fabricators provides profit-sharing bonuses to salary employees and real cost of living adjustments for our hourly staff, plus PTO bonuses when we beat our production schedules. We have committed to donating at least 1% of company net profits to charitable organizations that serve our communities and advance the causes that our staff are passionate about. All staff members have the opportunity to vote on the non-profit organizations that we support, and corporate giving is decided collectively. This year we gave $25,000 to local organizations including the Boys & Girls Club, Children’s Institute, Clark County Food Bank, Columbia Land Trust, Evergreen Habitat for Humanity, Free Clinic of Southwest Washington, Friends of the Children, Humane Society , National Association of Minority Contractors, Oregon Business Academy, and YWCA Clark County.

Purpose: Our company leadership is active on many advisory boards and in appointed public roles, advocating on behalf of a more equitable economy, environmental stewardship, and support for businesses like ours working to those ends. In 2023 our CEO testified in support of the successful passage of Oregon House Bill 3572 that provides registered benefit companies with a sustainable advantage, and encourages more businesses to commit to people, planet, and profit as we have done. Our employees are actively engaged in community outreach and we frequently host visitors including elected officials, families, and students, to showcase how manufacturing jobs can serve as a positive force for change for the environment, improve connectivity, access, and resiliency, and drive economic development, creating life-changing wealth generation opportunities for members of under-served communities.

Ready to get involved?
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