This story was submitted as part of the #Pledge1Gives GivingTuesday campaign, which celebrates the many ways our member companies are having an impact around the world.

Defy Colorado is a nonprofit organization that helps individuals with criminal histories — who they call Entrepreneurs in Training — create legal business ventures outside of prison. Within a growing network of three Colorado prisons, Defy runs a rigorous eight-month program focusing on reentry planning, employment readiness, entrepreneurship and character development, culminating in a Shark Tank-style pitch competition. Operating in concert with the Department of Corrections, Defy is demonstrating a model to reduce recidivism that emphasizes rehabilitation over punishment.

Techstars has been a longtime supporter of Defy Colorado (along with its founding organization, Defy Ventures) because we support the mission of creating second chances through entrepreneurship. And we believe that we are uniquely positioned to help, precisely because of who we are. In fact, the first principle in the Techstars Code of Conduct is: “We give first.” That means that, at Techstars, we help others whenever possible by responding quickly to requests for help to intentionally create an ongoing cycle of virtue. We appreciate the help of others, respect “no” as an answer and share talent and business opportunities.

Breaking the Cycle of Recidivism

Defined as “a tendency to relapse into a previous condition or mode of behavior, especially criminal behavior,” recidivism creates a revolving door to prison and a legacy of poverty, dependency, violence and incarceration that is passed down from generation to generation.

Here in Colorado, the prison population is expected to increase by 20% by 2025. And of the approximately 9,000 individuals expected to be released from prison this year, more than half (54%) are estimated to return to prison within the next three years. Difficulty in obtaining employment and housing are two of the largest correlating factors.

Humanizing Connections

When it comes to our work with Defy Colorado, we’re focused on how we can bring Techstars’ unique insights and the power of our network to people with criminal histories, helping to break the cycle of recidivism. By collaborating with Defy to help people with criminal histories create legal business ventures, the Techstars Network is helping break the cycle of recidivism, and there are so many ways to get involved: employment readiness, character development, and entrepreneurship training inside prisons, as well as robust post-release services that include job placement and executive mentorship, startup incubation, and pitch competition judging.

Techstars Foundation advisory board member and Google employee Amanda West and Techstars’ EVP of Operations Scott Ford have each offered their expertise to help Defy’s Entrepreneurs in Training improve their ideas, hone their pitches and ultimately, to equip these incarcerated and formerly incarcerated individuals with the resources and connections they need to succeed in post-release life. Both Amanda and Scott were blown away — and inspired by — their experiences with Defy Colorado.

“These humanizing connections offer a very uplifting way for our network to get involved, both contributing to the rehabilitation of currently and formerly incarcerated individuals and impacting the injustices of our legal system,” West said.

That human connection is crucial.

“When discussing individuals with criminal histories, it’s easy to come in with preconceived notions or stereotypes, but actually sitting down and interacting with currently and formerly incarcerated individuals helps you realize that they’re just like you,” Ford said.

Best of all, it’s not a heavy lift to help out. Both Scott and Amanda noted how rewarding it was to make such a significant impact on someone with minimal effort. Sure, volunteering takes time, but everyone has the ability to help in some capacity.

Utilizing our network’s privilege in order to drive personal and economic growth for people with criminal histories allows us to drive a meaningful impact and provide a ray of hope. By harnessing the talents of the state’s currently and formerly incarcerated individuals as well as community and business leaders like Amanda and Scott, Defy Colorado helps individuals with criminal histories to defy the odds.

This story was submitted as part of the #Pledge1Gives GivingTuesday campaign, which celebrates the many ways our member companies are having an impact around the world. 

At Nextep, we want to empower our employees to give back to the community through the Nextep Charitable Foundation. This is why we joined the Pledge 1% movement and are committed to giving our time, dollars, and expertise to organizations in need.

This year, we got even more serious about our volunteer efforts. In addition to giving employees eight hours of paid volunteer time each year, we created Nextep Gives Back Days. Twice a year, all ten of our offices set aside their to-do lists and volunteer with the rest of their team. It’s a great way to rally our people behind Nextep’s culture of giving, while also sending out hundreds of volunteers to lend a hand to organizations in our communities.

 “We created the Nextep Charitable Foundation to encourage our employees to give back to the community,” said Brian Fayak, Nextep’s founder and CEO. “The addition of Nextep Gives Back Days is our opportunity to bring together the entire organization for one day to serve our neighbors and make a big impact on a handful of deserving organizations.”

 From local food banks to community shelters, we’ve packaged meals, built furniture, and organized homes. Our main focus for Nextep Gives Back is to serve children and families and to break down the barriers holding them back. We’ve found incredible partners to serve who share the same mission.

However, Nextep Gives Back Days are not solely focused on our volunteer time. We also make a monetary donation to each organization we serve. In 2019, we donated $17,000, served 873 volunteer hours, and impacted 15 organizations. But those are only the donations from our two Nextep Gives Back Days. Giving back is a year-round initiative for Nextep. Since joining Pledge 1%, we’ve donated $200,000 to organizations in need, served 2,800 volunteer hours, and serviced 10 nonprofits with free services.

Our employees have had an overwhelmingly positive response to Nextep Gives Back Days. Not only do we have nearly 100% employee participation, but our people also talk about their experiences giving back throughout the year.

 “Nextep has allowed me the opportunity to be a part of something bigger than just collecting a paycheck,” said Carrie Henry, benefits account manager. “Giving back to the community is a rewarding feeling and something I have always felt I was missing out on due to time constraints.”

 Our partnership with Pledge 1% and the addition of Nextep Gives Back Days have made a difference in our culture and in the lives of our people, which is why we are ramping up our efforts in 2020. We have big volunteer goals to meet, days of giving to plan, and many more organizations to help. To learn more about our philanthropic efforts, visit nextep.com/foundation.

This story was submitted as part of the #Pledge1Gives GivingTuesday campaign, which celebrates the many ways our member companies are having an impact around the world.

What happens when 500+ professionals spend one hour collaborating to creatively support one nonprofit’s success? In May of 2019, New Relic did just that.

New Relic is the industry’s largest and most comprehensive cloud-based observability platform built to help customers create more perfect software. The world’s best software and DevOps teams rely on New Relic to move faster, make better decisions and create best-in-class digital experiences. As a new member of Pledge 1%, New Relic has committed to leveraging our platform and talented employees to create partnerships and programs to enable nonprofits in their digital journeys. This means not only continuing to provide free licenses of our platform, and discounts to the nonprofit sector, but digging in and understanding nonprofit challenges so that we can better enable and support them.

This spring, our product organization gathered for our yearly offsite, a technical conference and opportunity to engage with one another out of the office. We were thrilled to leverage this gathering to support our NewRelic.org social responsibility program – enabling employees to give back time and talents to a nonprofit partner who was using our product through our free and discounted licenses program.

At the event, we were joined by Jared Chung, Executive Director of CareerVillage.org, a community where students get free personalized career advice from real-life professionals, and also.a recipient of New Relic.org’s product donation program. We invited Jared and CareerVillage.org to engage in an (never before attempted at this scale) exercise to leverage our technical talents, professional advice and passion to help this charity. 500+ employees participated in a session in which nearly 400 gave career advice on their digital platform while the other 100 participated in pro bono round activities. These activities included assessment of current usage of New Relic’s Application Performance Monitoring capability, design thinking activities around the organization’s toughest challenges, live content moderation and UX bug review and ticketing. When we all worked together to bring advice and technical assistance to this nonprofit customer, we not only had a huge impact on their organization, but we created their “biggest day ever,” which is exactly what our product was designed to support.

For CareerVillage.org, knowing that 500+ people would be using their platform at once amounted to their biggest digital moment; it was no less important to their mission and success than when retail customers need to keep their websites running during Cyber Monday. It required them to bring on additional servers, and spend days testing to ensure that their site would be able to take the volume of users we were about to throw at them. This is part of what we at New Relic are inspired and excited to support for the nonprofit sector.

 “New Relic was a major driver of the biggest day in CareerVillage.org history. Thursday May 9th, 2019 saw the most career advice provided to students since the site launched: over 1200 pieces of advice in 24 hours,” Jared Chung shared.

Keeping a charity’s website up and running on Giving Tuesday, (when $400M of donations were made online in the US alone last year), or ensuring that 500 professionals can use the CareerVillage.org platform at once – these are the biggest moments for nonprofits, and these are the moments that New Relic is uniquely positioned to support.

 For more information about the NewRelic.org program – and how we’ve operationalized our 1% pledge of time and product – head to www.newrelic.org

This story was submitted as part of the #Pledge1Gives GivingTuesday campaign, which celebrates the many ways our member companies are having an impact around the world.

Increasing Access to Innovation

Silicon Valley Bank is the bank of the innovation economy, helping innovators, entrepreneurs and investors move bold ideas forward, fast. SVB has long believed in the power of giving back, and became a Pledge 1% member in 2017. Through programs in its offices around the world, SVB seeks to support its communities with time and resources. Aligned with the company’s role as a champion of innovation, it recently launched Access to Innovation, a new initiative to expand opportunities for underrepresented individuals at all career levels in the innovation economy.

“We believe everyone should have equal access to great careers and business success,” Greg Becker, CEO of SVB, said. “The innovation economy, the ecosystem we help fuel, is full of opportunities. Through a range of programs, partnerships, volunteering and financing, we have a companywide goal to increase access to innovation for everyone.”

Why is SVB doing this?

Tech companies report that it is challenging to find people with the skills needed to grow their businesses, and it is hampering how fast they can innovate. SVB believes there is talent to be found in nontraditional places. SVB also believes that a diverse workforce makes companies stronger.

The numbers help underscore the size of the challenge:

• 83 percent of tech executives are white


• 47 percent of U.S. startups have no women in executive roles


• <1 percent of venture funding goes to African-American founders


• 12 percent of venture dollars are invested in startups with a female founder

Core focus areas

SVB’s Access to Innovation program has distinct goals and partnerships in three areas to increase diverse representation at all levels:

Educational Opportunities: Training emerging talent and creating workforce opportunities for individuals without four-year degrees. 

Connections and Funding: Developing networks, partnerships and events to bring founders and investors together to increase funding for female and minority entrepreneurs.

Representation in Leadership: Increasing representation of female and minority founders, investors, and board members.

Recent examples of progress

• With the goal of increasing the talent pool available to its clients, this year SVB identified one of the most needed entry-level positions among its clients: business and data analytics. Working with EdTech startup, Pathstream, it introduced a business and data analytics certificate program to be offered through community colleges. The program teaches high-demand skills such as SQL, Tableau, and Python. The four-course certificate program is up and running now at Cañada College and Foothill College in Silicon Valley and is scheduled to expand to additional U.S. cities in 2020.

Students in the SVB Business and Data Analytics Certification course met for a development roundtable in San Francisco

• Teaming up with Year Up, SVB encourages urban young adults to reach their potential through a corporate internship and support for transitioning to a job in technology. SVB hosts interns throughout the year and asks its clients to mentor and host Year Up interns as well. Today, 26 former SVB interns are now working full-time at the bank or leading tech companies in a variety of roles, such as information technology, cybersecurity, global operations and project management.

AfroTech Cup Semifinalist team. From left, Erik Young (Audios), Crystal Evuleocha (Kliit Health), Ty Lisha Summers (Spendebt) and DeMarcus Williams (Director, Startup Banking, Silicon Valley Bank). Photo credit: Semharyohannes

• SVB was thrilled to partner this year with AfroTech to create an onsite career village for prospective clients and employees to engage with SVB and its clients. The bank also supported the AfroTech Cup, which offered prizes to founders of early-stage startups. Shown above are this year’s incredible crop of semifinalists – Audios, Kliit Health and Spendebt.

Learn more about  Access to Innovation to join with us to build a more inclusive and diverse tech workforce ready to invent the future.

This story was submitted as part of the #Pledge1Gives GivingTuesday campaign, which celebrates the many ways our member companies are having an impact around the world.

By the PagerDuty team.

PagerDuty is in the business of enabling people to take action. As a company, we have been able to assist thousands of customers in a multitude of fields to support their end users. This approach of empowerment has translated to PagerDuty.org, with the aim of mobilizing our people and product to accelerate the impact of mission-driven customers and nonprofit partners across our global communities.

When we took the Pledge 1% in September 2017, we committed one percent each of product, employee working time, and company equity to accelerate the work of nonprofit partners like the Trevor Project, where real-time response is critical.

As a result of this equity commitment, we recently launched our philanthropic foundation, the PagerDuty.org Fund, with a focus on Time-Sensitive Global Health and a vision to help organizations bring essential medical care to people who need it, in the hardest-to-reach places, in the moments they need it most. We are proud to invest in the work of Medic Mobile and VillageReach, two organizations improving response times for medical care.

In honor of our customers today on #GivingTuesday, we have made a $25,000 donation to these two organizations to pay the monthly salaries for 200 community health workers and ensure 700 individuals receive life-saving vaccines. To date, people in over 150 countries have donated more than $400 million on #GivingTuesday. Additionally, as part of our #GivingTuesday pledge, we are launching an internal giving campaign. Each of our employees, interns, and contractors have been granted $25 to contribute toward these two organizations—or any other cause they care about.

Medic Mobile

Medic Mobile is on a mission to improve health in the hardest-to-reach communities. They build world-class, open-source software that supports health workers delivering equitable care that reaches everyone.

“Reaching everyone on the planet with high-quality care, when and where they need it, will require redesigned health systems with care teams supported by world-class technology. I’m thrilled that PagerDuty is stepping up to contribute to this effort. The speed of care delivery is critical—our progress on speed may determine whether or not we meet overall goals for health equity,” shared Josh Nesbit, Medic Mobile CEO.

Donations to Medic Mobile can provide tangible impact:

• $2,800 educates one Pharmacy Assistant (who will treat 25K-100K people per year)


• $200 equips a community health worker with a smartphone, supports training, and covers data and airtime for a year to enable them to deliver real-time care to ~100 families in remote communities

VillageReach

VillageReach works to increase access to quality healthcare in low-resource communities.

“We must build people-centered health systems [that] reach people where they are, with the products and services they need. We are proud to partner with PagerDuty.org for the advancement of rapid response technologies that can connect health systems to innovations that withstand unpredictable change,” said Emily Bancroft, President of VillageReach.

Donations to VillageReach can provide tangible impact:

• $100 pays one monthly salary to a full-time Community Health Worker (a demonstrated 10:1 social return on investment)


• $33 covers necessary vaccines for one person in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

PagerDuty is proud to play a small part in supporting two such organizations. We hope you’ll join us on #GivingTuesday to support Medic Mobile, VillageReach, or a cause close to you. Whether you give your voice, your time, or your money, your generosity matters.

This story was submitted as part of the #Pledge1Gives GivingTuesday campaign, which celebrates the many ways our member companies are having an impact around the world.

When a natural disaster strikes, both local and global communities feel the reverberations. Individuals and companies are inspired to give back, donating money or goods to help rebuild after catastrophes, but the CDP reports that most donations are sent within two months of a disaster, trickling off entirely after just six months. At Flexport.org, we know that it can take years for communities to rebuild after hurricanes, wildfires, tsunamis, and climate-related events, and the need for resources continues long after the initial recovery phase.

This is why we use part of our Pledge 1% commitments to partner with companies, NGOs and nonprofits to offer discounted shipping and logistics services and pro bono supply chain advice. We activate in the short- and long-term recovery after disasters, not only helping survivors with temporary needs, but also with rebuilding their lives. Most recently, we partnered with Airlink in the aftermath of Hurricane Dorian in The Bahamas to ship over 26,000 kg of relief goods to families and communities in need. In partnership with responding nonprofits, we shipped everything from food, tarps and tents to mosquito nets and water tanks, as thousands of people lacked clean water, food or a roof over their head. We will continue to partner with nonprofits in the rebuilding efforts.

This is what we can do with our partners today, but with support from the Pledge 1% community this Giving Tuesday, we can do even more.

We’re excited to launch the Flexport.org Fund in partnership with CAF America and TechSoup, giving everyone an opportunity to contribute to disaster relief by covering a critical piece of the aid delivery process: transportation. All donations to the Fund are tax-deductible and pay for shipments intended for disaster relief or international economic development. With this Fund, you can help families with long-term recovery after disasters, not just immediate relief. Businesses can contribute to shipping goods right when they’re needed, even if the goods are unrelated to their own product lines. And most importantly, nonprofits and NGOs can receive critical funding, enabling them to send relief when it’s needed most, instead of being time and resource constrained. Join us in global action to reach the world’s most vulnerable populations: donate to the Flexport.org Fund, or get in touch with us today.

This story was submitted as part of the #Pledge1Gives GivingTuesday campaign, which celebrates the many ways our member companies are having an impact around the world.

By Anna Currin, Manager, Philanthropy and Community Engagement, Okta

At Okta, we believe Okta for Good, our social impact initiative, is owned by everyone at the company. Even before Okta for Good was formed, employees dedicated their time to volunteering together at local nonprofits, and forming an ad hoc council dedicated to new ideas around providing resources to the community. So when our founders took the 1% pledge before going public, they solidified Okta’s commitment to the community, and employees rallied behind it. 

 

Years later, our employee programs have grown and evolved alongside Okta. Today, Okta has more than 1,900 employees across 12 offices, and with a lean social impact team of 4, we rely on the leadership and passion of employees to scale our community work. This year Okta for Good launched its first “Okta for Good Leadership Council”, unlocking more potential from our employees to drive social impact across offices (and amongst more than 400 remote workers!). These employees came from a variety of backgrounds –some new to philanthropy but interested and passionate about giving back, and some seasoned and experienced, looking to lead employees in new local programs. 

 

The goals of the council are simple: empower employees in all regions to give back in ways that are not only personal, but tap into the issues that are most important to those geographies. For example, the nonprofit ecosystem in Paris varies drastically from San Francisco, and our local leaders build relationships with key partners to provide opportunities for employees to contribute in meaningful ways. 

 

The first council-led campaign occured in July with Okta’s annual Tech Pathways Week, a week dedicated to opening our office doors to connect with underserved youth and job-seekers in each region in which our employees live and work. Each office leader partnered with a workforce development-focused nonprofit, and created an opportunity specific to their needs – from office tours, to micro-mentoring sessions to executive AMAs, providing opportunities for youth and job-seekers to ask questions directly to successful leaders. 

 

In September, our Okta for Good Leadership Council came together for the first time in Washington DC for our summit, which we plan to do early from now on. This consisted of two days devoted to building community among the group, learning new skills, and brainstorming how to take our programs to the next level. We invited industry leaders Realized Worth and Give2Get to host interactive sessions around corporate citizenship and how to lead programs that transform employees into changemakers. Council leads went back to their regions with inspiration and direction to engage people at their highest level of contribution. 

 

I often describe Okta for Good as a small but mighty team but when I share stories of our work in communities, our employees are always front and center. This Giving Tuesday, we celebrate our employee leaders and all the work they do to inspire giving among Okta employees and in our wider community. We’re proud of their efforts and how far we’ve come in a year!

 

For any companies interested in building a network of employee champions, here are a few suggestions on getting started:

 

• 
  

  Create a clear application process – We ask a lot from our leaders throughout the year, so it’s important they understand the commitment and have skin in the game.

  
  

• 
  

  Diversity is key! Better representation leads to more innovation and better programs. The Okta for Good Council is balanced across regions, departments, tenure, seniority and background, leading to a wide range of perspectives.

  
  


• 
  

  Provide global structure but regional focus – Our team sets global targets while acknowledging every region has its local flavor! The key is to provide guidance while allowing for regional customization.

  
  

This story was submitted as part of the #Pledge1Gives GivingTuesday campaign, which celebrates the many ways our member companies are having an impact around the world.

Fluxx sits squarely in the Tech For Good space. Our SaaS platform was created by philanthropists, for the philanthropy community, meaning our team embodies the spirit of our industry in countless ways. As Pledge 1% members, make we make a point to donate our time and product throughout the year, and we consider Giving Tuesday to be especially important!

 Giving Tuesday is Devoted to Volunteering

This Giving Tuesday our entire San Francisco headquarters will return to Alameda County Community Food Bank. For over 30 years the Alameda County Community Food Bank has distributed millions of healthy meals to communities in need. Their CalFresh critical nutrition program and their ongoing advocacy work also ensure that poverty and nutrition are at the forefront of community conversations and looped into public policy. Last year we bagged and sorted 17,600 pounds of food which equals about 14,600 meals for food-insecure families.

This will be our fourth Giving Tuesday with the food bank but it’s not the only volunteer work we participate in. Throughout the year we offer our time through various volunteer activities scheduled during the week. We’ve worked closely with Project Open Hand, an organization focused on improving nutrition for vulnerable individuals in San Francisco and Oakland. We’ve also spent time at GLIDE, a local community shelter, to help serve and clean up after their lunch program, volunteered with ASPCA, and lastly, we’ve banded together for beach cleanups and local trail maintenance.

Fluxx is gift Matching all November

 This year, along with our annual office-wide Giving Tuesday volunteer excursion, our team will also participate in an employee gift matching program. We are matching dollar for dollar contributions (up to $100 per full-time employee) for the entire month of November. The gifts have been pouring in and our team was encouraged to research and select the charities that matter most to them. We’re thrilled to give back to so many incredible organizations!

Pledge 1% Product Offering

Lastly, as part of Pledge 1% and participants in Giving Tuesday, we’re taking our commitment to nonprofits a step further. Fluxx Grantseeker is our grants management platform for grant seeking organizations, helping them manage their grants, team, reporting, impact updates, and more. While we remain committed to always providing our basic Fluxx Grantseeker toolkit for free, (we know how tight budgets can be for nonprofits) we’re also offering a discount on Grantseeker Premium and Prospecting features. Both of these features are highly sought after – they make it easier for nonprofits to find new funders and maintain funder relationships with advanced reporting and more, but we understand that not every team can afford the monthly fee.

Therefore, in honor of Giving Tuesday, we’re also offering a discount on our Fluxx Grantseeker paid features for an entire year! Teams who are interested can learn more about the reduced pricing on our website.

Our team is thrilled to be a part of Pledge 1% and we look forward to the communal goodwill that Giving Tuesday brings each year. While we strive to maintain the energy of Giving Tuesday year-round, because of our three different, but equally important, participation programs, this year will be particularly special.