Dear Founder,
If you’re reading this letter, you must be wondering whether philanthropy has a place in a startup.
I have a very strong opinion about this: YES.
We’ve all been very blessed in our lives with talent and access to opportunity. Even when you’re starting out, scrappy and small, caring about others less fortunate than you says a lot about the kind of company you are trying to build.
I’ve witnessed the wonders of doing so. As a part of eBay going public, Jeff Skoll and Pierre Omidyar created the eBay Foundation, which helped establish a strong culture of giving back. This inspired me personally, and it led me to create our own family foundation after I was fortunate enough to have provided for my family.
Salesforce was also inspired by eBay’s Foundation and looked to the eBay model when it started its own initiative. Marc Benioff built on this idea and extended it. From day one, he implemented a 1/1/1 model, where he donated to a foundation 1% of the company’s equity, let 1% of employee time be volunteered on a charity of their choice and let nonprofits have Salesforce’s software for a significant discount. Today that’s resulted in more than $115 million in grants, 1.3 million hours in community service, and product donations to more than 28,000 nonprofits and higher-education institutions.
When I was recruited to be the CEO of LiveOps, I insisted that implementing the 1/1/1 model was one of the criteria for me taking the job. We had an internal team of volunteers manage its creation and ongoing effort. Our employees felt proud of this work and most candidates coming through the recruiting process remarked how it differentiated our company.
Now I know what you might be thinking:
- I don’t have enough equity to give away 1%—and I don’t know if it will even be worth anything.
- I’m trying to manage cash burn tightly, so I don’t have cash to give.
- I expect big things out of my team and they are working like crazy, how can I ask them to spend more time on this?
The good news? This is all way easier than it sounds or looks. Case in point: Salesforce Ventures, the company’s investment arm, encourages its portfolio companies to make giving back part of their business model from the start, and 48 of their portfolio companies including Appirio, Box, Docusign, Demandbase, and InsideSales have adopted the 1/1/1 model.
So what should you do to get going?
- Start gently. Participate in a charity drive around the holiday on food or toys, etc. Celebrate how much you raise or give.
- Let your people “own” it and develop it. Give employees the freedom to spend up to 2-5 days a year on the nonprofit of their choice. This makes it meaningful to them and they’ll support it.
- Use philanthropy to unite the company. Consider doing team-building exercises around helping a favorite charity.
None of the practices above will end up costing that much, but you and your team will find that giving back to others refreshes you and is well worth the effort.
Of course, if you want to dive in deeper, you can. But I would wade in slowly here, as people can feel so strongly about this that dialing anything back can lower morale. If you’re ready to go all in and create a comprehensive plan from the start, Salesforce’s Pledge 1% Program and website will be a great resource.
I strongly believe that from the very beginning, a company can have a soul. Caring about others less fortunate than us is soul food. I look forward to learning about how your company incorporates philanthropy into its DNA.
All the best,
Maynard