At Salesforce, our values are our North Star. We remain committed to making progress on our equality goals and rebuilding systems with equality at the center, despite ongoing global crises and a challenging global economy. It is during times of uncertainty that we must remain steadfast in this work. Together we continue to build a more equal workplace where everyone feels seen, heard, and supported.
This quarter, our equality work showed up in different ways across our global workplace. In the United States, we elevated the voices and experiences of Equality Group members during Hispanic and Latinx Heritage Month, and Disability Employment Awareness Month. We celebrated Diwali with employees around the world, and we came together to honor Black History Month in the UK and Ireland.
In the broader Salesforce ecosystem, we advanced equality through the work of our Racial Equality and Justice Taskforce, our Salesforce Partners, and together with our customers – who we reunited with in person at Dreamforce.
No matter what is happening in the world, our commitment to equality doesn’t waiver, and we’re proud to share our progress in this quarterly update:
How Salesforce drives equality with its People programs
We continue to leverage our People programs to build more inclusive systems with equality at the center. This quarter, we’ve made progress across a number of programs:
- The Hispanic and Latinx Employee Experience initiative, launched earlier this year, aims to implement community-informed and culturally relevant solutions to support Latinx and Hispanic talent. This initiative, in collaboration with our Latinoforce Equality Group, drove greater connection by increasing membership in Latinoforce by 160% year over year, and connected Latinx leaders (director and above) with the company’s executive leadership team. We also celebrated Hispanic and Latinx Heritage Month in many hubs across the United States.
- We completed our pilot cohort of our Amplify Sponsorship Program, which included women of color from across the company. Each woman was matched to a senior leader and then worked in teams to develop and pitch a business case. The solutions they presented helped inform key product and business strategies. Participants will continue to engage with their sponsors as they grow their careers at Salesforce.
- Salesforce India also completed the first cohort of its Return to Work program, a six-month paid apprenticeship that supported women in earning full-time roles at Salesforce after a career break. The company will expand both Amplify Sponsorship and the Return to Work program next year.
- As part of its mission to increase the number of underrepresented individuals in the tech sector, Slack for Good worked with the Aspen Institute to create a playbook to help companies build better career pathways for formerly incarcerated individuals, convening conversations on fair-chance hiring with justice advocates like Van Jones, Gayle King, and Soledad O’Brien.
- In October, Abilityforce, our Equality Group for people with disabilities, celebrated both Champion Month globally and National Disability Employment Awareness Month in the United States. Employees logged more than 11,000 volunteer hours during the month, and participated in panel conversations on a range of topics, from invisible disabilities to the impact of long-COVID. In addition, a number of disability awareness trainings were held across the globe.
- The Office of Equality partnered with the global Sales leadership team to host Work It Girl, an event that enabled more than 450 women new to the Salesforce sales organization to learn best practices and get a fast start in their new roles.
- We continued to host Equality Circles for employees during challenging moments, including a response to the women-led movement in Iran and in support of transgender and nonbinary employees.
How Salesforce centers equality in its community work
We continue to support our communities by taking action toward greater racial equality and justice. This quarter, that included efforts across our philanthropy, purchasing and policy pillars, and in our partner ecosystem.
Philanthropy
- Salesforce has donated over $120 million and completed over 500,000 employee volunteer hours to support organizations advancing racial equality and justice since June 2020.
- Additionally, since 2020, we’ve delivered over $2.9 million in pro bono services aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 10: Reduced Inequalities.
- In Q3, we announced $25 million to support education, with a focus on student and teacher wellbeing. These donations build on our longstanding commitment to driving equitable access to education and economic opportunity for all.
Purchasing
- We exceeded $100 million in spending with Black-owned businesses, meeting our 2023 goal early.
- We are kicking off the second cohort of our Black-Owned Business Mentorship Program this month. The program will support an additional 25 companies through 12 months of opportunities for growth and connections to business leaders.
- In September, Salesforce Ventures hosted the first-ever Black Venture Institute (BVI) Summit at Salesforce Tower New York with 140 attendees. BVI graduates have made more than 300 individual angel investments and evaluated over 1,000 new investments over the last two years. In addition, more than one third of first-year BVI graduates have progressed into VC roles, and, as of this quarter, graduates from BVI have launched three new funds.
Policy
In anticipation of the November U.S. midterm elections, we continued our robust, nonpartisan civic engagement.
- Our continued partnership with TurboVote ensures that employees have access to voter registration information and reminders. More than 550 new employees signed up this cycle.
- More than 375 employees served as nonpartisan poll workers across the United States through our partnership with Power the Polls.
- More than 50 young people registered to vote at Dreamforce’s Future Executive Summit.
- Our six virtual educational speaker series and candidate interviews provided employees opportunities to learn more about the democratic process and to learn directly from candidates.
- We participated in a panel hosted by the Congressional Hispanic Caucus in September titled, “Economic Empowerment for Young Latinos.”
- Salesforce also advocated for the U.S. Congress to pass the Electoral Count Reform Act, along with our third-party partner, Business for America.
Partner Ecosystem
- At Dreamforce, we continued the conversation with our counterparts leading progress on Equality and Impact in the Salesforce Partner ecosystem.
- This collective team is working to ensure our value of Equality is reflected in the global Salesforce Partner Ecosystem through initiatives that support business development and job readiness across underrepresented groups
We are committed to driving systemic change in our workplace and communities through action, advocacy, and continued dialogue. We will continue to share progress and areas of opportunity as we work to meet our goals.
Learn more about our commitment to Equality and the Racial Equality and Justice Taskforce.
