At Salesforce, we believe that where we direct our giving today is key to building the future we want for tomorrow. In the third quarter of fiscal year 2023, much of our giving focused on the resiliency of our communities — with efforts spanning education, climate action, and more. A key highlight of the quarter was our 20th Dreamforce conference, where Trailblazers reunited in San Francisco and took time to give back in meaningful ways. 

This quarter (Aug. 1-Oct. 31, 2022), we continued to build on our overall impact numbers:

• As of Oct. 31, 2022, we have now donated a total of $588 million in grants (life-to-date). 
• In Q3 alone, Salesforce employees participated in 300,000 volunteer hours. 

Read on for highlights showing where Salesforce’s third quarter giving made a difference.

Dreamforce spotlights Salesforce’s continued commitment to education, student wellbeing

In Q3, we announced $25 million in new grants to support school districts and education nonprofits across the United States. Salesforce’s all-time education giving now totals over $165 million in support of schools, educators, and students around the world.

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Marking the 10-year anniversary of Salesforce’s commitment to education, this quarter’s funding focused on student and teacher wellbeing and the resiliency of schools. As schools and students continue to recover from the pandemic, these grants support social and emotional learning, mental health programs, and trauma-informed therapy.

The day before Dreamforce, on Sept. 19, we held a special event at Presidio Middle School with San Francisco Mayor London Breed and Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf to celebrate our giving anniversary and volunteer at a wellness fair for students.

This quarter, grants were also provided to the following mental health-focused organizations:

• Bring Change to Mind: Salesforce funding supports Bring Change to Mind high school clubs across New York and California, with the goal of increasing mental health awareness, empathy, and help-seeking behaviors among teens.
• Child Mind Institute: Salesforce funding supports training educators and mental health staff on mental health and trauma informed care, which will be delivered to students in partnership with schools in key regions, including New York and the Bay Area.

Mental health is one of the biggest challenges facing schools today. It’s critical to provide students with resources to increase their likelihood of success in the classroom and future opportunities. That’s why we’re doubling down on our investments in organizations that are leaders in mental health programming for educators and students.

Ron Smith, VP of Philanthropy, Salesforce

Salesforce continues support for climate giving

We recently published an update on our approach to climate philanthropy, which aims to help communities reduce and adapt to the impacts of climate change through our Ecosystem Restoration & Climate Justice Fund, as well as our disaster preparedness and response investments. These philanthropic efforts sit alongside the company’s Climate Action Plan and initiatives like Net Zero Cloud and the Salesforce Net Zero Marketplace.

A focus on climate was also present throughout Dreamforce in sessions that ranged from Free Solo star Alex Honnold, primatologist and anthropologist Dr. Jane Goodall, and former Vice President of the United States Al Gore. 

Salesforce employees donate skills and time through volunteer programs and events 

In the third quarter, Salesforce volunteers reached a milestone of 7.5 million all-time service hours. Volunteering was a big focus at this year’s Dreamforce, engaging event attendees both on site at the Moscone Center, and throughout the city at local San Francisco schools and parks. 

Employees spent their service hours on projects like: 

• Volunteering and Giving Slackathon: During an all virtual hackathon, teams of up to four shared ideas to help create an all-digital volunteering and giving headquarters in Slack. Twenty three demo videos were submitted, and donations were sent to winners’ nonprofits of choice. The winning projects will help to improve the way we do employee giving and volunteer time off — internally known as VTO — at Salesforce. 
• Salesforce Run!: In India, a month-long campaign called Salesforce Run! was created for employees to meet in person and give back. We partnered with SankalpTaru and Concern India Foundation to support a tree plantation and girls education with proceeds from the run. 
• Dreamforce: Salesforce employees participated in 1,000 volunteer hours throughout Dreamforce, including activities focused on neighborhood beautification, planting trees, a back-to-school supply drive, and the Presidio Middle School wellbeing fair. 

Salesforce provides free and discounted products and services to nonprofit, education customers

Salesforce has provided free or discounted product to over 50,000 nonprofit and education customers since our founding. This quarter, we celebrated our pro bono volunteers throughout the month of October, ending the month with Pro Bono Week, which took place Oct. 24-28. 

In the month of October alone, we matched 86 volunteers with nonprofits projects, 142 customers got a consultation, and our employees delivered $1.25 million in pro bono value to the sector. 

Here’s two examples of where those pro bono services made an impact:

• HD Reach: HD Reach is an organization working to improve the care and quality of life of those affected by Huntington’s disease.
  • An employee volunteer updated HD Reach’s system with the Salesforce Nonprofit Success Pack, which allowed HD Reach to gain insights on key performance metrics and have a unified view of data across fundraising, engagement, and programs. 
• Mobile Hope: Mobile Hope provides support and emergency shelter to youth up to age 24 who are at-risk, precariously housed, or without a home. 
  • Volunteers worked with Mobile Hope to improve its user experience with Salesforce through spreadsheet migration, data cleanup, and creating a customized data model. Our volunteers also helped the organization create reports and dashboards to meaningfully track the impact they have on their clients, which is especially helpful when their organization applies to grants.

As the end of the calendar year approaches, we will continue to prioritize philanthropic areas that support our broader communities, while analyzing where our time and money can do more. We look forward to seeing what our giving can achieve by the end of 2022 and beyond. 

More information:

• Read our $25M education announcement.
• See last quarter’s giving impact here.
• Learn more about Salesforce Philanthropy.