SAN FRANCISCO, October 4, 2023 – Pledge 1%, a global movement that inspires, educates, and empowers every entrepreneur, company, and employee to be a force for good, announced today that nearly 30% of this year’s Cloud 100 List, a prestigious ranking of top cloud companies made possible by Bessemer Venture Partners, Salesforce Ventures, and Forbes, have committed assets to social impact as members of the Pledge 1% movement.
"The Pledge 1% member companies on this year’s Cloud 100 List understand that leveraging their business to be a force for good is both the right and smart thing to do," said Amy Lesnick, Chief Executive and President of Pledge 1%. “As industry leaders, these companies are demonstrating that giving back is not just good for the world, it's also a great way to attract and retain top talent, minimize churn costs, and boost your bottom line. We are proud that so many of today’s top cloud companies are donating their time, profit, product, and/or equity as part of their Pledge 1% commitment.”
Over the past few years, more and more companies have started leveraging their assets to address some of today’s biggest challenges. In addition to the companies on the Cloud 100 List, Pledge 1% has seen a steady increase in membership, with over 18,000 companies in 100+ countries committed to giving their time, profit, product, and/or equity to causes they care about. We are especially proud to recognize the Pledge 1% companies celebrated today on the Cloud 100 List: 6sense, ActiveCampaign, Algolia, AppsFlyer, Arctic Wolf, Automation Anywhere, Automattic, Canva, Celonis, Checkr, Collibra, Contentful, Dialpad, Guild Education, Kong, LaunchDarkly, Mambu, Notion, OwnBackup, Personio, Rubrik, Sentry, ServiceTitan, Snyk, Talkdesk, Workato, and Yotpo.
In addition, each year, Pledge 1%, Bessemer Venture Partners, Salesforce Ventures, and Forbes select one company on the Cloud 100 List to receive special recognition for their commitment to social impact. We are thrilled to announce that Checkr, which automates and speeds up the process of professional background checks, is the winner of this year’ Pledge 1% Impact Award.
Checkr joined Pledge 1% with a commitment to donate 1% of employee time, 1% of product, 1% of equity, and1% of company profits every year to the mission of enabling fair chances for all people, no matter their background. They have already donated over $2.7 Million in product through Better Future and its Expungement Initiative to empower people with arrest or conviction records to access their own background checks for free and apply for a Checkr sponsored expungement for eligible records. They have also enabled more than 1,800 justice impacted candidates to secure livable wage employment through their candidate story product. In addition, they provide discounts to non-profit customers to use their services and their team has volunteered over 5,000 hours towards building a fairer future of work by supporting initiatives that provide talent with records pathways to careers and economic mobility.
Through their equity pledge, Checkr has committed current and future funding to fund their social impact programs (which include their own Fair Chance hiring and Apprenticeship programs) and to ensure the long-term sustainability and success of their mission to unlock talent and opportunity in the workforce.
"We're incredibly honored to be selected for the 2023 Impact Award, and I want to thank our Checkr team for their commitment to our mission of building a fairer future," said Daniel Yanisse, Co-founder and CEO of Checkr. "Through the 1% Pledge, Checkr has been able to scale the impact of our mission by reducing bias from background data and enabling our customers to create work opportunities for justice-impacted individuals."
By accepting this year’s Pledge 1% Impact Award, Checkr joins an esteemed group of past Impact Award winners, including Twilio, DocuSign, Slack, Procore, Canva, Guild Education, and Snyk.
The entire Pledge 1% and Cloud 100 community congratulates Checkr, along with the other companies featured on this year’s Cloud 100 List. We also thank the Pledge 1% Builders community for their ongoing leadership and support of the movement, and Pledge 1%’s Boardroom Allies, a network of venture capitalists who support their portfolio companies in setting aside equity to fund their social impact work, helping unlock billions of dollars in new philanthropy.
To learn more about Pledge 1% visit pledge1percent.org.
