Digital Ocean
This year, DigitalOcean is using Giving Tuesday not only as a way to lift up our company and employee contributions but also as an opportunity to reflect on progress and prepare for the future of DO Impact.
Reflecting on a milestone year
The launch of DO Impact in April was both a celebration and a commitment to developing our strategy and programming as a Pledge 1% member. We’ve made meaningful headway since then, and though we are just getting started, we are excited to recognize some early progress from this year, including:
- $1M+ in total giving: Between product donations, cash grants, and employee giving, we committed more than $1M in 2022. And we know this is just the beginning—even through these challenging economic times, DigitalOcean will continue to prioritize philanthropy.
- A steady stream of product donations and nonprofit grants through Hollie’s Hub for Good (HH4G): In our first grant round, we focused on members within the HH4G community. In the most recent funding round—announced at our customer conference, deploy, in November—we focused on supporting the communities where most of our employees are geographically based, including New York, Denver, and Pakistan.
- Successful employee giving campaigns: At our twice-annual all-employee meeting (called Shark Day), we hosted a giving campaign that saw almost 70% participation across all employees. Our colleagues donated to and spotlighted dozens of nonprofits and volunteered their time to pack backpacks and write career cards for students. We’ve donated more than $400K this year to nonprofit organizations via our employee-giving platform, and we’ve created various funds to allow employees to respond to humanitarian crises and environmental disasters that happened throughout the year. We also empowered our employee resource groups (ERGs) with $20K each ($100K total) to select and contribute to organizations that best support and represent their communities.
- New partnerships and storytelling opportunities: We engaged with amazing partners like UNICEF and Fast Forward, helping catalyze and extend our reach to more tech-driven nonprofits worldwide. We held a workshop in Bolivia with Hollie’s Hub for Good recipient Unicodemy, where we helped young girls in La Paz learn how to use cloud technology. And we held our first panel session at our customer conference highlighting two incredible nonprofit partners, Code Berlin and Bonterra.
Being present in the giving season
Yesterday, we kicked off our second employee-giving campaign of the year, where our employees will compete in small challenges with their teams and raise money for causes they care about. DigitalOcean will be matching two dollars for every dollar contributed by employees through the end of the year. We hope it inspires our teams to support and share the organizations most important to them, all while expressing gratitude for their colleagues (with some friendly competition mixed in)!
Looking ahead to 2023 and beyond
As we begin to think about our plans for next year—and the future of DO Impact—we’re excited to lean into several areas, including: defining our strategy around signature philanthropic initiatives, creating more skills-based volunteering for our employees, evolving our product donation strategy to get DigitalOcean into the hands of even more nonprofits, engaging our increasingly global employee base, forging a sustainable path forward, and sharing these stories with the world. We hope you’ll join us on the journey!
#DOImpact
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