Originally published on Coveo
Author: Kiyomi Harrington
We’re thrilled to share that we surpassed a major milestone, donating more than $1 million dollars (CAD) under Pledge 1% , a global movement to inspire, educate, and empower all companies to leverage their assets for good. This is on top of the $1.7 million dollars (CAD) we have contributed to Centraide (United Way), since partnering with them in 2006.
Since joining the Pledge 1% movement in November 2021, we’ve contributed time, products, expertise and money to support organizations that provide learning and growth opportunities, including knowledge-sharing and mentoring, technical access, and financial assistance for young people in vulnerable social groups.
“Our aim is to make the democratization of knowledge a force for good both locally and globally,” said Sheila Morin, Chief Marketing Officer at Coveo. “With the structure of our pledge, we’re able to contribute our time, our technology, our money and our equity to help give equal and unrestricted access to knowledge and education to combat poverty, to reduce inequalities and improve human wellness. We’re proud to share some of the impact we have already had thanks to our Pledge 1% commitment, and we’re just getting started.”
Through the Pledge 1% movement we’re able to direct our support for organizations that are in line with our vision to democratize knowledge through education and technology. As an organization we’ve committed 1% of our equity, 1% of our profits, 1% of our product and 1% of our time through the following means:
1% Equity
In pursuit of our 1% pledge mission to democratize education, we support non-profit organizations that provide learning opportunities and skill development in underserved communities. We’re proud to have donated over C$1,000,000 to our partners allowing them to reach thousands of children across North America. We will continue to build long-term relationships with our partners beyond our donations with skills-based volunteering by our employees, resource-sharing, and asset donations.
1% Time
In 2022, Coveo created a 1% Time Pledge Committee with the aim of reigniting Coveo’s long-standing tradition of volunteering, which had been put on hold due to the pandemic. Since then, we’ve built relationships with partner organizations, enabling us to provide both skill-based and event-based volunteering opportunities. Each year, Coveans are giving their time to help others and giving back to the communities. More than 4000 hours have been given since the launch of the Pledge 1% program with organizations like Maison Bon Acceuil, the Foodbank and Santropol Roulant.
Coveo employees donating 1% of their time
1% Product
We take pride in our partnership with Alloprof, a Quebec-based non-profit that offers parents and students aged 6-17 free, practical resources to help them succeed along their academic journey. Alloprof uses Coveo AI to power the search and recommendation experiences on their website, helping students and parents find resources relevant to them. We’re able to deliver a best-in-class digital experience that embraces their brand and engages users with our headless and atomic technology. By doing so, we help empower students, parents, and teachers to efficiently and effectively access knowledge, saving them time and also allowing Alloprof to deliver a streamlined and personalized service to their clients. In January, we kicked off a project with Actua to start using the Coveo Platform. They will be using the Coveo AI on their intranet to support AI-powered search across their internal website. We’re committed to increasing our support to other organizations that make a difference in our communities through access to our product in the years to come.
Coveo employees delivering Laptops at Maison des Jeunes de Côte-des-Neiges – Chalet Kent
Let’s dig into some of these amazing organizations we have partnered with and see the impact that the Pledge 1% are having on their missions.
LOVE (Quebec) has been changing the lives of thousands of vulnerable youth across Montreal, providing a safe environment to those who have experienced bullying or violence. Their mission is to support their mental health through arts-based activities that help them develop the emotional intelligence and resilience they need to thrive. In 2023, LOVE (Quebec) had an impact on 2463 youth.
Actua, a leading science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education outreach organization in Canada works with a national network of 43 universities and colleges. Actua engages youth from all corners of the country in transformational STEM learning experiences that build critical employability skills and confidence. Reaching nearly a half million youth annually, including 43,668 Indigenous youth, 33,099 Girls in all-girl programs, and 11,162 Black youth across 744 communities across Canada. My 8-year-old daughter got to experience Actua’s impact when she was able to attend the Engineering Science Quest summer camp at the University of Waterloo last summer.
Girlstart, is a US-based national women-led organization, offering year-round out-of-school STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) programming for girls in grades 4-8 in Texas, California, Massachusetts, and other locations across the country. They support after-school programs, summer camps and community STEM programming to name a few.
Pour 3 Points, believes in social equality for youth from underprivileged neighborhoods. And that someday, all of them will have the opportunity to develop their potential to become happy, resilient, and healthy adults involved in their community. That is why P3P helps sports coaches become life coaches. By assisting underprivileged youth, coaches help them gain the skills needed to succeed in life and in school.
U-Go, a non-profit that helps ambitious and promising young women in low-income countries to pursue higher education by providing financial scholarships funded by individuals and corporations, just celebrated their two-year anniversary. In such a short time, they have made a huge impact on the access to education for girls from low-income countries. Their access to education not only lifts them out of poverty but has a generational impact on their families and wider community. Available in 9 countries around the world; from Bangladesh, to India, to Vietnam, Tanzania and Nepal – these girls are on their way to becoming teachers, doctors, nurses, pharmacists, entrepreneurs and more. Coveo is supporting 108 scholarships for these ambitious and promising young women in the U-Go program. The U-Go program is so successful, it grew by 160% to 2,494 scholars. As their founder John Wood put it, “to visualize, that is like having 19 Boeing 737s lined up on the runway with every seat filled.”
We haven’t stopped there…
We’ve also made donations to several other organizations within the educational, inclusion, and environmental spheres including Interligne,Techspark, Environmental Defence and Centraide.
For the past eighteen years, Coveo has been proud to support Centraide (United Way), an organization that is making a real difference in the lives of people in our communities. Each year, Coveo organizes an employee campaign to generate donations for Centraide. As part of this effort, for every dollar donated by an employee, Coveo also contributes $1. For calendar year 2023, Coveo and its employees committed over C$403,668.88 in donations to Centraide, bringing total contribution to more than C$1,700,000 since the beginning of the partnership.
To learn more about our ESG strategy, the organizations we’ve partnered with and hear some more impact stories — check out these videos.
