“Philanthropy is the greatest drug” -Marc Benioff
In 2011 when Red Argyle began transitioning from a few independent contractors into a Salesforce partner, we knew one of the first things we wanted to commit to was adopting Salesforce’s 1/1/1 philanthropy model. Defining Red Argyle with 1/1/1 as a part of our DNA, we are able to have ongoing organizational philanthropy that scales with our company.
We are proud to say that 8 years later, the model is alive and well! 2019 presented unique opportunities and challenges for Red Argyle, and throughout those, we always kept an eye on giving. If you’re not familiar with 1/1/1, participants look to donate 1% of revenue, product, and time to nonprofits. To get a more comprehensive overview of the pledge, make sure that you read up on the full story behind the Pledge 1% model here.
Revenue
Red Argyle took a lot of time and care into the decision of where we wanted to go with our donation. It was decided that food banking was a fantastic, highly effective way to help satisfy the basic human need of hunger in our communities. Food banks act as the warehouse that keeps hundreds of food pantries supplied, and also seek larger and more difficult government support to amplify donations.
The Food Bank of Northeast NY represents the Albany side of Red Argyle’s giving. In 2019 they distributed 38 million pounds of food out to over two hundred food pantries. A large percentage of Food Bank recipients are either Veterans or Children. This video shares a few stories.
Back in December, Garry stopped by the Food Bank of NENY to present a portion of this year’s contribution to the Executive Director Mark Quandt.
But we still had another donation we wanted to make.
For over 40 years, Foodlink has worked incredibly hard to feed and build healthier communities in counties across Upstate New York. Foodlink’s community health programs provide access to affordable, nourishing food in underserved communities. In doing so, this extraordinary organization is able to empower others to implement healthy choices. This empowerment comes in many forms, but notably through their nutrition and culinary education programs. Foodlink distributes nearly 20 million pounds of food annually to a network of nonprofit partners, locally.
There’s more…
In 2019 Red Argyle embarked on a pro-bono tech project to help a non-profit that we felt passionately about.
Garry Polmateer did a business analysis and design engagement with The Lonely Whale, a nonprofit focused on helping clean our oceans to help with future database and CRM efforts. The engagement worked with Lonely Whale stakeholders to organize their business requirements for future technology projects. Lonely Whale was a fantastic organization to work with and Red Argyle was happy to donate the skills and energy to help the cause. Learn more about The Lonely Whale here.
Time
Red Argyle continues to support donations of time to community and nonprofit organizations. Here are a few stories of 2019 volunteerism:
Back in September, our Canandaigua team went to Habitat for Humanity of Ontario County building more than just code! If you aren’t already familiar, Habitat for Humanity partners with people all over the globe. Their work helps build or improve a place they can call home. Habitat for Humanity shares a vision that everyone, everywhere deserves a decent place to live. Read more about their work here.
Tom’s visit to Foodlink in December wasn’t the first time Red Argyle made a stop there. Earlier this year, one of our project teams spent their afternoon away from the computers and back at Foodlink volunteering.
Our Employees
Not only do we try to employ as much volunteer work into our business, but Red Argyle encourages our employees to help their local communities as much as possible. Here’s just a snippet of some of what our team works on when they leave their Red Argyle work for the day.
- Ron Wille, our COO, is one of the board members to Causewave in Rochester. Causewave is a nonprofit organization that collaborates with local nonprofits to foster change for organizations and communities. They are able to achieve this through collective impact projects and capacity building programs.
- Garry, our CEO, is currently serving as a Director on the Alplaus Residents’ Association, a community advocacy group to improve the lives of Alplaus Citizens. In addition to ongoing projects to improve public safety and foster community events, Garry is also the acting webmaster at www.alplaus.org.
- Aniela Wolkonoski, one of our developers, sits on RocDev’s Board. RocDev is a group of professionals who are involved in software development in the Greater Rochester Area. In this position with RocDev, Aniela assists in the work that brings Rochestarians meetups for lightning talks on various topics, a spotlight series that shines a light on tech companies in the greater Rochester area, informative sessions on specific tools and tech, job search and interview skills to help further our members careers, and fun social meetings like drinks nights, Code Retreats and Hackathons.
- Engagement Manager, Tony Ferrari, took volunteering to the next level. Starting back in 2011, Tony kick-started his very own animal rescue organization: Furever Friends. Because of Tony’s commitment, he has been able to save and rehome countless animals to a better life.
- One of our developers, Meir Hauser, sends his kids to a private religious school. The school has been promoting internet safety for all the school families, so they got in touch with an organization called TAG and opened up a branch in South Florida. It’s a Jewish organization so people generally hear about it from within their Jewish community. Meir volunteers as one of the consultants/technicians that helps people navigate the various parental controls and internet filters for devices. When talking about his volunteer work, Meir said, “We’re actually using Salesforce Service Cloud to track all of our cases, so if someone contacts us for assistance with a device, we put it in Salesforce as a Case” . Here it is, all coming full-circle.
We couldn’t be prouder of the work that Red Argyle and the Red Argyle team is able to do. 2019 was so exciting for us because we grew more than we ever have before. This growth meant we were able to give more than we ever have before. 2020, just you wait…
