The New York Urban League is honored to highlight some of its strongest supporters. In this issue, we had the opportunity to connect with Salesforce’s BOLDforce community.
Salesforce, Inc. is an American cloud-based software company headquartered in San Francisco, California. It provides customer relationship management software and applications focused on sales, customer service, marketing automation, analytics, and application development. Founded in 1999, cofounder Marc Benioff had a vision of profitability and philanthropy as core pillars of the company’s DNA, two ideas he believed didn’t have to be mutually exclusive. That took shape as the 1-1-1 model, which dedicated 1% of the company’s equity, 1% of its product, and 1% of employees’ time back to the community.
This commitment to corporate philanthropy has materialized into BOLDforce’s partnership with the New York Urban League. When asked to describe BOLDforce, the team at Salesforce said, “BOLDforce is a global community dedicated to creating an inclusive environment for Salesforce's Black employees. We represent the entire African Diaspora and welcome all to join. We want every black employee at Salesforce to feel included, heard, valued, and empowered to succeed. We do this through community building, mentorship, advocacy, and engaging our allies.” They also describe BOLDforce as “a community of Equality trailblazers that shift the conversation from the 2% problem to the 2% power. We will drive global racial equality within our company, industry, and the communities we serve. We do this through elevating the black excellence around us, education and awareness programming, hosting brave conversations, giving back to our communities, creating a movement with our allies, and activating our greater ecosystem (customers, partners, ohana groups, etc.).”
In practice, Salesforce employees have engaged in various service opportunities with the New York Urban League—efforts that have continued to develop and strengthen over time. Salesforce’s partnership with the New York Urban League is multi-faceted. The BOLDforce community’s contribution includes “driving impact with and through the Whitney M. Young scholarship program and supporting the back-to-school Harlem drive ($10k Grant).” Indeed, “the most rewarding part of this partnership has been the laughs along the way… it has been the genuine appreciation we feel from our NYUL partners as well as Whitney M Young, Jr. Scholars & Alumni. We [BOLDforce] need to be the change we want to see, and we need that change now.” Additionally, BOLDforce is currently aligning D&I representatives at Salesforce to the Urban League's D&I team— “We look forward to playing a more active role on the D&I front outside of the mentorship and workshop programs we currently have in place with NYUL.”
Today, BOLDforce works with NYUL’s Chief Program Officer, Shalima McCants, to develop and coordinate workshops through the Salesforce Volunteerforce Portal, allowing them to utilize the Salesforce platform and expertise to manage all of the session info/details as well as track participation. BOLDforce shared, “We have monthly meetings on the third week of every month where we get our cultural nutrition and celebrate the black excellence happening all around us,” and then host monthly Coffee Chats two days after their meetings where folks can come network with each other.
BOLDforce expressed its gratitude to “NYUL for doing the work that most are unwilling to do, and doing it with nothing but grace and compassion!” In turn, The New York Urban League is simply honored and humbled to partner with Salesforce and the BOLDforce community for years to come. This is a strong partnership that both organizations truly appreciate, as BOLDForce closed us out by sharing,
“We enjoy planning with the various team members within Urban League, especially Shalima McCants! It has been exciting to watch this partnership grow into what it is today; we are looking forward to in-person mentorship and workshop opportunities this spring as world health begins to improve and the weather warms up this Spring!”