TMCnet News
Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff Honored as 2004 Community Champion SAN FRANCISCO --(Business Wire)-- April 23, 2004 -- Salesforce.com:-- The Volunteer Center serving San Francisco and San Mateo Counties acknowledges Benioff's personal commitment to building a stronger, healthier community by mobilizing the people and resources of salesforce.com and the salesforce.com/foundation Salesforce.com, the global leader in on demand customer relationship management (CRM) services, today announced that CEO and Chairman Marc Benioff has received the 2004 Community Champion Award from The Volunteer Center serving San Francisco and San Mateo Counties. This honor recognizes Benioff's pioneering new model of integrated corporate philanthropy, as well as the outstanding success of the salesforce.com/foundation, a nonprofit organization that harnesses the energy of the salesforce.com community to make a positive difference in people's lives through service and technology-related projects for youth. "Marc Benioff has been an unwavering champion for corporate community involvement," said John Power, executive director, The Volunteer Center. "I've personally had many opportunities to hear his passionate advocacy, even challenging his peers to outdo his own commitment. He speaks thoughtfully and persuasively about the need for enlightened leadership in corporate America, and has provided a compelling example through his own actions." One of the preeminent thinkers in information technology, Benioff has been focused throughout his career on using new technology to produce positive social change. In July 2000, with Colin Powell in attendance, he launched the salesforce.com/foundation based on his vision of the "1 percent solution" where the company contributes 1 percent of profits, 1 percent of equity, and 1 percent of employee hours back to the communities it serves. As salesforce.com has grown to become the market leader in CRM, the salesforce.com/foundation has demonstrated the power and impact of integrated philanthropy. In less than four years, the Foundation has given millions of dollars and established more than 60 technology centers in 13 countries around the world. Over 20 centers located in the San Francisco Bay Area have received more than $1 million in direct salesforce.com/foundation grants, as well as a comparable amount in staff support, training and in-kind donation. Salesforce.com's 400 employees worldwide have given more than 10,000 volunteer hours to community service, with approximately a third of those hours supporting projects in the San Francisco Bay Area. "I would like to share this honor with the employees of salesforce.com and salesforce.com/foundation who go out of their way to make a positive impact on the community at large," said Benioff. "Philanthropic and commercial operations should not be isolated proceedings. It is possible -- indeed critical -- that there is integration between the operations and goals of corporate philanthropy and business. We have implemented this philosophy into the core of salesforce.com's culture at all levels." Most recently, Benioff co-authored Compassionate Capitalism, the first-ever best practices guide for corporate philanthropy that illustrates how companies can make doing good an integral part of doing well. The book debuted at the World Economic Forum's 2004 meeting in Davos, Switzerland. Previously, members of the World Economic Forum selected Benioff as a "Global Leader of Tomorrow," one of 100 leaders in business, politics and the arts committed to addressing social issues. Computerworld awarded Benioff an Honors Laureate for his visionary way of using information technology to better communities. In addition, Benioff received the Promise of Peace award from the Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu for his work using technology as a means to further Middle East peace and the Bridge Award from the non-profit organization HEAVEN (Helping Educate, Activate, Volunteer, and Empower via the Net) for providing Internet access to the underserved in America's inner cities. In addition, the salesforce.com/foundation and salesforce.com's dedicated employee volunteers have been acknowledged with a wide range of awards. In 2003, the salesforce.com/foundation received the Points of Light Foundation for Excellence in Giving and the first ever Corporate Stewardship Award given by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. In 2004, San Francisco School Volunteers acknowledged the work of the Foundation through its Allies for Education Award. The San Francisco Business Times has named salesforce.com to the Corporate Philanthropy Top 50 for the past two years and the USA Freedom Corps, a White House initiative, gave its Volunteer Service Award Given to a long-time salesforce.com employee. The Volunteer Center of San Francisco also honored another Salesforce.com employee for his commitment to the community through the Community Spirit Award in 2003. For more information on the 1 percent solution and salesforce.com/foundation opportunities, please visit www.salesforcefoundation.org. About salesforce.com Salesforce.com is the global leader in on demand customer relationship management (CRM) services. It offers the award-winning salesforce.com family of on demand solutions for integrated sales force automation, customer service and support, marketing automation, document management, contract management, product catalog management, and analytics to help companies meet the complex challenges of global customer communication. The company recently introduced salesforce.com Studio, a point-and-click on demand customization suite that empowers the business administrator to extend CRM with custom tabs and brand new modules. It has also introduced sforce 3.0, the on demand platform that offers developers complete Web services-based customization, integration and extension for CRM. Salesforce.com has received considerable recognition in the industry, including Editors' Choice and two Five-Star ratings from PC Magazine, two Deploy Awards from InfoWorld, Investor's Choice Award from Enterprise Outlook, Editors' Choice from TMC Labs, Top 10 CRM Implementation from Aberdeen Group, InfoWorld's 2001 CRM Technology of the Year, Forbes Magazine's "Best of the Web" and a Webby Business Award. The company has more than 9,500 customers and 140,000 subscribers running its services in 11 languages. Founded in 1999, salesforce.com is headquartered in San Francisco, with offices in Europe and Asia. For more information please visit www.salesforce.com or call 1-800 NO-SOFTWARE. About salesforce.com/foundation Salesforce.com/foundation is the leader in integrating philanthropy and business. Through its model of donating 1% of profits to the community annually, 1% of salesforce.com equity to its programs and 1% of employee working hours to community service, the Foundation is building a new model for corporations to better serve the communities in which they operate. The Foundation also strives to better the lives of youth by providing relevant access to technology for youth in underserved communities both domestically and abroad. The Foundation works with other corporations, youth development agencies, and NGOs to create a society in which children, regardless of socio-economic background, ethnicity or learning level, have access to technology and understand how to use it to enhance their lives. Since July 2000, the Foundation has opened over 60 Community Technology Centers across the globe serving nearly 50,000 youth and other community members; has provided nearly 10,000 hours of service to the community through salesforce.com's 400 employee volunteers; and supports Salesforce.com in its efforts to offer its award winning online customer relationship management application to more than 250 qualified nonprofits globally saving them hundreds of thousands of dollars every year. It is the recipient of the national 2003 Points of Awards Award for Excellence in Corporate Community Service and the national 2003 U.S. Chamber of Commerce's first annual Corporate Stewardship Award. More information is available at www.salesforcefoundation.org. Salesforce.com is a registered trademark of salesforce.com, inc., San Francisco, California. All other product and company names herein may be trademarks of their respective owners. |
