Employee philanthropy program added to Foundation to benefit local communities
More than 1,500 nonprofits worldwide have transformed the way they work via Huddle as the company today announced that the Huddle Foundation has donated packages at a value of more than $10 million to organizations across the globe. Connecting networks of staff, fundraisers and volunteers, the next generation cloud content collaboration service is enabling nonprofits such as the Fair Trade Foundation, Ethical Trading Initiative and Make a Wish Foundation International, to work on and share content more effectively.
Building on its current charitable work, which has seen a Huddle package donated to a nonprofit every working day for the last five years, the Huddle Foundation now includes an employee philanthropy program. Every Huddle employee is offered up to two days per year donated time to volunteer and engage themselves with local charitable causes, activities or events.
By extending corporate beyond technology donations to involve employees across all office locations and departments in volunteering activities, Huddle will enable personal development opportunities and positively impact local communities.
“The Huddle Foundation program was created to help nonprofit organizations more easily achieve their aims, regardless of their size and income,” says Jon Landau, VP Huddle Foundation. “We’re proud to have reached this fantastic milestone for our technology donation program, which we plan on extending even further over the coming months. Huddle has proven itself of great help to a large number of organizations by more effectively connecting people and sharing information across their teams, offices and volunteering networks. By adding the employee element to the program, the Huddle team also now gets to donate their time, skills and expertise to help causes in their local communities.”
Similar programs have already been rolled out successfully by companies such as Salesforce.com and have had a huge impact on communities worldwide.
“The best philanthropic programs are about more than donating technology,” says Isabel Kelly, International Director of the Salesforce Foundation, “There is a real opportunity for companies like Huddle to make a meaningful difference to nonprofits in their local communities, donating their time and sharing their expertise. This model sits at the heart of the Salesforce Foundation and it’s great to see the Huddle Foundation take shape in a way that, I have no doubt, will be of great benefit to many.”
Huddle Foundation customer: Railway Children
Railway Children is an international children’s charity working in the UK, India and East Africa. Its aim is to change the lives of children living alone or at risk on the streets. It partners with grassroots organizations that can offer invaluable local knowledge to manage and implement regional projects.
“We work through partner organizations worldwide so we can take advantage of the knowledge of local people. We needed a common platform for each team to provide updates and share information,” explains David Brookes, Head of Finance, Railway Children. “In order to carry out our work effectively and efficiently, it’s essential for all of us to be working from the same data.”
“We can upload documents to Huddle at any time and we always know that the other teams are using the correct document versions. When relying on emails, there can be miscommunication and it’s not always clear which attachment is the most up-to-date document. We keep collaborative information on Huddle, from reports through to case studies and marketing materials. It’s made things much simpler for us. We can see how our different teams are working and meeting their objectives. Huddle’s easy to use interface means it caters for the varying levels of IT experience of our staff,” concludes Brookes.