Salesforce Celebrates Pro Bono Week

Pro Bono Week is a global campaign celebrating and activating pro bono service through professionals that use their talents to make a difference.

It’s Pro Bono Week 2015 and we are thrilled to celebrate the Salesforce employees using their unique talent and skills to deliver tremendous impact around the world! From healthcare and the environment, to safety and education, Salesforce employees partner with groundbreaking nonprofit organizations and lend their skills to drive tremendous impact. This year Salesforce employees have already delivered more than 18,000 hours of pro bono service and to recognize these volunteer efforts we are sharing just a few inspiring stories:

Big Data Addresses Domestic Violence

As you may recall, the NFL was rocked by the issue of domestic violence in 2014 when a video of professional football player Ray Rice abusing his then-fiancée in an elevator was made public. In response to the video and the subsequent victim-shaming of Ray Rice’s fiancee who stayed in the relationship, survivors of domestic violence came forward to tell their stories on Twitter using the hashtags #whyistayed and #whyileft. Big Mountain Data, an organization that develops data science solutions to help in the fight against family abuse and violence, knew this was a movement and they needed the right tools to capture the data. A Salesforce team quickly implemented Marketing Cloud. Using social listening tools they captured, mapped and analyzed the voices that ultimately highlighted the underlying complexity of domestic violence. See the results of this team’s findings in this infographic– a powerful representation of first person stories that tell the truthful narrative of why women stay in abusive relationships and why they ultimately leave.

The Toolkit For Prosecuting Terrorism in Asia

Recent discussions among the United Nations Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate and its partner, the Global Center on Cooperative Security found that South Asian judges had a need for a tool that would help them handle and manage terrorism cases. Seizing the opportunity to take on a global project, the Salesforce Legal Team drafted the first-ever toolkit for judges in South Asia adjudicating terrorism cases in their national courts. Our legal team rolled up their corporate-law sleeves and dug deep into international public law with partner pro bono provider, Baker & McKenzie. The resulting toolkit will be used as template to be adapted by judges and judicial academies in other regions throughout the world.

Website Launch to Enhance Breast Cancer Treatment

Breast cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death in women in the United States and a team at UCSF Athena Breast Cancer Project is determined to change that stat. The Athena Breast Cancer Project recently launched the Wisdom Study, a groundbreaking study that will shed light on the confusion around best methods to detect and treat breast cancer. The study will recruit and engage at least 100,000 women, across five UC Medical Centers. With time dwindling to launch the study’s website, a team of three Salesforce volunteers jumped in to create the site’s user experience and code so this important study is accessible across mobile, tablet and desktop applications. The study is now live!

Preventing the Spread of Ebola in Our Hospitals

The 2014 Ebola epidemic was the largest in history, crippling multiple countries in West Africa and it didn’t take long for two healthcare workers within the United States to contract the disease. Due to the quickness and critical nature of Ebola, US global emergency support organizations were challenged to treat, monitor, and protect those affected around the world. A team of about 15 Salesforce employees rallied overnight to leverage their skills and our technology to meet the most pressing needs of these organizations. First, a team worked with the Skoll Global Threats Fund and partners from Twilio and Vertiba, to build a sophisticated monitoring application that could be immediately rolled out to Ebola hot zones. Second, a production team worked with John Hopkins University and the Center for Disease Control (CDC) to film, edit, and publish a series of how-to videos to ensure healthcare workers learned appropriate safety training for treating Ebola patients effectively protecting them and preventing further spread of the virus.

This is just a small sample of the incredible ways Salesforce employees are lending their skills to drive tremendous impact. We are so proud of Salesforce pro bono volunteers and how they have used their skills to make a difference! Join us in celebrating pro bono service during Pro Bono Week. If you’ve received pro bono support from a Salesforce employee you can thank them too by following our social media guide for the week.

To learn more about our Pro Bono Program or to apply for support, check out our website.