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The integrated philanthropy model the Salesforce.com Australia Foundation pursues is based on a simple idea:  

 Donate 1% of salesforce.com's resources to support organizations that are working to make our world a better place.That's using 1 % of  employee time, in the form of 6 days volunteering leave per year, 1% of our products, via our Nonprofit Technology Donation/Discount Program and 1% Equity, in the form of Grants to Community Organizations.

A great example of this model in action? NSW Cancer Council.  Like many businesses around Australia, at 10am yesterday salesforce.com Sydney employees drank tea, munched on baked treats and made merry for Australia's Biggest Morning Tea.

For the fourth year in a row, Diana Terry (@terry_diana), Salesforce.com Principal Sales Engineer organized a Morning Tea to raise funds for Cancer Council.

Cancercouncil

 

"This cause is close to my heart. We all know someone whose life has been touched by Cancer, and I believe in being an active part of the solution. Biggest Morning tea is a fun way to raise awareness and funds for prevention, diagnosis and treatment. What's best about it, is the money we raised will be matched by the Salesforce.com Foundation"

 

 Cancer Council NSW has also benefited from the Foundation's Nonprofit Technology Donation/Discount program.

In 2012 they  launched the first part of this project,  a cancer information and support application based on the Salesforce service Cloud which  powers the council¹s help line and support services. It consists of a call centre console with an integrated online search facility that locates cancer services, support groups and the Council's publications based on the location of the patient.

Speaking at CeBit 2012 on Tuesday (and reported in this article in CIO Magazine), the Council's CIO, John Davies, explained why the not-for-profit organisation chose Salesforce, highlighting the importance of Salesforce.com¹s low cost options for NGOs.:

"“With a small IT budget we also wanted the platform to have a low infrastructure footprint and support levels,” he said. “I would rather spend that IT budget on enhancing business capability than boxes and people to run them."

And thats really the point - salesforce.com not only offers generous discounts for not-for-profits, the cloud computing model itself ensures that these organisations that are doing so much good can focus on the good that they do...and not on managing a bunch of hardware and wires!  

To help Cancer Council continue to do more of that good, you can make a donation here: http://www.cancercouncil.com.au/donate/