Mar 04, 2016 By Gary Lane

RAK-up Kindness Throughout the Year

in Foundation

Is it so wrong that we “planned” our charity announcement around this year’s “Random” Acts of Kindness Day (RAK)?

The timing was perfect. Residual love in the air from Valentine’s Day festivities mixed with a surge of philanthropic gusto, and our company wanted to continue to kindle the feel-good flames.

That’s why on February 17 we officially announced our participation in Pledge 1% -- hardly a “random” act, but certainly in the spirit of the day.

If you aren’t familiar, Pledge 1% is a charity founded by Atlassian, the Entrepreneurs Foundation of Colorado, Rally and (of course) Salesforce.org. The charity empowers companies to donate 1% of product, 1% of equity, 1% of profit or 1% of employee time to improve communities around the world.

The program isn’t our first bid of generosity, but it is by large the biggest step we’ve made toward embedding charity into our work culture. We are growing, faster than ever before. Now that we’ve chiseled a giant heart into the bedrock of our company, we hope to build a kind and forward-thinking enterprise on top of it.

Pledge 1% will empower our employees to champion causes as an extension of their career. because kindness and generosity should be everyone’s job. February 17 was Random Acts of Kindness Day, but that doesn’t mean our positive actions are one-day restricted. For NewVoiceMedia, RAK was a galvanizing reminder for positivity that we hope will resonate year over year.

Already, our employees are mobilizing campaigns and flagging worthy causes for us to back. Just from the internal news of our Pledge 1% commitment we experienced a ripple of positive energy. Smiles and excitement are contagious, and the day we rolled out the program our employees seemed especially bonded. The NewVoiceMedia family runs on hard work, passion and goodwill. This pledge is just extra fuel on the fire.

Years ago, Salesforce set a precedent with a powerful question: “What if we all gave 1%?”