Giving back is personal – and often born out of tragedy. More than $16.5 billion has been donated since COVID-19 turned our world upside down. That’s according to Candid, a nonprofit that tracks corporate philanthropy. For our family, the loss of my sister-in-law to Type 1 diabetes motivates our giving and the annual memorial scholarship we give in her name. And of course, tragedy does not always result from a single event but also from systemic issues that motivate community support and giving.
This Giving Tuesday – a day started in 2012 to encourage people to do good – we celebrate the generosity in all of us – in ourselves, our companies and communities to make a difference no matter what motivates us. No matter how big or small. Here at Dell Technologies, a key pillar of our giving strategy is to empower our employees for collective impact. Making individual giving bigger. For every dollar a team member gives to a charity of their choice, up to $10,000 through our giving tool, we match. Doubling the collective impact of employee-led philanthropy. For our family, this is personal. Dell helps make our impact bigger, which we see every year in the kid we help send to college.
This Giving Tuesday – a day started in 2012 to encourage people to do good – we celebrate the generosity in all of us – in ourselves, our companies and communities to make a difference no matter what motivates us.”
We also see our direct impact from the time we give. Simon Seagrave, director of the Dell Technologies demo team, joined a national movement to use 3D printing as a stopgap measure to address the personal protective equipment (PPE) shortage we saw earlier this year. Using his own 3D printer and buying a new one, Simon is making face shields for frontline COVID-19 responders.
So far this year, team members like Simon have given more than 460,000 hours to their communities and innovated social solutions to help us reach our goal of impacting 1 billion lives by 2030. Kim Boutwell, one of our giving team managers, turned her idea to deliver technology skills and access to students at-scale into a company-led initiative. What has become known as the Dell Student TechCrew, Kim’s program trains students to be on-campus technical support at their high schools. When it piloted last year, more than 120 high school students completed Dell TechDirect certification—the same certification our customers and internal teams complete to support and service our customers. By the end of this year, roughly 2,000 Student Tech Crew members will be certified and go on to train the next class and provide technical support to 250,000 of their classmates. It’s a self-sustaining model with our technology expertise at the heart of it.
Like with Dell Student TechCrew, our corporate giving focus is to put our technology, people and scale to work to transform lives. But we can’t do it alone. It takes partnership and a collaborative effort, which is why we launched the Tech Pro Bono platform. Tech Pro Bono pairs nonprofits in need of expertise with Dell team members who have matching skillsets. Since we started in 2019, team members have contributed more than 1,700 hours, collectively contributing to projects like implementing inventory management systems and data migration. This year, the focus extended to help reach our goal of digitally transforming 1,000 non-profits. This is especially important in the wake of the pandemic. One of the biggest obstacles charitable organizations face as they adapt to a more virtual world is the lack of infrastructure and access to technologies to move their work online. Since digital transformation is our business, we’re here to help.
Our pro bono work with the Women’s Peace and Humanitarian Fund (WPHF), a global United Nations (UN) partnership that supports women-led peace building groups, is a great example of technology accelerating impact. Together, we’ve established an online community that facilitates knowledge sharing for grassroots peace builders in 20 countries. It’s sparked collaboration and a global movement of women working to build peace and respond to crises on the front lines.
Transforming 1 billion lives feels audacious and unachievable at times. It will require a lot from us. But because giving is personal, I know we can achieve it. This Giving Tuesday, we have a lot to celebrate and a lot more to give. One volunteer, one gift, one life at a time. Together, we can do it.
Find out more on our 2030 Social Impact agenda and how we are measuring our progress here.
