“If everyone just gave a little bit of time, it’s amazing the impact we can make”

Salesforce’s commitment to corporate philanthropy continues to be one of the most important reasons why people join our company. It certainly was for Nathan Tableman, a Senior Success Architect based in our New York Office – who has, since joining Salesforce offered his time, on a pro bono basis to help nonprofit organizations around the world increase their impact through the use of technology. Most recently, Nathan has been working with GAVI – the vaccine alliance, helping them increase immunization coverage in the countries they work, and ultimately, save more children’s lives.

Nathan’s first taste of Salesforce philanthropy was at Dreamforce in 2011, when he attended not as an employee, but as a guest.

At the Keynote presentation, he was immediately struck by Marc Benioff’s commitment to giving back, which left him thinking: “I want to work for a place like this!”. And, so in 2012 Nathan joined Salesforce.

Today, as an employee, he says: “I love working here – because of this.”

With over 20 years experience building and architecting solutions across a wide range of industries, Nathan has a lot to offer nonprofits. On recommendation from a Salesforce colleague, he began to work with GAVI, the Vaccine Alliance earlier this year.

David Nix, Chief Knowledge Officer at GAVI explains: “Nathan spent a number of weeks planning, designing and configuring Salesforce to prepare for our implementation. During this time, Nathan was able to integrate GAVI’s system with other technologies we are using and redesigned our UI, among other things.

“Nathan offered his time to help guide us towards best practices with security, data modeling, user experience design options, as well as areas we weren’t even thinking about. He provided experience and insight to solve technical challenges that will ensure that our Salesforce solution meets the goal of saving more children’s lives. We’re grateful for his time, but more importantly for his contribution to the mission!”

Nathan’s relationship with GAVI benefits both the organization and Nathan personally, as he admits, “it feels awesome to be able to use my skills, to make an impact on organizations like GAVI.” And although Nathan has traveled to meet with GAVI, generally he volunteers a couple of hours a week on a consultation call – something that he says is “so simple”.

Everyone has something to contribute to make the world a little better. Whether you have IT expertise or maybe marketing, whether you’re a web designer or could offer communications guidance. A couple of hours of your time could mean so much to organizations with limited resources.

Nathan puts it simply as he says “If everyone just gave a little bit of time, it’s amazing the impact we can make.”

More about GAVI:
GAVI is a global health partnership that aims to save children’s lives and protect people’s health by increasing access to immunization in poor countries. Since its inception in 2,000 GAVI have achieved a lot; disbursed over US$70 billion to over 70 countries, immunized 500 million children, reduced the Rotavirus vaccine cost by 67% to US$ 2.50 and helped avert 4 million deaths between 2011-2015.