Pro Bono Pro Leah McGowen-Hare Gives Back by Teaching Women in Tech

It’s National Pro Bono Week and Salesforce is celebrating by recognizing five outstanding Pro Bono Pros who use their Salesforce skills to drive social change. Pro Bono Week is a global celebration of the pro bono ethic that drives professionals across the world to use their talents to make a difference. Today we recognize Leah McGowen-Hare!

Leah McGowen-Hare, a Master Technical Instructor at Salesforce, has done a remarkable amount of pro bono volunteering during the five years she has been with Salesforce. Leah lends her technical expertise to nonprofits getting started with Salesforce and is a regular contributor to the Power of Us Hub, Salesforce.org’s customer success community, She even traveled to Haiti last year to work with nonprofits aiding in the earthquake relief effort.

This year, Leah challenged herself to find a new way to leverage her skills and decided that as a passionate teacher, there was no more meaningful way to give back than to share her Salesforce knowledge! Leah organized an Administration Essentials for New Admins course for women in technology and volunteered a week of her time to deliver it, so that nonprofits could send their IT professionals to the class for free. 19 organizations sent representatives to attend the course. The class was a huge hit and attendees left feeling empowered with a new set of technical skills. They returned to their organizations ready to transform programs and processes on the Salesforce1 Platform.

Hear more from Leah’s students in this video about the class:

Leah’s pro bono work inspired her fellow Master Technical Trainer, Chris Barry, to volunteer his own time teaching a similar class for nonprofit developers. When other employees ask Leah about pro bono, she says, “Do it! Not only will you be making a huge deposit in the ‘good karma’ account, but your actions will inspire others to do the same. Doing good is infectious!”

Thank you to Leah McGowen-Hare for demonstrating the very best of Salesforce’s culture of giving back. In honor of Leah, Salesforce.org is making a $250 donation to her charity of choice.

In FY15, 1,800 Salesforce employees logged 11,000 hours in pro bono volunteerism. If you are interested in learning more about pro bono at Salesforce visit salesforcefoundation.org/probono.