Supporting a 21st Century Workforce Through Strategic Grants

At Salesforce.org, we’re focused on education and workforce development to make sure the next generation has the skills and training needed for the jobs of tomorrow.

In close partnership with Salesforce, we provide under-resourced young adults with transformative opportunities to explore and/or launch a career. Through programs, partnerships, and philanthropic investment, young adults receive experience, confidence, skills and social capital (i.e. networks that are required to help level the playing field), ultimately contributing to a more accessible, equitable, and diverse workforce.

Our strategic grant portfolio enables us to respond to the needs of our local communities within the realm of education and workforce development.

There are many organizations across the globe facilitating impactful work in workforce development—connecting vulnerable young adults with skills and opportunities to enter the professional world. We’re excited to announce recent grant funding to the following organizations.

Jobs4refugees (J4R) integrates young refugees into the German workforce, addressing the “support gap” for the 1,000,000 refugees who entered Germany last year. The organization is building a database to capture the skills and ambitions of all newcomers. The aim is to create a streamlined and efficient process for refugees and employers to connect. Support for the refugees includes CV writing skills, interviewing skills, technical training, and job placement support. Once a refugee and employer have been matched, jobs4refugees continues to support both parties with post-placement resources. Jobs4refugees is one of Salesforce.org’s partner organizations for BuddyForce, a program that provides mentoring for refugees, along with technical and professional skill training required to re-enter the workforce.

C4Q (Coalition for Queens) creates pathways out of poverty through technology. Through its Access Code program, they teach adults who are living in poverty and who do not have college degrees to code and helps them gain software engineering jobs. In under a year, graduates go from making $18,000 to over $85,000 post-program, going from poverty to the middle class in the process. C4Q believes that people from every community and background—across ethnicity, gender, and socio-economic background—should have the opportunity to learn to code, gain jobs in tech, and create companies of the future. Our grant to C4Q will support software development training and job placement for its Access Code program.

ScriptEd’s Advanced Class program leverages tech sector employees to teach diverse, low income NYC high school students a year-long advanced computer science course. At our New York hub, a group of committed employees volunteer each week during the school year to facilitate this advanced CS course. ScriptEd is also helping prepare students for tech sector internships during the summer after the program, ultimately preparing them to major in STEM in college and launch a career in the field.

NPower Canada launches underserved young adults in the Greater Toronto Area into meaningful IT careers by providing 15 weeks of no-cost technical and professional skills training followed by paid internships, job placements and 2 years of post-hire support. NPower Canada will use its grant to add a new campus in the York Region, serving 180 more opportunity youth in 2017.

iDEW (Informatics Diversity-Enhanced Workforce) is a nationally recognized, dual-credit STEM program designed to increase participation of women and underrepresented minorities in IT careers. Indiana University School of Informatics and Computing at IUPUI faculty create and deliver an innovative IT curriculum in three Indianapolis-area high schools that will benefit 360 students by 2019. Salesforce.org’s support will facilitate the daily teaching of 10 innovative learning modules, including: coding, app development, game design, web design and development, problem solving and critical thinking. The program’s long-term goals are to create a direct pipeline of iDEW students pursuing post-secondary IT education or IT employment after high school graduation.

Salesforce.org is inspired by the work of our partners and we are proud to support their missions. By uniting the passion of our employees and the power of our product we aim to empower youth, their families, and the communities where we live and work.

Learn more about our Workforce Development program and previous grantees.