1/1/1 Model

An Interview with Marc Benioff, Chairman and Chief Executive Offi cer, .com

EDITORS’ NOTE Marc Benioff is You created the 1/1/1 integrated know the number of users, log-in rates, and regarded as the leader of what he corporate philanthropy model how they are using the service and what other has termed “The End of Software.” for the Salesforce.com Foundation. applications they need. We even use it to track He has been widely recognized Would you highlight the model and grant outcomes as well as our youth programs, with honors such as being named a how it has impacted your efforts in including the number of students placed in in- Young Global Leader by the mem- this area? ternships, number of years, promotions, and bers of , the When we incorporated salesforce.com, scholarships, as well as years in college, grades, 2007 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur we created the salesforce.com Foundation graduation rates, and job placements. This ap- of the Year award, and was ap- as a public charity. The idea was for plication has been so effective at helping us pointed by President George W. the foundation to be integrated into the evaluate and achieve our goals that we’ve also Bush as the Co-Chairman of the company and to grow with it. our 1/1/1 made it available for other companies to use. President’s Information Technology model disseminates a portion of the fi - How do you engage employees in Advisory Committee, serving from Marc Benioff nancial and intellectual wealth of the salesforce.com’s social responsibility efforts? 2003 to 2005. Prior to launching organization to those most in need: 1 per- all new hires participate in a volunteer ac- salesforce.com in 1999, Benioff spent 13 years at cent equity, so using 1 percent of founding stock tivity at their orientation, in which they have a from 1986 to 1999. In 1984, to offer grants and monetary assistance to those in chance to help replant a forgotten park, paint a he worked as an assembly language program- need, especially to support youth and technology school, or help serve meals at a homeless shelter. mer in Apple Computer’s Macintosh Division. programs; 1 percent time, so fi nding meaningful We’ve seen that the effect of those fi rst few hours He founded entertainment software company activities for salesforce.com employees during their of volunteering stays with most employees for a Liberty Software in 1979 when he was 15 years six paid days off a year devoted to volunteerism, long time, because they continue their involve- old. Benioff is the author of The business of and promoting a culture of caring; and 1 percent ment with our foundation, and their interest, along Changing the World, Compassionate Capitalism, product, so facilitating the donation of salesforce. with the work of our foundation team, has helped and behind the Cloud. He received a Bachelor com subscriptions to nonprofi ts, helping them in- the foundation grow and scale around the world. of Science in Business Administration from the crease their operating effectiveness and focus more We also ask employees what they want to University of Southern in 1986. resources on their core mission. focus on, which generates a sense of owner- We do this because an integrated corporate ship. We listen to employees and we let the COMPANY BRIEF A publicly traded company, philanthropic model is a better, more sustainable foundation change as we evolve as a company. salesforce.com is the market and technology way to give back. If adopted on a large scale, it You recently announced that you and leader in enterprise . The compa- could change philanthropy as we know it. your wife, Lynne, will focus your personal ny’s portfolio of Salesforce CRM applications and How do you focus your giving efforts for philanthropy for the next 10 years on a Salesforce Chatter allows companies to collaborate salesforce.com and is it important that these new medical center in with a and communicate with their customers across efforts align with the fi rm’s business strategy? $100 million dollar gift to UCSF Children’s sales, marketing, and service functions, and their We do not look at it as trying to solve social Hospital. Would you discuss this effort and Force.com platform enables customers, partners, problems that will make us more profi table, but the impact that you hope will come from and developers to quickly build powerful business of course there is a secondary gain to what we do. your commitment? applications to run every part of the enterprise in If our communities are more successful, we will For the past two decades, we’ve been in- the cloud. Salesforce.com manages customer in- be more successful. and employees fi nd more volved in philanthropy, both personally and formation for approximately 92,300 customers meaning in their daily work here because of the through the salesforce.com Foundation, invest- including Allianz Commercial, Dell, Japan Post, foundation, so that makes us a stronger company. ing in areas such as education, health care, and Kaiser Permanente, KONE, and SunTrust Banks. We are committed to donating our product human rights. to nonprofi ts, and we have seen amazing results a few months ago we announced our most Would you highlight the importance of cor- as organizations can better manage and share in- signifi cant philanthropic gift ever – $100 million porate philanthropy and social responsibil- formation. We also sell our service at an 80 per- to uCsF Children’s Hospital – and with that gift, ity to the culture of salesforce.com? cent discount to any nonprofi t that wants more we changed our focus. Instead of support- It’s a critical piece of our business. We be- than 10 licenses. This generates revenue for our ing a wide variety of organizations, we now lieve in the power of corporate philanthropy. foundation, makes it self-sustaining, and enables concentrate on just one. This investment is businesses need to be responsible to their com- our grant programs to grow year over year. aligned with our own interests – advancing munities, employees, and shareholders. How do you measure the success of health care – and it’s where we think we can our approach to philanthropy has helped your efforts? make the greatest difference. differentiate us in the market for key talent, and The first application we built on the In the past six months, our gift has spurred it helps us determine if candidates are a fi t with Force.com platform measures everything related over $25 million in additional investment to our values and culture. our foundation and the to our foundation. It tracks volunteer hours and support the new hospital by leveraging re- activities that fl ow from it keep us connected to the percent of volunteerism by department. sources like Facebook Causes, which is chang- our communities around the world. It also measures product donation so that we ing philanthropy.• volume 34, number 2 Leaders 75