2006 Volunteers of the Year

Americas, East

Americas, West

Europe, Middle East, Africa

Asia Pacific

Americas - East

Cindy Warner, Sr. Vice President: Global Technology Services

Michigan

"The Foundation is our secret sauce!" Anyone who has been around Cindy Warner for more than 30 minutes will probably hear this come out of her mouth. From the moment she began working at salesforce.com, Cindy has been a champion of the Foundation and its programs.

Not only is Cindy a member of the Americas East Steering Committee, but she has spoken on behalf of the company and the Foundation at conferences, been an on-site lead for volunteer activities in the Detroit area, and is often willing to sponsor a happy hour for volunteers after an event. One of Cindy's biggest contributions was being the catalyst for the first ever inclusion of a volunteer activity with a user group meeting. This was such a big hit that the Detroit Area User Group now wants to make this a twice yearly part of there meetings, and the Foundation is working to offer volunteer opportunities to other user group meeting around the country.

Cindy is a great example of a company leader who has bought into the Power of Us and is consistently trying to find more ways for the company and its employees to get involved. Our hats are off to her as we recognize her as a Volunteer of the Year!

Yi (EJ) Li, Business Analyst

New York

It is difficult to find a more successful and inspiring example of the 1% model than Yi Li's work with the New York City nonprofit New Heights. For five months Yi, or "EJ" as she is known in the salesforce.com office, volunteered her time and energy to this wonderful organization that develops leadership skills and educational success in student-athletes in Harlem, Washington Heights, and the Bronx.

EJ's relationship with New Heights began by chance when she signed up for the volunteer program to assist nonprofits who want to use the donated salesforce.com technology to improve their operations. A member of New York Cares, she recognizes and appreciates how the company is socially conscious, and wanted to volunteer through the Salesforce.com Foundation because working with a nonprofit salesforce.com customer is the perfect way to mix the 1% time and 1% product elements of the corporate philanthropic model.

The major challenge of this project would be to transfer five years worth of information about the students and their parents, as well as records of supporters and donors, into salesforce.com from old paper records and MS Access. Giving her four paid hours a month, and generously adding more of her own personal time on a few weekends, EJ managed a successful migration of all of New Heights's data, eliminating duplicate records and enabling New Heights to capture information more accurately and run meaningful reports.

Initially, EJ thought that the job would be a simple one. It quickly became apparent that would not be the case as New Heights is involved in a lot of different activities including academics, athletics, youth leadership, counseling, and family workshops on higher education and finances. The other challenge was simply finding the time to do the actual work that New Heights required.

Despite these hurdles, EJ completed her goal at the end of November, in time for New Heights to use its new database for a holiday mailing; a fact in which EJ takes great pride. Looking back, EJ is certain that she would participate in future philanthropic work with nonprofit salesforce.com customers, and recommends that other salesforce.com employees do the same. The other outcome that is rewarding for her is New Heights's appreciation for her dedication to them and the success of the overall product. Daria Brown, the Director of Finance for New Heights, concurs. "She was truly a great help. EJ designed more than just a contact database system for New Heights Youth Inc., but has helped create a better work environment and stronger community. With her help we can now reach out to both current and potential supporters effectively; hence, we can spread the word about our work more efficiently and with greater impact. We will also be able to reach and interact with our kids and families better. This helps us maintain strong programs and solid relationships."

Ms. Brown had this to add about EJ: "She dedicated many hours to help us push our mission forward. She wanted to make sure all of our needs were met. She went above and beyond the call of duty and helped manage perfecting the system. She is a great teacher as well and explained the importance of the technical aspects of the system so we could survive on our own. Her insight and knowledge is as amazing as her beautiful spirit, dedication and commitment to making our organization and the New York City community a better place."

All those hours had one final positive impact on New Heights. In addition to the 1% time and 1% product parts of the Salesforce.com Foundation mission, the time EJ spent working with New Heights qualifies the organization for a "Dollars for Doers" grant, so that 1% equity will complete the three elements of the 1% model, and bring this success story full circle.

For this and many other reasons, EJ Li is one of the Salesforce.com Foundation's Volunteers of the Year.

Kyle Thompson, Senior Sales Consultant

Toronto

Kyle ThompsonKyle Thompson is the first employee from the Toronto office to receive the Salesforce.com Foundation Volunteer of the Year award. Since joining the company in May, he has volunteered nearly 300 hours with the Toronto Police Service Auxiliary. As a volunteer police office, Kyle spends time answering safety questions from children and their parents, registering bicycles, patrolling community events and fairs, and many other things to make Toronto a safer place.

When asked what he likes best about volunteering with the Toronto Police Service Auxiliary, Kyle had to say: “I think it comes down to helping. And as an Auxiliary, I get tons of opportunities to do that…everything from talking to a little boy at a school fair about what it’s like to be a “police officer”; to finding a missing child or senior in a large crowd; to stopping cars in an Anti-Drinking and Driving spot check. You’re always helping someone, or making people or places feel safer. Toronto is a very multicultural city with hundreds of thousands of people who are first generation immigrants. Some of them are from countries where the police are corrupt, or simply not respected. With that in mind, I personally go out each shift with the goal to improve at least one person’s opinion of the Police service and its members.”

We applaud Kyle’s dedication and sense of civic responsibility. His impact on the Toronto community is immeasurable.

Americas - West

Stephanie Gilmour, Manager - Business Operations

San Francisco

Stephanie GilmourStephanie has been a consistent and reliable supporter of the Salesforce.com Foundation both internally and externally. She is supportive and knowledgeable of our needs for changes or modifications in our use of salesforce as well as offering reliable and immediate feedback on foundation programs and processes. Her four years on the Steering Committee have been invaluable.

In addition to her support of the Foundation and our internal use of the application for over five years we'd like to recognize her efforts in the community. Stephanie has been involved with the "I'm All Ears" program at Jean Parker for five years and has read with over 100 students throughout the year. Stephanie is always the first to sign up for the Raphael House Galas and runs an organized and streamlined silent auction process. We can always count on her to mentor the students of BizAcademy and rally her team to participate in these programs as well. Stephanie's volunteer recruiting and team leading efforts have also led our nonprofit communities to be successful.

Anika Keswani, Consultant Corporate Sales

Austin

Anika KeswaniAnika helped with the implenetation and support of one of our Turn It Up grant recipients, NESsT. She spent close to 30 hours modifying page layouts, workflow, custom objects, reports and dashboards as well as educating the organization on the use of the excel connector. Additionally, she spent many hours training them on being system administrators.

Anika also took her six paid time off to participate in a Cross Cultural Solutions trip to Thailand, teaching English and helping out in a public health center.

Katherine Risso, Sales Ops Compliance Manager

San Francisco

Katherine RissoKatherine has given over200 hours on her own time to volunteering with Friends of Marin Stables. She is helping to restore a historical usage site. Katherine is a committed board member of the Marin Horse Council which is a group that helps to preserve Marin's Trails and horse community. She is involved with the Cancer Therapy Program working with breast cancer patients and horses. She has spent many hours helping with fundraising events, marketing, and book keeping for these events.

Katherine has also been involved with the Finance team outing in July where the entire department will spend half a day out in our under-resourced communities.

After receiving this honor, Katherine was extremely appreciative and immediately responded that her $500 award go towards the Friends of Marin Stables. At times this kind of effort can feel like a thankless job, but Katherine is proud and honored to be able to support a cause she believes in.

Europe, Middle East, Africa

Peter Grant, Country Manager

United Kingdom

Peter GrantPeter gave 127 volunteer hours in FY06 - the highest ranking volunteer in EMEA this year. Not only did he give a lot of time, but also raised a lot of money. He initiated and organized what is now an annual Salesforce.com Regatta. This year his efforts helped raise over £11,000 for charities and gave a fabulous day out to a group of kids from Kids Company

In June, EMEA's first BizAcademy took place in London with Landmark Training. Months before that, Peter was deeply involved in structuring the curriculum and getting other volunteers bought into the idea. He attended and instructed on all three days of the course for 10 young people from East London, and even provided one of the learner's prizes: a ride home in his Ferrari!

Peter was a firm but fair judge at the Soapbox Derby, attended by BizAcademy graduates in the summer.

Peter incorporates the Foundation wherever he can into his job; at Christmas he initiated a leads drive, with money to benefit Kids Company. He also ensured that £1000 raised during a customer day out was donated to Foundation grantee PhotoVoice.

Deirdre Ní Dheá, Professional Services

Dublin

Deirdre Ni DheaDeirdre's involvement with Salesforce.com Foundation has been consistent since she started to work for the Company in 2003.

She's been particularly involved with the ‘Barretstown Gang' (they offer fun weekend to seriously ill children), making their seasonal long-weekends camps, a yearly appointment. In 2006, she participated in the autumn camp as well as doing the 5-day bereavement camp. Despite the nature of these camps being very emotionally demanding, Deirdre's commitment and enthusiasm has been outstanding.

Deirdre also volunteered in other Foundation sponsored activities, showing to be reliable and trustworthy.

In addition, she's been involved with several salesforce non-profits key accounts by providing technical assistance and working on their implementation requirements.

In the last Year Deirdre has done over 77 hours of volunteering

Zoe O'Flynn , Services Account Executive

Dublin

Zoe O'FlynnZoe has been with salesforce.com for just over 3 years, and has shown tremendous support for Foundation activities last year. She actively assisted by co-hosting and fundraising for Kenya in the St. Martins School Pub Quiz in Dublin 2006.

She volunteered on 3-day Weekend Camps with Barretstown - an organisations that provides weekend fun activities for the families who have member with a longterm illness.

Zoe is committed to ongoing one-to-one weekly mentoring sessions with a teenage boy from the Dublin YMCA, labelled as illiterate and dyslexic and lacking in formal school education. Thanks in part to her dedication, he is now making huge progress, is well able to read and write and is much more confident, thanks to the weekly sessions and attention.

Her friendliness and enthusiasm to jump in and help has made her a valuable volunteer - she recently volunteered with CityWise Education Centre at ice-skating and fully took on the responsibility of ensuring each child was having a good time.

In her role in salesforce.com Zoe helps many nonprofit accounts arrange Administrator training through the Foundations' Donation program

Asia Pacific

Sarah Yeom, Collections Specialist

Singapore

Sarah YeomSarah has done amazing work with the Foundation this past year. She has given over 50 hours of her time to help design and run volunteer projects, including a Community Action Team in a Korean ophanage. She also was instrumental in organizing a recent visit to hospitalized children in Singapore. Sarah took the lead in organizing outstanding volunteers for BizAcademy which took place in the office. Additionally, she worked with our partner youth organization and HR to place 6 students in internships in the office.

Sarah's enthusiasm for community work, and in particular for any action addressing the needs of children, make her a great partner for the Foundation and more importantly the community where we do business.

Misako Tobari, Business Development

Tokyo

Misako TobariMisako has served on the Foundation steering committee for two years, and has spent over 100 hours of her time volunteering over the course of these past two years. She has helped run several Volunteer Week' programs, welcome many young interns during their time at our office, and participated actively in the developement of the BizAcademy program, both in Tokyo and Singapore. Her commitment and resourcefulness makes her a key employee for the Foundation in Japan.