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Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff Launches Compassionate Capitalism, First-Ever Book on Best Practices for Corporate Philanthropy
With a foreword by Alan Hassenfeld, chairman of Hasbro, and case studies from Hasbro, Microsoft, IBM, PG&E, Cisco, Timberland and others, Compassionate Capitalism examines the successful integration of philanthropy and business
January 22, 2004
DAVOS, Switzerland – January 22, 2004 – Launched at Davos, today marks the worldwide debut of Compassionate Capitalism, a new book from Marc Benioff, chairman and CEO of salesforce.com and founder of the salesforce.com/foundation. Benioff wrote Compassionate Capitalism in conjunction with author and business journalist Karen Southwick to advocate a pioneering new model of integrated corporate philanthropy. With a foreword by Alan Hassenfeld, chairman of Hasbro [NYSE: HAS], the book looks at how corporations can make doing good an integral part of doing well, and illustrates the best practices from such companies as Cisco [NASDAQ: CSCO], Coca-Cola [NYSE: KO], General Motors [NYSE: GM], Hasbro, Hewlett Packard [NYSE: HPQ], IBM [NYSE: IBM], Microsoft [NASDAQ: MSFT], PG&E [NYSE: PCG], Starbucks [NASDAQ: SBUX], Timberland [NYSE: TBL], and Wells Fargo [NYSE: WFC].
Inspired by the philanthropic work of these companies, and the philosophy Benioff himself has embedded at salesforce.com and the salesforce.com/foundation, the book shares the importance and remarkable success of the integrated philanthropy model. Compassionate Capitalism examines the best practices of this model and teaches small and large companies how they can use their resources to help the communities in which they exist, and in doing so, help themselves and their employees.
“The company that makes ‘doing good’ a core piece of its management philosophy empowers its employees, engages its customers, and strengthens its community,” said Robert K. Goodwin, president and CEO, Points of Light Foundation. “In ten years, I expect that integrated philanthropy will be the norm rather than the exception.”
Compassionate Capitalism proposes that business and community needs are actually closely aligned, and encourages companies to make serving the community a central focus. The notion of philanthropy as separate from a corporation’s regular operations is finished. The new model says that philanthropy must be woven into every thread of corporate existence so that it becomes a part of the cultural fabric of the corporation itself.
“Every year, corporate philanthropic foundations pour $30 billion into their endeavors in the U.S. alone,” said Benioff. “Many of these efforts occur in isolation with little or no relationship to the communities in which they operate, the people they employ, or their corporate missions. Compassionate Capitalism calls for a new model – one that closely aligns business and community goals and focuses on serving the communities in which a business operates.”
For more information on the results of the integrated philanthropy model or to order a copy of Compassionate Capitalism, please visit www.salesforce.com/foundation orwww.careerpress.com. The book is also available from Amazon at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1564147142/qid=1074296947/sr=1-9/ref=sr_1_9/104-2661006-4772742?v=glance&s=books.
About salesforce.com
Salesforce.com is the world's leader in delivering on demand applications. It offers the award-winning salesforce.com family of on demand solutions for integrated sales force automation, customer service and support, marketing automation, document management, contract management, and analytics to help companies meet the complex challenges of global customer communication. It has also introduced sforce 2.0, the salesforce.com on demand application server that will change how applications are built as significantly as salesforce.com changed how applications are delivered. Sforce 2.0 allows developers to rapidly create, build and deploy new on demand applications that are hosted by salesforce.com. Salesforce.com has received considerable industry recognition, including Editors' Choice and two Five-Star ratings from PC Magazine, two Deploy Awards from InfoWorld, two SIIA Codie Awards for best CRM, Editors' Choice from TMC Labs, Computing Magazine’s Enterprise Product of the year for 2003, Forbes Magazine’s “Best of the Web,” a Webby Business Award and the 2003 US Chamber of Commerce Corporate Stewardship Award. The company has more than 8,400 customers and 120,000 subscribers running its services in 11 languages. Founded in 1999, salesforce.com is headquartered in San Francisco, with offices in Europe and Asia. For more information please visit www.salesforce.com or call 1-800 NO-SOFTWARE.
About salesforce.com/foundation
Salesforce.com/foundation is the leader in integrating philanthropy and business. Through its model of donating 1% of profits to the community annually, 1% of salesforce.com equity to its programs and 1% of employee working hours to community service, the Foundation is building a new model for corporations to better serve the communities in which they operate. The Foundation also strives to better the lives of youth by providing relevant access to technology for youth in underserved communities both domestically and abroad. The Foundation works with other corporations, youth development agencies, and NGOs to create a society in which children, regardless of socio-economic background, ethnicity or learning level, have access to technology and understand how to use it to enhance their lives. Since July 2000, the Foundation has opened 43 Community Technology Centers across the globe serving nearly 50,000 youth and other community members; has provided close to 8,000 hours of service to the community through salesforce.com's 400 employee volunteers; and offers the salesforce.com award winning online customer relationship management application to more than 100 qualified nonprofits globally saving them hundreds of thousands of dollars every year. More information is available at http://www.salesforce.com/foundation
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