Build-A-Bear Makes #GivingTuesday Fun in the Office

What is GivingTuesday? It’s a movement of generosity and a day to volunteer or donate resources to your community. If you know anything about Salesforce, giving back is part of how we do business — and something our 45,000+ employees take great pride in. 

This year, in partnership with Build-A-Bear Workshop, Salesforce lobbies in New York and San Francisco were transformed into #GivingTuesday workshops where local employees had the chance to build a stuffed animal to be gifted to kids in need through the YMCA of San Francisco and YMCA of Greater New York. In total, employees created 1,300 bears — 300 more than last year. Bay Area television station KGO-ABC 7 stopped by to capture the magic in action.

Last year’s total for #GivingTuesday was $400 million and though we don’t know 2019’s tally, we suspect it will surpass that number. In our company alone, employees requested $211,000 in matching funds this past #GivingTuesday — that’s $75,000 more than last year!

Contributing to the Sustainable Development Goals on #GivingTuesday

At Dreamforce ‘19 we kicked off a year of action for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) – the 17 global goals that measure our collective progress against the world’s most pressing challenges by 2030. Over the next year, Salesforce will donate $17M to advance the SDGs through grants to nonprofit partners and company matches for employee donations. We are also challenging our employees to donate 1M volunteer hours to advance progress on these goals.

We’re off to a great start to our year of action with #GivingTuesday efforts supporting the YMCA and SDG #3 focused on good health and well-being.

The YMCA of San Francisco serves more than 25,000 kids per day across four counties in the Bay Area, and the YMCA of Greater New York serves more than 75,000 kids across the five boroughs of New York City and their upstate camp. We are proud to support the YMCA year-round — in fact — employees have volunteered more than 21,000 hours with the organization.

Foster the spirit of giving

At Salesforce, volunteering time and money are year-round efforts. In fact, employees have volunteered more than 4.5 million hours with the causes we care about. While this year’s #GivingTuesday is over, you can continue to support those organizations that matter to you. Plus, Charity Navigator and Global Giving are great resources to find organizations that map back to the SDGs.

And, if you want to support the YMCA and the incredible work they do, donate to the San Francisco and New York chapters.