Innovation Through Philanthropy - Silicon Valley Community ...

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Dan Warmenhoven, left, and Emmett D. Carson. not quite at our normal profit levels. But giving is important to our employees. Recently, we had to reduce employment, about 6 percent of our global work force. You could argue that if we didn’t give $2 million to nonprofits, we might have more to support employment. Recently, we agreed to give about $250,000 in used equipment to help Second Harvest develop a database. One of our employees agreed to do the install. Turns out he was one of the people affected by the reduction in force. It was the week that he was to do the install, and he lost his job. He showed up anyway. He lost his job on Monday, and he showed up on Thursday to do the installation. Finding the balance between what’s fair to all parties is challenging. So how do you make those choices The issue for us comes down to cash and how much you put forward. The volunteer time-off program is popular, and it’s not going away. And in-kind donations are going to continue. You can’t just take one of the constituents and say, “Too bad. We’ll get back to you later.” This is a very challenging time, and the needs are even higher than usual. More people are out of work. I’m sure contributions to the nonprofits from the donor community are down. It’s a situation where the needs are greatest and yet the capacity is the lowest. One of NetApp’s founders has just written a book. Can you tell me about it We understand he’s generously donating his royalty proceeds to the NetApp Fund, a corporate advised fund at Silicon Valley Community Foundation. It’s called How to Castrate a Bull, and it’s Dave Hitz’s life, and a story about NetApp, too. Dave is a remarkable, gifted individual who was invited to attend a very select college called Deep Springs on the California-Nevada border. The students, besides being students, also work as farm hands. This is a life experience, and the class president every spring has to castrate a bull. The reason for the title, he says, is that was the first time he really understood the issues around managing risk. He had to figure out how he was going to do this without getting “We would like the people in each of these communities to feel that we’re a good neighbor.” himself kicked in the head and killed. When you’re in a startup, it’s all about risk management, so he found great similarities in that. How to Castrate a Bull is more about how to form a company and get through the very difficult times. It’s a great little read. What do you see going forward a few years, past the end of the recession Philanthropy is going to continue to grow, and we’ve been pretty creative at keeping it going through the downturn. One example stems from the policy we have here that vice presidents and above don’t officially have a vacation plan. So when we promote somebody internally, there’s vacation that’s accrued that they’re going to forfeit. What happens to the accrual The money’s already been set aside, so Jan [Stewart, community relations manager] said, “Let’s give it to our communities,” and created the NetApp Fund. The point is, there are ways to come up with creative funding to continue growing. Why do you work with the community foundation We’re proud of the fact that you’re the first company to do so after the merger. This is going to sound like we’re not interested in hard work, but, frankly, it just makes it easy. It takes away all the administrative and compliance issues. We don’t lose any control, but we make sure that everything is done the right way. What advice would you give other companies seeking to contribute as you have done Tie your efforts and programs back to the employees. As a policy, I don’t think we’ve ever given any funds or equipment to an organization where we didn’t have employee involvement first. The volunteer time-off program is an employee benefit and a community benefit. Most of the things we do are in that zone. It’s not either/or. Even when we were a very small company of perhaps 100 employees, the employees quickly became active in support of Second Harvest. That certainly has grown. Another one is the heart walk for the American Heart Association. We’ve participated in that now for over a decade. There are more NetApp employees at the walk than almost any other company. one Robert houser 14 innovation through philanthropy www.siliconvalleycf.org
siliconvalleycf.org Silicon Valley Community Foundation news and resources c Sustaining Innovation If Silicon Valley is to maintain its place as a center of innovation, its people need to apply their innovative thinking to develop and nurture a changing work force. That key message comes from Economic Restructuring and Workforce Transitions, a special analysis with the 2009 Index of Silicon Valley. The index is a comprehensive examination of the region’s economy and the health of the community, produced in partnership by Joint Venture: Silicon Valley Network and Silicon Valley Community Foundation. The special analysis focuses on the impact that the shifting economy and changing industries have on the community. The region needs to fill 30,000 jobs annually until 2016, and 70 percent of those jobs will replace current workers. The region is not producing enough skilled workers to fill replacement jobs, including those in the tech sector. Also, some of the fastestgrowing industries are in community infrastructure, including health services, education, transportation and others. Meeting work force needs in these areas is crucial, as they provide the backbone of support that allows other industries to flourish. “We need a strong system of work force development to support adult worker retraining and transition,” says Emmett D. Carson, Ph.D., CEO and president of the community foundation. “The cost of inaction will undermine the region’s innovative capacity and overall competitiveness and, with it, our regional prosperity and quality of life.” For the full index and special analysis, visit www.siliconvalleycf.org/ONE/31c. Beyond the 3Rs In March, more than 100 donors and leaders joined top thinkers to learn what skills students will need to succeed in the future. “Beyond the 3Rs: Literacies for the 21st Century” featured a distinguished panel of experts including Linda Darling-Hammond, leader of President Obama’s education transition team; former Adobe Systems CEO Bruce Chizen; and Gary Knell, CEO of Sesame Workshop. These experts led a rich discussion about innovations in digital learning, the skills employers require and the national policies needed to support our schools and students. eBay’s Bid for Business Services When eBay Foundation became an independent, private foundation on Jan. 1, 2009, it marked milestones for both eBay and the community foundation. eBay Foundation started as a donor advised fund at a parent organization of the community foundation in 1998; since then, it has made more than $18.5 million in grants to further its mission to contribute to the economic and social well-being of local communities. Now, it has evolved and will design and operate its own grant programs. It also has become the first fee-for-service client of the community foundation’s new business services department, created in 2008 to harness the power of corporate philanthropy. The community foundation will continue to manage the assets of the private eBay Foundation and will provide accounting, audit and other support services under the new structure. Read more at www.siliconvalleycf.org/ONE/31d. A Soaring Report T a k i n g In February 2009, the community foundation published Taking Flight in Turbulent Times, a report that reviews the lessons learned in our first two years and highlights the generosity of our donors and corporate partners. In 2008, a year filled with difficult economic news, our philanthropic funds increased grantmaking to $264 million. The community foundation distributed $5 million to help safety-net services in crisis through our own grantmaking and the safety-net fund contributions of donors and corporate partners. Read about these successes and others at www.siliconvalleycf.org/ONE/31e. F l i g h t i n T u r b u l e n t T i m e s A Report from Silicon Valley Community Foundation 2009 Jorg Greuel/Getty Images www.siliconvalleycf.org innovation through philanthropy 15
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