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‘Schools need our support now more than ever:’ SalesForce Foundation CEO

SalesForce Foundation CEO Ebony Beckwith joins Yahoo Finance’s Kristin Myers and Julia La Roche to discuss how the company is addressing education and inequality in the U.S. school system.

Video Transcript

KRISTIN MYERS: Well, Salesforce wants to address issues of education and racial inequity as the digital divide becomes more apparent in a world where children have to do remote learning because of the coronavirus pandemic. So we're joined now by Ebony Beckwith, SalesForce chief philanthropy officer and foundation CEO, as well as our own Julia La Roche.

Ebony, I want to get to the initiative that you guys are launching in just a moment. But first, I want to ask you about the importance of corporations and the private sector more broadly, really to get involved in addressing issues of racial inequality, education inequity.

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EBONY BECKWITH: You know, that's really interesting. You know, COVID-19 literally transformed and continues to transform every aspect of our lives. And one of the most notable is in education where the pandemic really set into motion a series of connected crises. We have a crisis of inequality, of health and safety, and of acess and opportunity.

And whether you're in kindergarten or college, education literally changed overnight. And it's been really challenging for everyone. So at SalesForce, we want to do all we can to support our schools and our students. And we're really excited to put the full power of SalesForce behind education.

JULIA LA ROCHE: Ebony, it's Julia La Roche. Let's talk about the work that SalesForce has done. I've spoken to CEO Marc Benioff, and I know that you all have adopted more than 100 public schools in your area, given now with the latest gift around $118 million.

Talk to us about your experience with the public education system and what specifically you all were seeing and the opportunity to address some of the inequities, the digital divide here, things that have come up with the series of crises we've gone through.

EBONY BECKWITH: Right, so yesterday, we announced two things. We announced work.com for schools to help schools reopen safely. And we also announced $20 million to support five public school districts in the US. That's in Oakland, San Francisco, Chicago, Indianapolis, and New York City public schools. We really want to help them as they navigate the new normal.

And so, really, over the last few months, we worked to launch work.com for businesses and governments, really allowing them to use our innovative technology to navigate the complexities of reopening schools safely. And now as districts plan their own return to the classroom, we want to bring this technology to education.

So you mentioned this digital divide. And for us, it's really important. We have been working with schools for the last eight years. And we're going to continue working with schools. We really want to do this, this year because we know that schools need our support now more than ever for what will be one of the most difficult and different school years in history.

This is a once in a generation opportunity for us to reimagine education and to create a system that's more fair and equitable in this all digital learn from anywhere age. And we're really committed to helping the districts build new initiatives that can bridge the digital divide and help students who are at the greatest risk of being left behind.

You know, there's some incredible stats. A major challenge that school districts face right now is this digital divide that we keep talking about. So many students don't have a computer at home. In Oakland, where I am right now as a matter of fact, 50% of students don't have access to the internet.

And across the country, 23% of homes don't have high speed internet access. That's crazy, right, to think about that. And the $2 million in grants that we announced yesterday will help these districts roll out new initiatives that can help with that.

KRISTIN MYERS: So Ebony, I'm hoping we can dive into those numbers a little bit more to help put some of them into context for us. You mentioned some of those statistics. I also noted that over 30% of Black, Hispanic, and Native American households don't even have high speed internet.

I'm wondering if you can talk us through how badly the country is impacted by that digital divide and if you see that deepening in equities in terms of race and in terms of socioeconomic status because of that lack of access to technology, to internet, to computers.

EBONY BECKWITH: Well, that's really why we're trying when we launched work.com for schools, right? It's really important that we get this technology in the hands of our administrators so they can make really great data and form decisions about their students. And also with the 20 million that we're giving to these organizations, that they can bridge that gap. Because it is a growing issue and a growing concern.

You know, education changed overnight. You know, and we sent students home with no access to the internet, no access to computers. So we need to do something. And one of the things I love about our work.com product is that it's we're going to help counselors and student support staff remove those barriers to student success. It'll give them a complete 360 degree view of students so they can help create personalized learning plans.

It will enable them to reach out to families and students and say, for example, you know, I don't have Wi-Fi. And then they can create a plan for them to get to the IT director of their school and get the student the access that they need, so really trying to surround the students and the schools with the support and the technology they need to help close this divide.

JULIA LA ROCHE: And Ebony, some of the other work that's certainly garnered some attention that you all have done, food insecurity being one of them, talk to us about the problem of food insecurity in this country, especially amongst the children, those students, and why that's so important to address.

And another one I know SalesForce has been at the forefront of is mental health and how you all are thinking about taking on those challenges.

EBONY BECKWITH: I love to say kids can't learn if dot, dot, dot. So kids can't learn if they're hungry, they're tired, they're not feeling safe, they're not feeling secure. So we try to address, in our grant making work, the whole child. So it is about the money that we give to education. It is about the time and the resources that we give. But it's really addressing the whole child, so not just the education piece of it.

So one of the things that we did, actually, I'm really excited to talk about our partnership with Eat Learn Play, which is an organization based here in Oakland, founded by Steph and Ayesha Curry. And we just talked to them yesterday about this as a matter of fact.

And we really wanted to do is when we noticed that, you know, COVID, with there as a result of CVOID, there was a lot of food that was being left behind on farms because it wasn't able to get to the restaurants. But, you know, the schools are the backbone of our neighborhoods. They're the heart and souls of our communities. And they're a natural distribution site, not only for students, but for their families.

So we figured out a way to get that food straight from the farm, from all the bulks and packages to boxes to students in Oakland, students and family in Oakland. And through this pilot, we were able to-- we did a six-week pilot with Eat Learn Play, NUMI Foundation, World Health Kitchen, and a few others. We were able to source in six weeks over 500,000 pounds of food in Oakland.

And we're really looking forward to rolling that out. I love to say that philanthropy is not a competitive sport. It is an additive sport. It is a collective. So we want more people to join us on our path to education, on our path to wellness, on our path to mental health as well.

KRISTIN MYERS: So Ebony, this is so much great work that SalesForce is doing externally. I want to ask you about any moves that the company is making internally, at least on the front of diversity, if you feel as if the company perhaps even needs to do more.

Just because looking at the board of directors, also executive leadership, you know, I was noting that more than 70% of the folks are men. Over 80% are white. So do you think that internally, that more could be done even on the part of SalesForce to increase diversity within?

EBONY BECKWITH: I think we all can do more with regard to diversity within our companies. And at SalesForce, we believe that business can be a very powerful platform for social change. And as a company, we continue to be guided by our core values as we support and empower the Black community right now.

And over the last few months, we've been really hard at work on a Racial Equality and Justice Task Force anchored on four pillars-- of people, philanthropy, purchasing, and policy. And this task force is made up of employees from all over the company at different levels, different geographies, different career stages. It was really important to get different perspectives.

And together, we've been working on a proactive strategy for driving racial equality not only within the four walls of our own company, but within our communities. And we've shared some of our commitments publicly. And some of those highlights include making a commitment to double the representation of US Black employees in leadership, like VP Plus, by the end of 2023.

In addition to that goal, we are making a new commitment to increase the representation of US Black employees by 50% by the end of 2023. We're going to spend $100 million of Black-owned businesses over the next three years and commit to a 25% year over year growth in spend with minority businesses, minority-owned businesses.

And my area, over the next few years, in philanthropy will invest a total of $200 million. And our employees, who are amazing and love to give back and volunteer in the communities, they will volunteer 1 million hours globally with organizations working to advance racial equality and justice. So we have a really strong and actionable roadmap to help guide our work, both in this moment and over the coming years.