Bay Area Companies Give Their Best and Brightest This Holiday Season

PALO ALTO, Calif., Nov. 28, 2012 /3BL Media/ - During this holiday season and throughout the year,  Silicon Valley businesses are stepping up to lend their most valuable resource, the time and talent of their employees, to nonprofits in their communities.  A Billion + Change will recognize corporate innovators using pro bono and skilled volunteering to make lasting contributions to nonprofits and communities at a special event at the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation in Palo Alto on Thursday, Nov. 29.

This event will be A Billion + Change’s first visit to Silicon Valley as part of a national campaign to mobilize billions in pro bono services from businesses across the country. It will feature remarks from:

• David Bruscino, vice president and deputy general counsel for HP. Through the HP Advisors program, top talent employees are matched with emerging leaders and social entrepreneurs identified by HP’s social innovation partners – the Global Health Corps and the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship.   
• Peter Furman, chief of staff to Mayor Chuck Reed. The city of San Jose is accessing private sector talent and innovative problem-solving through the Silicon Valley Talent Partnership, a collaborative, public-private partnership program that organizes pro bono teams to help the city meet key community needs.

"Skills-based volunteering is central to our ability to inspire, equip and mobilize people to take action that changes the world,” said Jackie Norris, executive director of the Points of Light Corporate Institute, who will moderate a panel at the event. “Our goal is to inspire 500 companies, from Main Street to Wall Street to pledge to create a pro bono program to make it the new normal in every workplace.”

The Moore Foundation event, organized by A Billion + Change, together with event host HP and the Taproot Foundation, is the latest in a series of events highlighting pro bono change-makers across the nation. Since November 2011, more than 255 companies have pledged $1.9 billion worth of pro bono services to help build nonprofit capacity as part of A Billion + Change.

“We view pro bono volunteering as a way to not only increase the capacity of our nonprofit partners and meaningfully benefit individual recipients of our efforts,” said Bruscino.  “It also provides our employees with phenomenal opportunities to further develop leadership, business and technical skills.”

For nonprofits, the value of skilled support in areas such as general operations, technology and professional services can be 500 percent greater than the value of traditional volunteering, according to True Impact, which helps organizations measure the social and business impact of their operations. Skills-based volunteering programs are also valuable talent management tools that help businesses attract and retain talent, especially as skilled volunteers are 47 percent more likely to report higher satisfaction from their service than traditional volunteers.

To learn more about A Billion + Change and to see a list of companies that have pledged, please visit: www.abillionpluschange.org.

About A Billion + Change

A Billion + Change is a national campaign to mobilize billions of dollars of pro bono and skills-based volunteer services by 2013. It was launched by the Corporation for National and Community Service in 2008 and continues as an initiative of the federal agency. Reinvigorated in 2011 with expanded leadership under the honorary chairmanship of Senator Mark Warner, it is now housed and managed by Points of Light. The initiative is powered by the support of HP, the Case Foundation and IBM with additional founding support from State Farm, McKenna Long & Aldridge LLP and Morgan Stanley. Learn more at: www.abillionpluschange.org.