The Power Of Purpose: How Salesforce Impact Labs Is Helping Innovation Scale
Salesforce.org Impact Labs at Dreamforce
A unique approach to solving some of the world’s toughest social issues using the power of business and technology comes from Salesforce which recently launched its Salesforce.org Impact Labs , a collaborative program to co-design innovative technology solutions that can accelerate sector-wide change.
The Impact Labs aims to combine the expertise of the Salesforce community with the power of the Salesforce platform to host 3 to 4 Impact Labs in 2020 on different social issues that are surfaced from the community.
The Impact Labs look to address questions like, “how might we ensure sustainable access to nutritious food for children where they live and learn?” and “How might we improve healthcare delivery to mothers in rural populations?” All the challenges we take on will align to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), in an effort to help create a lasting, positive impact on society and the planet.
I caught up with Amy Guterman, Director, Impact Labs, and Tyler Woebkenberg, Senior Technical Architect, Impact Labs to find out more.
Afdhel Aziz: Amy and Tyler, welcome! So lets start. Please tell us about the purpose of Salesforce.org Impact Labs?
Amy Guterman, Director, Impact Labs
Amy Guterman: Social innovation doesn’t happen in a vacuum. The challenges facing our world today are complex and require multiple perspectives to address them. At the same time, nonprofits and educational institutions often struggle to find the resources and capacity to take the risks necessary to innovate.
With that in mind, we created Salesforce.org Impact Labs to help our community bring their most visionary ideas with high potential for impact to life. We are setting out to de-risk innovation by combining the expertise of our community – nonprofits, educational institutions, social enterprises, philanthropies, etc – with Salesforce’s platform and pro bono technology talent. Impact Labs provides the time, space, and technology resources to go deep on a social issue, take risks, and co-innovate solutions together. In summary, our goal is to convene subject matter experts to ideate solutions and leverage Salesforce talent and technology to build out the solutions with the highest potential for scalable impact.
Aziz: Tyler, how do you plan to choose which issues you focus on? How can people submit?
Woebkenberg: Impact Labs will choose what social issues to address by surfacing challenges from the community (all aligned to the Sustainable Development Goals). Our call for challenges is currently open, and we will refine this list of challenges by looking for trends amongst what is submitted and evaluating the potential for social impact, mission alignment, viability (need in the social sector), and feasibility (ability to implement quickly). Impact Labs will incubate three social issues next year in collaboration with the community over several months.
Aziz: Amy, what kind of partners will you be working with on the sprints (non profits etc)
Guterman: Salesforce.org Impact Labs is a place for cross-sector collaboration, including participants from nonprofits, universities, social enterprises, foundations, philanthropic organizations, subject matter experts, and thought leaders in the space.
Each Impact Lab will have a select set of Community Fellows made up of individuals and organizations who represent a diversity of perspectives on the selected Impact Lab topic. Community Fellows will have the opportunity to co-innovate in a multi-day ideation and design workshop, offer guidance and feedback throughout the development process, and pilot solutions within their organization.
Tyler Woebkenberg, Senior Technical Architect, Impact Labs
Aziz: What are examples of existing best practice that could be scaled?
Woebkenberg: We’ve witnessed incredible technology solutions like TaroWorks by the Grameen Foundation, CoPilot by College Forward, and Homekeeper by Grounded Solutions Network, just to name a few. These organizations created innovative solutions to address significant social sector issues which extended beyond their own missions.
Aziz: How does using the SDG framework help identify opportunities?
Guterman: The Sustainable Development Goals are a framework that has been adopted worldwide to coordinate and measure progress against some of the biggest social issues facing our time. We are categorizing each of the social issues submitted by both the goal and target that would be affected if we took on this challenge. The SDG framework also offers a useful set of indicators to help measure impact of the technology solutions we create.
An Impact Labs Sprint
Aziz: And finally, how do you foresee the Impact Labs utilizing the wider Salesforce eco-system?
Woebkenberg: At Salesforce, we’re lucky to have passionate employees who want to volunteer their time and skills to support nonprofits and causes they care about. Impact Labs will build out the technology leveraging Salesforce employee volunteers. It provides a meaningful skills-based volunteering experience for Salesforce employees to volunteer their time, in a dedicated, intensive manner. The Impact Labs Pro Bono Fellows will design, architect, code, and configure the technology to activate the ideas generated by the community.
For more information on Salesforce.org’s Impact Labs, please click here.