By Craig Cuffie, Chief Procurement Officer, Salesforce
At Salesforce, we believe that business is a powerful platform for change. As a society, we’ve been faced with a global health and economic crisis alongside a reckoning of racial inequality and injustice that has persisted for far too long. Last year, guided by our values, we took action to drive racial equality and justice in our workplaces and communities. We know there is much more work ahead — but we believe that with intentional, thoughtful, and consistent action we have the power to change the world around us.
In response to the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and too many others — we set out to form a Racial Equality and Justice task force made up of senior leaders and front line employees. Our task force committed to action across 4 P’s — People, Purchasing, Philanthropy, and Policy.
As the Chief Procurement Officer and someone who has dedicated his career to empowering the Black community — I lead our Purchasing pillar and am immensely proud of the work we’ve done over the last few months. While committing $100 million over the next three years to Black-owned businesses in addition to 25% year-over-year growth in spend with minority-owned businesses — we’ve implemented new programs to create more equity into our supplier opportunities and to help close the racial wealth gap. This includes making our payment terms more accessible, committing to investing $100 million in venture funding to empower Black, Latinx, and Indigenous founders through Salesforce Ventures, and partnering to establish the Black Ventures Institute.
As a company we’ve also taken several steps to build a workplace that looks like society, financially empower organizations driving racial equality, and advocate for systemic change. You can learn more about these initiatives at Salesforce.com/racialequality.
For those of you who are reading and wondering how you can personally take action — there are so many tangible steps we can take in our day to day.
- Continue Your Education: We are all on our own path of continuous learning. As issues of racial equality and brought back to the forefront of our public consciousness, it’s a great opportunity to continue to educate yourself on some of the systemic barriers to equality such as the racial wealth gap in the U.S.
- Be An Ally: Ask those most impacted how you can best support. If you are a business leader, think about how to design your processes and team to ensure everyone is treated fairly and feels included.
- Spend Your Dollars with Black and Minority-Owned Businesses: Financial empowerment is such an important step to reaching true equality and we can all do our part to support Black and Minority-Owned businesses. Think about ways to support local businesses as a consumer or if you are a business leader how you can bring more of these businesses into your supply chain.
- Elevate Black, Latinx, and Indigenous Talent: We are better companies when we reflect the diverse communities around us. If you are a hiring manager or business leader, be thoughtful about your hiring practices, opening up access, and reaching the incredible talent that exists all around us.
As we enter 2021, we can all reflect on ways we can continue to drive equality in our day to day lives. Though last year was one of the most challenging yet, I’m encouraged by the passion, energy, and determination of those who stood up for what’s right. We hope you will join us.
Learn more about Salesforce’s equality programs: salesforce.com/equality.
