Advertising Brands by Building Stronger Communities

Image: Salesforce Trailblazer Mascot

Corporate Challenge: Benefits of investing in communities.

Ironbound Strategy: The best way to advertise a brand is to create value for customers, employees, and society.

Ironbound Action:  California based Salesforce has been adopting public schools that their employees children attend.  In all, 107 public schools in the Bay Area have received $70M in cash investments as well as thousands of hours in mentoring, volunteering, and technology assistance.  By investing in the children of their employees, Salesforce has not only secured the loyalty of their staff, they have positively impacted the community they operate in.  Brands that look for new ways of creating value for society often discover that their investments in their own communities yield better results than traditional advertising.

​* By working with schools Salesforce spun a non-profit to sell tailored Salesforce software to improve efficiencies in K-12 schools.  Salesforce.org has lauded 49% faster school response times to issues, 31% enrollment efficiency, and the ability to boost fundraising by 28% on average. And of course, higher student engagement.
 
** Salesforce has 15.8B in revenue, up from 13.2B last FY, with an ~18% annual return on their common stock.