The enterprise blockchain leader has built an enthusiastic culture of service through charitable giving, volunteerism, and genuine human connection.
Founded in 2012, Ripple is a global provider of crypto and blockchain solutions for businesses. Through blockchain technology, Ripple enables global financial institutions, businesses, governments, and developers to move, manage and tokenize value, helping to unlock greater economic opportunity for all.
As a mission-driven company in a rapidly developing industry, Ripple develops creative and inspiring activities to rally employees around core principles like financial inclusion, sustainability, and academic research & development. Even the most enthusiastic environmental, social, and governance (ESG) leaders are constantly looking for better ways to help employees make time for meaningful experiences like giving and volunteering.
According to Ripple’s Jonathan Perri, Senior Manager of Global Social Impact, switching to Deed “gave Ripple the opportunity to not just restructure the program, but to reimagine its approach to employee impact.” Through long-term local nonprofit partnerships, global philanthropy, industry-leading donation match policies and sustainability commitments, Ripple has fostered an enthusiastic culture of service throughout its organization.
The crypto leader’s first impact report shows just how well that approach has paid off:
So what does an employee-centric approach to corporate social responsibility (CSR) look like? Here’s a closer look at how Ripple has managed such impressive results, and where their CSR strategy is headed next.
In the crypto world, the concept of “decentralization” is absolutely fundamental. But does the idea of decentralization, which prioritizes interconnectedness and cooperation, have any relevance to social impact?
When Perri talks about Ripple Impact, it’s clear that Ripple’s approach to social impact has built a culture of giving amongst its employees.
“We have a great mix of employees getting involved in different causes in their own unique ways. Engineers help run hackathons with university partners, Employee Resource Groups fundraise during cultural months and from San Francisco to Singapore our offices volunteer locally,” said Perri.
And that decentralized approach has paid off. To put Ripple’s 78 percent employee participation rates in the right context, consider that the Chief Executives for Corporate Purpose’s (CECP) annual “Giving in Numbers” report notes that in 2019—before the COVID-19 pandemic caused a major drop-off in employee participation in social impact programs around the world—the average volunteer participation rate was just 29 percent. While the latest data shows some sign of recovery, CECP’s latest report shows an average participation rate of 17 percent.
For Ripple, encouraging employees to participate in their own way is essential to the program’s big success. Perri says participating in Ripple Impact by giving or showing up in their communities is “the most important metric for our employee impact program.” What does that look like? The crypto leader backs up its approach to social impact with meaningful policies that demonstrate a serious commitment to making a difference.
Ripple offers 100 percent donation matching up to $1,000 per employee per year and has great local nonprofit partners that it frequently organizes volunteer events with — often as team building events.
Ripple is also generous with its philanthropic support for partners and in global moments of crises and it looks to involve its employees in those efforts. For example, Ripple donated $1 million to support the earthquake relief efforts in Turkey and Syria. In times of crisis, Ripple increases its employee donation matching to key organizations from 100 percent to 200 percent.
On the volunteering side, Ripple nurtures long-term partnerships with organizations like Stephen & Ayesha Curry's Eat. Learn. Play. Foundation, the San Francisco Marin Food Bank, as well as a newly announced partnership with Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital Charity in London.
While many companies have similar policies in place, Ripple is unique for several reasons. With so many ways to measure and track your impact—Ernst & Young estimates no less than 600 ESG frameworks available today—companies are essentially free to pick and choose the methods that work for them. With so much data and so many different ways to use it, the most important thing is to get a strong sense of what your employees truly care about—in other words, who you are as an organization.
Ripple has leveraged Deed’s real-time dashboards and custom reporting to gain authentic insight into what inspires its employees. “The data shows me what's working and what isn't and when we need to try something new to stay on track,” says Perri. “We have ambitious goals for participation in our impact program this year and we need to reach milestones each quarter.”
Our team devotes significant time and energy to making the platform as smooth and enjoyable as possible. From building out personal profiles with nonprofit affiliations and top cause areas, to helpful features like pledging and “Nominate a Nonprofit,” Deed is designed to make doing good as fun as it is meaningful.
Employees can browse over two million nonprofit organizations, offering countless opportunities to share their time, money, and talent anywhere. Deed works with industry leaders like Goodera, VolunteerMatch, Idealist, Points of Light, Volunteer.gov, and more to curate tailored feeds and experiences for our partners as well. But we never sacrifice quality for quantity. Our library is backed by our robust payment infrastructure, marked by our premiere partnership PayPal Giving Fund and other trusted names. Together, with daily screening cycles, we deliver the highest payment success rate and the most rigorous vetting process in the industry.
Accessible, inclusive technology is a must-have when it comes to building authentic communities within a global team. Aside from our own native app, available online and on iOS/Android, Deed works seamlessly with Slack, Microsoft Teams, and other communications platforms to make sharing meaningful ideas and experiences a part of everyday life.
At Deed, we pride ourselves on maintaining a global reach but always with a local sensibility. With a presence in over 170 countries, 37 currencies, 12 languages, and with over two million nonprofits available on the platform—and more of everything often available upon request—we help employees around the world make a meaningful impact anywhere and anyway they want to.
Deed offers CSR program leads a wide range of self-service capabilities, many of which can be tailored to meet unique business needs. These include intuitive reporting and real-time dashboards, all accessible through one system by using the same login information.
Deed offers community-building tools to help employees and employee resource groups (ERGs) alike to get onboarded and stay engaged. Our latest feature, Communities, offers our partners a single platform for all volunteering, fundraising, and social events management that’s as easy to use from the employee perspective as it is insightful for program leaders.
Ripple has big plans for 2023 and beyond. Perri says it’s targeting 80–85 percent employee participation and on its way to some impressive goals.
Ripple recently sponsored and built a playground at an elementary school in Oakland, CA with Stephen and Ayesha Curry's Eat. Learn. Play Foundation and its employees were hands-on in bringing that to life. Ripple’s University Blockchain Research Initiative (UBRI) is continuing to drive exciting blockchain innovation and research with students around the world, which is a crucial way to train the workforce of tomorrow. The company is betting big on the impact that blockchain and tokenization can have on improving verification of high quality carbon credits. And it is continuing its work around financial inclusion with partners like Mercy Corps Ventures and CARE.
With Ripple’s first-ever impact report under its belt, Perri sees a clear path for what’s to come and feels excited to solve everyday needs with social impact technology. “Deed responds so quickly to my support requests and ideas. I appreciate that I can be candid about what features can be improved or what updates should be prioritized. It’s definitely a collaborative partnership.”
Deed is a workplace giving and volunteering platform that puts people first, because user experience shouldn’t stand between you and doing good. We foster genuine human connection across departments and time zones by empowering employees to support causes they care about together, both in-person and online. Now imagine all your community’s good deeds happening on a single, exceptionally designed platform—with you at the switchboard, watching an enterprise transform into a more positive force in the world.
Reach out now to learn how Deed can help drive engagement for your organization.