On Friday, the gregarious Salesforce chief executive announced an initiative to raise $10 million over the next 60 days for Bay Area antipoverty programs. The program will be called SF Gives, a joint effort with the nonprofit The Tipping Point.
"We don't want to be the industry that looks like 'The Wolf of Wall Street,'" he told the San Francisco Chronicle. "We want to be more benevolent."
The program will at first call on 20 companies to contribute $500,000 each, but Benioff would eventually like the initiative to rake in $100 million for some 45 Bay Area organizations. While early, the program has already raised $5 million from companies like LinkedIn, Google, Jawbone, and Box.
Related postsGoogle donates $6.8 million to San Francisco youth bus rides Is Venezuela blocking the Internet amid violence?'The Day We Fight Back' calls for protests against NSA spyingShuttle bus protest hits Microsoft in SeattleSan Francisco approves tech shuttle bus pilot program Benioff's effort comes amid a culture clash in the Bay Area, as some residents have blamed the tech industry for a sharp rise in housing costs and the gentrification of old neighborhoods. In recent months, demonstrators have protested the tech companies by blocking the corporate shuttles that ferry employees from the city to corporate campuses in Silicon Valley. In January, San Francisco approved a pilot program that would charge the tech firms a small fee for operating the shuttles. Benioff, for his part, also has said the buses need greater regulation.Salesforce -- which turned 15 years old on Friday -- has held to what it calls a 1/1/1 philosophy: a pledge to donate 1 percent of its equity, its employees' time, and the company's products to charity. Google has been another tech giant to give high-profile gifts. Last month, the company donated $6.8 million to fund a program that would let underprivileged youth ride the city's MUNI public transportation for free.
Still, Benioff said some companies pushed back when he urged for their charitable donations. "We still have some pretty epic companies here who have had IPOs and aren't giving -- and aren't part of this and won't join," he said.
"We have to keep a light on this idea that if you come to San Francisco, you need to also be committed to giving back," Benioff told the Chronicle. "You can't just take from our city."
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