We Are Citizen Philanthropists - Social Justice Fund: Creating Pathways to Move Forward Together

Every waterfall begins with a single drop of water. That’s the idea behind VMware’s Citizen Philanthropy approach to giving—VMware’s impact in the community is the result of the collective actions of VMware people. It’s about empowering everyone to be active and engaged citizens in their communities because we believe social change only happens when many people choose to take action.

One way VMware people can amplify contributions to nonprofit organizations in their communities is by creating a Fund. Through a Fund, people can focus on a specific issue area by including multiple nonprofits whose programs work to address that shared mission. Donations to the Fund are evenly distributed amongst the selected nonprofits.

This month, we caught up with Tasha Easton, Senior Program Manager in Global People Development and Black@VMware Power of Difference (POD) community co-lead, to share her experience of launching the Black@VMware Social Justice Fund.

Tasha: “As a VMware leader in the Diversity and Inclusion Team, it is important for us to not only shine light on the dark but create pathways to move us forward in that light. Creating the Black@VMware Social Justice Fund was just that.

With the increase in televised injustices to the Black and Brown community, we wanted to create an avenue of support. Our fund supports the efforts of the NAACP Foundation, The Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) and Southern Poverty Law Center. These organizations are on the ground providing education to institutions, such as VMware, and support to the black and brown communities in need. VMware recently hosted a companywide talk with Bryan Stevenson, lawyer and creator of EJI, who spoke to his fight against injustice and what steps we can take on both a corporate and individual level. We will continue to drive awareness via these partnerships.”

We recognize there is work to do. VMinclusion is a business-led effort to attract and engage the multinational, multicultural talent critical to our globally connected business. Our Diversity & Inclusion efforts focus on driving change through business practices and operations.

We know that philanthropy is one facet of social change. With VMware’s Citizen Philanthropy approach to giving, over 1,000 people contributed to the Black@VMware Social Justice Fund to support the broader movement. Now other POD’s and Teams at VMware are also utilizing Funds as they’ve seen how it can be a way to catalyze support for driving change.

You can learn more about the VMware Foundation and see Citizen Philanthropy in Action here.