Giving back to the communities we serve is part of who we are at Progress. We're proud to share that we've formalized our goals through Progress for Tomorrow.
At Progress we have always believed that, in addition to providing business value to our customers and partners, it’s critical to create value that benefits the communities we serve. This has been a part of the fabric of Progress from our inception, but we’re excited to share that we have now formalized our program for Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), which we’re calling Progress for Tomorrow.
Our CSR program is organized around three key pillars: Our People, Our Community and Our World. We’ll cover these in more detail below, but if you want to read the whole report, you can find it here.
Supporting Our Communities During COVID-19
Our report focuses on our activities during 2019, but it’s impossible to talk about corporate social responsibility in April 2020 without addressing COVID-19. In addition to caring for the physical and emotional needs of our employees (who are all now working from home), Progress has donated $100,000 to vital organizations in the communities we serve. These organizations were nominated by Progressers from around the world:
- United States: Greater Boston Food Bank & Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH)
- India: Prime Minister’s Citizen Assistance and Relief in Emergency Situations (PM CARES) & The Chief Minister Relief Fund, Telangana
- Bulgaria: United Against Covid 19 Fund
- Netherlands: Voedselbank Rotterdam
We sincerely hope everyone is taking care of themselves as best they can during this global pandemic. You can read more about our response to COVID-19 in this blog post from our CEO, Yogesh Gupta.
Corporate Social Responsibility 2019 Highlights
Our People
We are committed to fostering a culture of innovation and inspiration, and one way we have been pursuing that is with dedicated efforts towards inclusion and diversity (I&D).
In 2019 we built on the I&D efforts that had kicked off the year prior, founding an Inclusion and Diversity Advisory Committee, which is composed of a diverse group of Progress employees from across the globe. Among their accomplishments was the establishment of a framework for Progress Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) and the subsequent founding of our first ERG, Progress for Her.
We have also invested heavily in both the professional and personal development of all employees through career development and wellness initiatives. We have trained managers and employees on how to partner with each other through career conversations and drive growth with personal goals. We have also strived to offer a working environment both healthy and productive by offering, among other activities, financial and mental health webinars, onsite cooking and workout classes, and in the case of our Bulgaria office, an onsite children’s center with free daycare for employees.
Our Community
Caring for our community through philanthropy and volunteerism has always been a key part of Progress, but as part of formalizing the program we identified two global priorities—to align with our business purpose, a focus on science, technology engineering and mathematics, (STEM) education; and to reflect a cause important to our employees, the welfare of children in need.
Some of the highlights from 2019 included the launch of the Progress Software Mary Szekely Scholarship for Women in STEM, and we also donated $50,000 to find the renovations of two schools in Morocco, serving 250 students and their teachers. Many Progressers were also involved in charitable events such as charity soccer tournaments in the U.S., packing birthday boxes for children in need in the Netherlands, hosting a charity bazaar in our Sofia, Bulgaria, office and visiting (and donating to) children in need in India.
Progress also donates to a cause of an employee’s choice upon their three-year anniversary, and provides paid volunteer time to all employees to support our employees giving back to their local communities.
Our World
Environmental sustainability is a deeply held value at Progress, and in 2019 we completed a comprehensive audit of the sustainability measures we employ and formalized our processes for measuring our efforts in this area. We believe that it’s imperative that the business we conduct has a positive impact on the world, as well as our customers, partners and employees.
It is always our goal to meet or exceed all environmental regulations and to operate extremely energy efficient buildings, but this effort goes beyond that. For example, we have reduced our small fleet of vehicles and converted any gasoline-powered vehicles to electric or hybrid ones where possible, and installed electric charging stations at multiple offices.
Our full report now includes benchmark performance data on our greenhouse gas emissions and energy used as a company so that we can compare and ensure we improve year after year.
Making the Most of Our Opportunity
At Progress we have a tremendous opportunity to impact our employees and the communities we serve by providing both strong business and socially responsible value to our customers, partners and communities. It’s something we’ve always believed in, and we’re proud to be able to share our commitment with the world through Progress for Tomorrow.
We’re excited for what the future holds and are eager to be a part of the larger corporate community dedicated to making it better.
We encourage you to take a look at the full Progress for Tomorrow website, or you can directly download our 2019 report below.
Danny Shain
A member of the marketing team at Progress, Danny loves all things tech and has been writing about the industry for over 12 years. He enjoys the process of making complex subjects easy to grasp. He studied both English and computer science in college because he's fascinated by languages (including code!) and never stopped.