Progress for Tomorrow: How Did We Do in 2020?

In our 2020 Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Report, Progress offers a look into how we’re doing, what we’re doing, and who we strive to be as a company, employer and community leader.

Our people. Our communities. Our world.

Those are the three pillars of Progress for Tomorrow, our corporate social responsibility program. And we weave those themes into everything we do here—from the day-to-day to our long-term vision as a global company.

So, in a challenging year like 2020, what did we do, what were our priorities, and how did we help our people, our communities, and our world?

“Through meaningful work such as our COVID-19 response, our stance on social justice and the ways in which we as a company and as individuals gave back to the communities in which we live and work, we’ve created an inclusive culture based on mutual respect and pride and had a positive impact on the world around us. The 2020 CSR report encapsulates all we were able to achieve,” Progress CEO Yogesh Gupta said.

We offer some highlights here, but we also encourage you to check out our full 27-page report.

Read our CSR report

How Did Progress Help People in 2020?

We talk a lot about our people and our culture at Progress. But what do we do for employees, exactly, and how did it change in 2020?

First and foremost, during the global pandemic, we needed to ensure the health and well-being of our employees and their families as we transitioned our global workforce to working from home as COVID-19 affected millions of people worldwide.

The leadership of Progress followed strict safety protocols, was in constant communication, provided all the equipment needed to work from home, and offered wellness, medical and support resources for all employees. But it didn’t end there. Progress offered team-building activities and brought employees together virtually.

We created the Progress Mentorship Program to help with training and development of employees.

Employees themselves took the initiative to start three new employee resource groups—Plus (LGBTQ+ community), Blacks@Progress (Black and African American community) and Veterans@Progress (global military community).

And through the work of our Inclusion and Diversity Committee, we took the next steps to improve programs for career development, culture and belonging, management and leadership, and talent acquisition.

How Did Progress Uplift Our Community in 2020?

Progress donated more than a quarter million dollars to charitable organizations worldwide focused on children in need, child endangerment, STEM education, COVID community care and the eradication of racial and social injustice, and domestic violence.

Some of the most heartening donations came from employees who researched, raised money and saw their efforts multiplied through our Charitable Giving Match. Support in local communities helped feed nearly 7,000 families in Rotterdam, provided more than 8,100 meals in Boston, gave snacks and school supplies to school children in North Carolina, raised money for Girls Who Code, helped crisis and counseling centers across Bulgaria, and helped fund cancer research, prevention, advocacy and patient support in Australia.

In 2020, we also launched a scholarship program and awarded the first Progress Software Mary Székely Scholarship for Women in STEM to Kaya Dorogi of Columbia University. And we contributed to the Women in Technology Fund at American University in Bulgaria.

And as a centerpiece of our inclusion and diversity work, Progress partnered with MassTLC to help establish the Tech Compact for Social Justice, and we became a supporter of Catalyst, a nonprofit dedicated to building inclusive workplaces.

How Did Progress Affect Our World in 2020?

You might think, what can a tech company do to save the planet? Don’t customers use an amazing amount of electricity, network infrastructure and server farms to make digital experiences, business applications, web and mobile apps, and all of their software work? Yes. But we are committed to reducing our own electrical consumption by 5% and conducted a comprehensive audit of our enterprise-wide sustainability measures.

And through that work, our global headquarters became Energy Star certified by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

We also kicked off a composting program and began work to establish an employee-led Green Committee focused on establishing practices to become a more environmentally conscious organization.

You can see more details of our reduction in energy use, greenhouse gas emissions, waste and water consumption in the CSR report.

What’s Next for Progress for Tomorrow?

Progress for Tomorrow is committed to moving forward with these initiatives and more. As we fully embrace and support our corporate values through efforts toward sustainability, social causes and representation and advancement of all people, so too do we strive to be transparent and accountable to everyone—our people, our community and our world.

We encourage you to take a look at all the specific data we’ve shared in the full Progress for Tomorrow section of our website, or you can directly download our 2020 report below.

Download our CSR report