OVERVIEW: The Salesforce Foundation supports education and workforce development at the local and national level in the United States and abroad. It also supports housing and homelessness, climate change, and community development.
IP TAKE: This corporate funder provides both project specific and general operating support grants. It reviews letters of inquiry every quarter, though it doesn’t accept unsolicited applications. However, another way to secure funding here is through the company’s employee giving, so network with one to get an in around the less accessible grant process. Much of this employee-driven giving, however, focuses on the Bay Area, where Salesforce is headquartered. This is not the most approachable foundation.
PROFILE: Marc Benioff founded the Salesforce Foundation in 2002, but its roots date further back. Marc Benioff is a firm believer in what he refers to as “pay as you go” philanthropy, an idea he has credited to Mata Amritanandamayi. He once penned a blog post that generated a lot of attention when he suggested that those fortunate enough to become rich should give their money away now, rather than to wait until they are finished making money to figure out what to do with it. In 1999, when Salesforce founder Marc Benioff established the company’s 1-1-1 philanthropic model, the foundation sought to increase its charitable dedications through 1% of the Salesforce’s equity, 1% of its product, and 1% of the employees’ time. Benioff rebranded the 1-1-1 model as the Salesforce Foundation in 2002. The foundation’s current grantmaking areas include Education, Workforce Development, and Environmental Conservation.
Grants for K-12 and STEM Education
The foundation’s current education program works to “to ensure students have job-ready, tech-forward skills and can build meaningful connections, careers, and lives.” It runs three subprograms: STEM and AI Access, Educator Support, and College and Career readiness, which supports the development of career skills in young adults.
- The foundation’s work in this area hasn’t evolved much, but it keeps renaming initiatives.
- Grantees include Jumpstart for Young Children, whose mission is to help prepare every child for success in kindergarten; All Hands Raised, which promotes educational equity in Multnomah County, Oregon; Tandem, Partners in Early Learning, which works to improve early childhood education through community partnerships and equitable learning experiences; and organizations that provide free after school and summer coding classes such as Girls Who Code and Coder Dojo.
- The foundation has also supported a number of public school districts in California, including San Francisco Unified School District and Oakland Unified School District, but it has also given to Blaine County School District in Idaho and Winter Park High School in Florida.
Salesforce also funds institutions of higher learning through its College and Career Readiness program, which aims to bridge the gap between “education and careers through mentorship and career-aligned learning.”
- Past grantees include Babson College, the Ball State University Foundation, and Pennsylvania State University.
Grants for Workforce Development
Salesforce’s Workforce Development grantmaking is housed under its Education focus area and seeks to bridge “education and careers through mentorship and career-aligned learning.”
- This program makes grants internationally and nationally across the U.S.
- Past economic opportunity grantees include Joblinge, Braven, and Ada, the National College for Digital Skills in the U.K.
Grants for Community Development, Housing, and Food Security
Salesforce supports local communities, although it no longer appears to operate a program dedicated to that purpose.
- Since 2024, the Benioffs donated 440+ acres to Hawaii Island Community Development Corp., land intended to support nearly 900 affordable homes on Hawai‘i Island.
- The Benioffs funded the establishment of the Benioff Homelessness & Housing Initiative at UCSF via multi‑million-dollar donations.
- Grantees include Larkin Street Youth Services, Compass Family Services, and Hamilton Families, which works to end family homelessness in the Bay Area.
Grants for Climate Change and Clean Energy
At one time, climate justice and the environment were listed as funding priorities of the Salesforce Foundation; however, these appear to have been replaced with a new priority focused on AI sustainability.
- Its approach to AI sustainability was developed in coordination with “AI Research, Sustainability, and the Office of Ethical and Humane Use,” and its strategy rests on three pillars: “smart demand (using AI wisely), efficiency (doing more with less), and clean supply (powering AI with low-impact resources).”
- Salesforce is a founding partner of org, an organization with the ambitious goal of “conserving, restoring and growing a trillion trees by 2030,” and Salesforce has committed funding for an additional 100 million trees.
- Additionally, Salesforce created the Ecosystem Restoration & Climate Justice Fund, when it committed $100 million in grants by the end of the decade to groups “working on ecosystem restoration and climate justice.” Grantees through this initiative include Fundación Natura, Save The Bay, The Ocean Foundation, and Arbor Day Foundation.
- The Benioffs, too, committed an additional $100 million to establish the Benioff TIME Tree Fund and another $100 million in investments from TIME Ventures, the Benioffs’ investment fund, toward the cause. The couple donated $10 million to the University of California Santa Barbara to establish the Benioff Ocean Initiative. They also helped found the Pacific Islands Research and Conservation program and the Friends of Ocean Action initiative.
Grants for Women and Girls
While the foundation does not maintain a specific grantmaking program dedicated to girls and women, it does prioritize them across grantmaking for education and Workforce Development.
- In 2015, the foundation launched a girls portfolio to “inspire and educate young girls to pursue careers in technology through events, classes, and hands-on experiences.”
- While this no longer appears on the foundation’s site, recent giving reflects a continued commitment to girls’ education and economic development by helping them to obtain work experience and increase their interest in the technology field.
Grants for Diseases
While the Salesforce Foundation does not have a dedicated health or disease grant program, it has an established history of supporting disease-related organizations, such as the Abramson Cancer Center, Agape Therapeutic Riding Center, and AIDS Action Committee.
- The Benioff family also gives very generously to Bay Area hospitals.
Grants for Arts and Culture, Dance, Theater, Visual Arts
Although the Salesforce Foundation does not have a specific grantmaking program dedicated to arts and culture, it occasionally makes grants to major cultural institutions in the communities where its employees live and work, such as San Francisco, Seattle, Indianapolis, and New Orleans.
- Previous examples of past dance grantees include the San Francisco Ballet Association, the Seattle Ensemble of Songs and Dances, and Spectrum Dance Theater.
- Past theater and performing arts grantees include the American Conservatory Theater and Booth Tarkington Civic Theatre of Indianapolis; however, Salesforce’s theater related giving is not as abundant as its other areas of grantmaking interest.
- Visual arts grantees include the Threadhead Cultural Foundation located in New Orleans, Louisiana; and Root Division, a visual arts nonprofit located in San Francisco, California.
Other Grant Opportunities
Another way to secure funding here is through the company’s employee giving. Much of this employee-driven giving focuses on the Bay Area, where Salesforce is headquartered. National and global grantmaking are conducted directly through the foundation. Salesforce also makes in-kind donations of its technology to nonprofits.
Important Grant Details:
Grant amounts can reach into the tens of millions, but the most common size is just $50. The foundation awards around $30-40 million in grants annually and holds nearly $400 million in assets.
- While the foundation has no state geographical restrictions, its grantmaking tends to center around San Francisco, New York City, Seattle, and Indianapolis.
- Interested grantseekers should check the website regularly for news.
- The organization generally accepts full grant proposals by invitation only, except when they release open calls for proposals.
- Note that Salesforce prioritizes organizations in locations where their employees live and work.
- Salesforce has provided over $841 million in grant funding to date and has given access to Salesforce technology to over 62,700 charitable and nonprofit organizations and donated more than 10 million employee volunteer hours.
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