We Are Citizen Philanthropists - Building Digital Resilience with Good Gigs

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 get involved with their communities is through Good Gigs Projects. A team of VMware people partner with a nonprofit of their choice to identify the organization’s need and co-create a solution that will help accelerate the nonprofit’s impact. Good Gigs was developed based on findings from Transforming Technology Pro Bono and is rooted in taking a customer-centric approach. We do this by investing in partnership, embracing a growth mindset, and practicing grit – also key parts of VMware’s Leadership Code.

VMware people in Atlanta with HoPe staff planning for Good Gigs Project, November 2018

One of the Good Gigs Projects includes a team of nine VMware people in Atlanta – Francisco Gomez, Maria Lemus, Fred Godoy, Tamara Jurić, Vincent McNeeley, Hazel Barker, Daniel Gemzer, Mithila Tople, and Stephane Layolle – who partnered with David Araya and Angela Hurtado, co-founders of the Hispanic Organization Promoting Education (HoPe). HoPe’s mission is to increase the graduation rate among Latinx high school students through mentorship and coaching. In over sixty high schools across Georgia, HoPe’s student graduation rate is 100% compared to the 76% average among Latinx students in Georgia. “Not everyone is given the same opportunities in education. But HoPe is helping to level the playing field.” – Francisco Gomez, Senior Program Manager, Customer Ops, VMware

The relationship with HoPe began as a Diversity and Inclusion outreach initiative led by VMware’s Latinx Power of Difference (POD) community. VMware people built a great relationship with HoPe and over time formed the Good Gigs team, which grew to include Ad Victoriam Solutions, a B corporation that is also contributing pro bono. The team recently completed the Discover phase of the project, dedicated to understanding HoPe’s existing business systems and identifying pain points for their staff. “This Good Gigs Project ended up being central to HoPe’s business continuity efforts surrounding COVID. Together, we’ve accelerated their ability to scale.” – Maria Lemus, Cloud Sales Program Manager, VMware

Findings from Transforming Technology Pro Bono serves as the theoretical framework for Good Gigs Projects

In the coming months, they will continue to the next phases – Design, Implement, and finally Maintain – to ensure they are creating sustainable solutions that meet the needs of staff and stakeholders. “The Good Gigs Project and VMware team have positively impacted us in unimaginable ways by finding technology solutions to our pain points and business processes. They have helped us tremendously to streamline our systems and rethink our perspective on data.” – David Araya, Co-Founder, and President, HoPe.

As with HoPe, all Good Gigs Projects are focused on supporting nonprofits in their digital transformation journeys and twenty-one nonprofits in five countries have been served over the past two years through the program.

You can learn more about the VMware Foundation and Good Gigs here.