In the last six months, two tech giants unveiled new impact investing funds. In May, we were proud to partner with the newly-announced Twilio.org Impact Fund. Earlier this month, Salesforce Ventures — a leading corporate investor — launched the $50 million Salesforce Impact Fund. Together, they represent two distinct but important funding models to inspire their Silicon Valley peers: Salesforce is investing “corporate capital [to] drive social change” and Twilio is leveraging impact investing to get the most from their corporate philanthropic dollars.

We see Twilio.org and Salesforce as more than fellow travelers: we see them as influential pioneers. Salesforce is the trailblazer behind the 1% Pledge, a campaign to encourage early stage companies to commit 1% of equity, time, product, or profit to effecting change in their communities.

The vision in five years is that everyone who is doing grantmaking is also doing impact investing.” In the same vein, one could imagine a world where every corporate venture investor had an explicit impact sleeve.

Read the full article by Robynn Steffen about impact investing on Medium