Since the beginning, our work with humanitarian, civic, open source, and non-profit partners has been core to who we are as a company. As our team grew to over 300 people this year, we worked on new ways to support local and global communities. Here’s some of the progress we made this year:
Donation matching
We started 2017 with a new commitment to match employee donations to the causes we stand by. Many of these are global causes like International Rescue Committee aid to those uprooted by conflict and disasters and the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s defense of civil liberties in the digital world.
Other movements were closer to home like UndocuFund’s work to help undocumented victims of the Northern California fires, Unidos Por Puerto Rico, and Able Works’ efforts to empower low-income individuals in the Bay Area. And then some organizations had touched our lives directly, like the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, Desis Rising Up and Moving, and cityWILD.
On November 28th, we reached our goal of donating $50,000, meaning that as a company we’ve collectively donated $100,000 to 125 organizations this year ❤️ 🙌
The top five organizations we donated to in 2017 were:
- Planned Parenthood
- Doctors Without Borders
- GiveDirectly
- Electronic Frontier Foundation
- Partners in Health
Check out their great work and consider joining us in supporting them!
Connecting with our local communities
In October, we started our first local volunteering initiative to get out of our offices (and home offices) and connect with amazing social and environmental organizations nearby.
The response from our team was enthusiastic, to say the least: 146 people across Mapbox volunteered a collective 630 hours over our month-long campaign, supporting 27 volunteer projects with 24 local organizations. It was a global effort, with teams organizing ways to give back in San Francisco, Washington D.C., Portland, Chicago, Detroit, Bangalore, and Ayacucho. We donated our muscle, minds, and maps!
Muscle
Most of our volunteer teams found ways to support local organizations with their time and labor. A major theme was food security and helping those who have limited access to healthy food.
- Two volunteer teams in D.C. took on the pre-Thanksgiving food donations rush with We are Family and Food for All DC, and two other teams helped to prepare meals with Food and Friends DC and DC Central Kitchen’s Food Lab, transforming wasted food to feed thousands of people a day.
- Teams in San Francisco prepared ingredients for nutritious, healing meals for the clients of Project Open Hand; prepared bags of groceries for Groceries for Seniors; and served dinner to 200 people at the main Saint Vincent de Paul shelter for people without housing in the city.
- In Detroit, remote Mapboxer Matt Greene helped with orders for a nutrition-focused pop-up grocery, supporting people with limited access to affordable, healthy foods.
- A group in Bangalore helped serve lunch to children at the Karnataka Welfare Association For The Blind.
- Volunteers in Ayacucho visited the Padre Saturino senior’s home to prepare lunch, help around the center, and spend time with the residents.
- Two teams in San Francisco assisted with meals at Family House, an organization that provides housing and living support to families who need an affordable place to stay in the city when a child is going through treatment.
Another theme was giving time to help organizations support their causes.
- Volunteers collected donations of socks and candy, packing them into care packages for At The Crossroads to use when helping homeless youth in San Francisco.
- We participated in GLIDE’s annual toy sorting marathon.
- Our San Francisco office held a holiday card-making session to make hand-made cards and care packages to be given to isolated seniors by Little Brothers Friends of the Elderly.
- Volunteers in Portland and D.C. collected and sorted donations for Dress for Success and Suited for Change.
Three volunteer teams also supported environmental organizations:
- Our Friends of the Urban Forest team worked on a sidewalk beautification project, preparing sidewalk garden areas for neighbors to plant; this reduces stormwater runoff.
- Our Bangalore office volunteered at the Bannerghatta Rehabilitation Centre (BRC), which houses and treats displaced, injured, and orphaned urban wildlife.
- More volunteers in Portland helped sort donated building materials for The Rebuilding Center.
Minds
Other volunteers donated their time and talents:
- One team in Ayacucho spent a day tutoring orphans in English, math, and geography at the Hogar Urpi center. They even used OpenStreetMap in their lessons.
- Remote Mapboxer Carol Hansen is providing technical support to the Chicago Community Bond Fund to help strengthen the backend of their donation website.
- A team from our San Francisco office spent a day with middle school students at 826 Valencia’s Tenderloin Center to support a Podcast Field Trip, helping students write and record podcasts on the theme ‘Where I’m From.’
Maps
Several local organizations were in need of mapping and location data support, similar to the type of support that we provide to our many humanitarian, development, and non-profit partners.
- Volunteers in San Francisco and D.C. teamed up to build a new web mapping tool for the Washington Area Bicycle Association.
- We learned about the operations of the Shanti Project’s PAWS program so we can help them design new maps. We also enjoyed washing 27 dogs belonging to elderly and disabled clients of PAWS.
- A team spent a morning with Meals on Wheels preparing and loading 290 bags of groceries to be distributed to seniors and other neighbors across San Francisco. Meals on Wheels SF distributes groceries each week as well as 7,200 hot meals every day in San Francisco — our team is now exploring maps, routing, and navigation tools for the organization.
It’s been a busy year, and we’re only getting started. As we gear up for 2018, stay tuned for more minds, muscle, and maps supporting positive change. If you have an organization we should connect with, contact our Community team. Happy holidays!
Giving our muscle, minds, and maps was originally published in Points of interest on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.