Corporate Heartbeat: The Win-Win of Giving Back

How can corporate giving benefit our organizations, our employees, our communities, as well as our world? What can we do more of? Only twenty five percent of American adults invest their time and energy to giving back. So let's look at how much more we can give as well. On today's CG Hour, we're going to look at the corporate heartbeat, the win win of giving back. Let's start the countdown. Welcome to the CG Hour. My name is Fanny Dunigan, where every other month we come to you featuring experts and industry leaders talking about the latest hot topics in business and technology. For those of you that are new to our channel and our show, we are coming to you live on YouTube as well as LinkedIn. So if you are live in the comments, be sure to introduce yourself, tell people where you're tuning in from, and be sure to connect with other people that you meet in the comments. This is a chance for you to build your network as well and build your connections through this show, through like minded individuals. So we are talking all about corporate giving and philanthropy on today's show. This is the Corporate Heartbeat, the Win Win of Giving Back. And I want to introduce to you all our guests here today. Starting here on my right, we have Tricia Cunningham. She is the President and CEO of North Texas Food Bank. Tricia, can you give the audience just a brief intro to yourself? Sure. Fanny, thank you so much for having me on the CG Infinity Hour today. Just such a pleasure to be here with a company that really truly values giving back into the community for sure. So I've been at the North Texas Food Bank now for about seven and a half years. Before that, I had a thirty year career at Texas Instruments. My last role there, was Chief Citizenship Officer. So I had a direct exposure to the nonprofit community and the NGO community on a global basis and to be able to see how companies interact from that side of the table. And then now on the nonprofit side, I get to welcome a lot of companies into our work and we couldn't do the work without the corporations. Wonderful. You're the absolute perfect guest for this I also want to welcome Raj Asaba. He is the co founder of HungerMittal. Raj, welcome to the show. Please give our audience a quick intro to yourself. Thank you. Thank you, Fanny. It's good to be back on this show. I was on this show about a year or two ago and and also I'm really excited to be back on this show particularly because there are two people that I admire a lot. Know, Tricia and Surjit, you know, these are amazing leaders who just don't talk about giving back. They walk the talk. And that's one thing that I'm very excited about joining them on this panel. And I guess in today's day and age, I mean win win is the mantra that we all need to learn, you know. So I wish that more people are watching today's show and also seeing that win win is the only way to make a difference in our volatile world. My background, I have been in this country for fifty years. I had a pretty successful corporate career. I retired as the Chief Strategy Officer at Parrot Systems and since then I've been focusing in from twenty ten on giving back my time, my talent, my treasure for the betterment of the next generation. So we are one hundred percent focused on giving back and making a difference in our world. Awesome, thank you Raj. And last but not least to my left here we have Sarji Kanungo. He is the president of CG infinity. Sarji, please give our audience a quick intro. Yeah, happy to. First of all, thank you for having me here, Fanny. And like Raj said, you know, I've been admiring, inspired by Raj for a little over twenty years now, and I had the privilege of him introducing me to Tricia. So, you know, she has she emits a lot of positive energy and North Texas Food Bank is an amazing organization to our community. So, so happy to share the studio with you today. So for me, you know, I lived here in this town, a little over twenty five, twenty seven years, raised three kids and this is home for me. And been fortunate to be leading a company like CG Infinity for the last fifteen years where you know, we are more a community oriented technology consulting company. So community is why we exist. And so for us to get involved in organization like North Texas Food Bank or Houston Food Bank is a requirement in our minds. It helps us build culture, be more relevant to the community. So super excited to be involved with North Texas Food Bank. I love that. Giving back is a requirement, that's for sure. And for those of you that are just tuning in, make sure you watch till the very end of this episode because we have a very special giveaway today and we'll reveal it at the end of the show. So make sure you watch till the end. In the meantime, before we dive into Q and A with our guests, we wanted to share with you this research video where we pulled together some stats and figures around philanthropy and the benefits and the importance of it. So let's run that now. Welcome to the CG Hour, the power of giving back. About twenty five percent of American adults invest time and energy to make a positive contribution to their communities. Eighty four percent of companies offer flexible scheduling or paid time off for volunteering. Volunteering can positively impact health and increase life satisfaction. Seventy three percent of companies offer volunteer programs that allow their employees to practice their skills to help their communities. Philanthropy can often be the most cost effective way for a company to improve its competitive context. Consumers prefer doing business with socially responsible companies. Only thirty six percent of employees feel positively engaged in their positions. While seventy three percent of investors believe giving back contributes to investment returns, Gen Z and millennial employees feel the need to balance work lives with a drive for societal change. Five fifty seven billion dollars are donated to US charities in twenty twenty three. Philanthropy can influence both the size and quality of the local market. A company that leads with corporate philanthropy often gains disproportionate benefits through enhanced reputation and relationships. How does your organization give back? So for this first segment, we wanted to kind of dive into the benefits to organizations as a result of corporate giving and philanthropy. And I wanna actually start with you, Sarjeet, because in a way this episode wouldn't have happened without the early beginnings of your relationship with Raj. So kind of walk us through a little bit of what inspired you to prioritize volunteering and then how did you get into this kind of one percent pledge initiative? Yeah, great question. So like many corporations, we used to give some donation, but I call that a passive engagement. The real active engagement started when I started watching what Raj and his wife Anna are doing is they created this movement. So I got very curious and I couldn't believe that you know they're dedicating their whole lives to this movement. And you know, that inspired me and what really triggered us from going from passive to active engagement is I remember in March or April of twenty twenty with COVID, shut down, the lines at the North Texas Food Bank or North Texas Food Bank had several places even in Fort Worth. And there were like mile long lines of cars. I'm like, this is real. This is in our backyard. I mean, you know, this is a rather prosperous metroplex for us to be able to see that people are getting impacted and there are mile long lines of cars. That really triggered I was thinking about doing something like this with Raj's inspiration, but the COVID really triggered that for us. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. And like you mentioned active involvement instead of passive involvement. Such an important point. And then Raj, your organization, Hunger Mental, it really kinda helps organizations make it easier and facilitate that kind of corporate giving. Tell us a little bit of how you started Hunger Metau, what prompted you, and then how it kind of enables corporations to contribute. Sure, sure. First of all, whatever we are doing wouldn't have been possible without the excellent work that North Texas Food Bank and the food banking system across the country is doing day in and day out. Feeding America and their network of two hundred plus food banks ensure that everyone who has a need for food, right, in every zip code across our wonderful country has access to it. So when we saw the excellent work that they were doing, you know, I firmly believe there is no reason to reinvent the wheel. If the wheel is already invented, now let's figure out different ways to utilize it. You know? So with that in mind, you know, when we learned about the hunger issue, you know, post my when we sold that company to Dell in two thousand ten, and I think in your in our last session that I had on your show, I spoke to you a little bit about my life mantra, the mantra by which my wife and I, we live our life. Yeah. And I think it's worth repeating it, which is human life is best lived in three stages, and that is learning, earning, and returning. Nothing is going to go with us. And it is the moral duty of every individual to ensure that whatever time, talent, treasure we have, we have to plow it back for the betterment of the next generation. With that realization in two thousand ten, when we left the corporate world, we got involved in variety of charities. And initially, we got involved with charities out of India because we are from India and traveling over there. Some of those needs are very, very obvious. But when we learn about the hunger issue in America, it shocked us. And one thing we also learned at early stage is that the face of hunger in America is very different than the face of hunger in other parts of the world. Other parts of the world, the emerging countries, etcetera, the face of hunger kinda goes hand in hand with poverty, etcetera. Here, it could be a next door neighbor who was doing well until yesterday but just got laid off or had a medical situation at their home. And next thing you know, they have to now make a decision between medicine, mortgage, you know, and food. And, typically, food is what suffers. And thank goodness for North Texas Food Bank. They ensure that those who need food actually have access to food so they can get themselves back on track. They can get themselves back on their feet. And that's one thing that I like the mission, which is not just feed the light, but also figure out a way to shorten the light. So I'm kind of going all over the map, but my message here is that we saw a need for a movement. We saw a need for the community to get involved because the government can only do so much. Businesses can only do so much. Even North Texas food ban can only do so much. But unless the community steps up and says nothing doing, we are declaring a war against hunger and get involved in a sustained manner, we will never address the hunger issue. So with that in mind, it was we were very, very lucky because Tricia was just taking over the helm of North Texas Food Bank, and we came up with this wild idea. We said, you know, we'll give three years of our lives to get one community involved in the fight against hunger. And if it works with one community, then we should be able to replicate it across other communities. And Tricia, God bless, she just said, you know what? I love this idea. She said, I will get the heck out of your way, and you let me know how I can help you and just go at it. And with that in mind, we got involved. And we also realized that we have to show people that money is not the only way to support. Yeah. We have to show them multiple ways through which they can get involved. So with that in mind, again, working with the food bank, we were able to show them that people can get involved by volunteering, by conducting food drives on their special occasions, by donating funds, which is needed. At the minimum, being aware of the fact that eight hundred thousand people right here in North Texas alone are struggling to put food on the family table. Don't be ignorant about that. So with that in mind, we made that our mission. Hunger Mittal, just FYI, is two words, hunger, and Mittal is an Indian word which means wipe out. So our mission is wipe out hunger by engaging the communities one at a time. Beautiful. And it's it's such a beauty, and it really is win win. It takes a whole village. It takes everyone to be involved. Tricia, from your perspective because you came from corporate. Right? And so you I think you really see that intersection. You were the chief citizenship officer at Texas Instruments and now CEO of North Texas Food Bank. Tell us why it's so important to have that integration with corporations and and how that relationship benefits the whole community. Well, really it's win win overall. So you just saw the great video and you got to see a lot of the stats of why it's really important for companies to engage their employees and why have to engage in philanthropy here. And one of the things I love about Hunger Matau, not only whenever we first met, I said it needs to be replicable and scalable and make sure that you have that system in place to be able to support it so that way it can be sustainable as well. But not only has it started there, but there's also been additional affinity groups now that have started up. Because what has happened is, and I saw this whenever I was running global corporate citizenship at TI, some communities, whenever they're come to the US, they don't understand the value of giving back and philanthropy and the impact that they can make because it was very different social setting where they came from. But whenever you get here, hunger's hidden. You know, you see it very prevalently in India and China and a lot of countries where the needs are right there. But here hunger is hidden until COVID exposed it. And it exposed so many people that had never needed assistance before. So fast forward to today, and you're seeing the same kind of thing. We're serving more people now than we did during COVID, but you're not seeing the long lines because we're trying to get it back into the community, But we couldn't do this work without corporations. So it takes, I've always said whenever I was at TI and I still say it today, it takes investment plus involvement to make an impact. If someone writes a check, that's great. They can feel good about that contribution and they can feel good that it's going to a worthy cause. And for some people that is their engagement is being able to do that. Where we see the greatest return though is whenever you also get people involved. So they can see the work, they're a part of the work. We still need the donations, but having those hands to help us is incredible. They feel it and they feel it. You know, we were talking before this segment started that it's the best happy hour you can have. Sarjeet was talking a little bit because you get together, you work together for a common purpose. You feel good about doing it because you know, as soon as you leave the food bank, for example, you've made a difference. And there's like that, it's so many different companies as well as nonprofits. You bring those individuals together for a common purpose and you can, you know that mission, working in a corporation, you have goals. I know corporations love to meet and exceed goals. Well, it's the same thing on the nonprofit side. Need that and we need that support. We could not do our work as efficiently as we do without those thirty five thousand volunteers that come and help us with their hands and their feet every single day. And many of them, because they volunteer, we want to engage heart first and then they see what we wanna do. And then they also want to give of their financial resources as well. Yeah, it has such a ripple effect. Yeah. I see in the audience, Jacqueline Way, she's saying CSR programs can also be incorporated as part of your wellness programs for employees. Such a valid point. And everyone else out there, please drop into the comments. Tell us about the corporate philanthropy programs that you have in your organization so that we can all get inspired and powered as well-to-do more. Tricia, I wanna point out one thing you also mentioned when we were kinda chatting before there's this DFW Corporate Citizenship Network. Talk a bit more about that. So whenever I was at Texas Instruments, corporate social responsibility was sort of a new topic. And I moved into that role because I truly cared about our community. I'd started serving on nonprofit boards. I started seeing a lot of the work that was happening in our community. I saw the needs, saw the impact that people that work in companies and professional roles, they have skills and knowledge that would be so valuable on those nonprofits. And just helping them to have that knowledge in the boardroom was gonna be very important for our nonprofits to be able to reach their strategic goals and to be able to thrive. So I had an affinity around that. And when I had the opportunity then to move into the public affairs area and sort of do that as my full time job is, you know, because I had environmental social governance and reporting and those things as well, but I had the employee engagement and RTI foundation and our employee giving as well. There wasn't a network of people. I'd always had my network of people that I felt like we could sort of It takes a village. It takes a village because I am a collaborator and I thought, gosh, what about the power of doing something together in our community? Because whenever you're talking about giving back to your community, it's not competitive. And oftentimes the way that you can cooperate and you can try to work together on some of these issues, it's more valuable for us. I mean, it's not like we're not telling intellectual property secrets whenever we're starting to give back into the community. So I met with a few colleagues and was starting to talk. I said, now where's this group? Oh, well, there's not one we've thought about doing. I said, well, let's do it. So I hosted the very first DFW Corporate Citizenship Network meeting. We all got out our contact list and said, who else do we know is doing this at companies? We invited them to a meeting at Texas Instruments. I hosted it there and said, hey, would you be interested in developing something like this? So we could share best practices that we could learn from each other Whenever there's disasters, we could sort of band together and figure out how do we support this together in our community so that we can make a collective impact on what's happening. And so that's how it got started. And it's continuing to go. Love, I had to kick myself out whenever I went to the nonprofit side because it was truly set up for those that that is their primary practice is to be able to give back to the community. We talk about, you know, ESG reporting. We talk about different initiatives. We talk about strategic philanthropy, trust based philanthropy, all these various topics that are very timely and helpful on the corporate side. But it wasn't, no nonprofits were allowed because there were some organizations in the community were brought the nonprofits, but we couldn't have those best practice conversations because we were always talking about funding. That's not what it was about. We wanted to actually improve our own profession and create that network. So it's still going today. Saw they just had a meeting last month and they were able to promote that and they have still a strong group of people that are going. So I continue to cheer them on. I love it. It's like Raj said, learning, earning, and returning. Yes. It continues to return. Right. I love it. Sarjeet, you know, at the organizational level and the corporate level, what kind of organizational benefits have you seen from this this one percent pledge and corporate giving? And maybe describe what the one percent pledge is, and then then what kind of benefits you've seen in your company. Yeah. So one percent pledge is really brought by Mark Benihoff, who is the founder of Salesforce dot com. We do a lot of work. That's our biggest practice area, implementing Salesforce. And, again, we actually took their idea and we try to follow what Mark Benioff said. Employee and every partner should at least commit to one percent of their time, profit, or what kind of resources. So we took that idea and we started this journey four years ago. There are a couple of leaders on my Salesforce practice team. They started this. Now it's a routine occurrence like next week. I was in Houston yesterday, and we're going to do a shift at Houston Food Bank. And we do probably six to eight shifts here at North Texas Food Bank. So we're trying to use the one percent pledge idea that was initiated by Salesforce dot com and trying to make it a culture or a routine in our organization. And we do it across our offices, including our office in New Delhi, India. So super excited about that. And you've rolled it out across all your different offices. Now where consulting is time is money. Right? Giving that one percent back to the community, what makes it worthwhile for you guys? Yeah. And and what do you what kind of benefits do you see on your employees? Yeah. Just, you know, from a purely a business standpoint, we have happier employees. We actually started engaging our customer team members, so we connect with our customers better. And overall, it just keeps all of us know each other better and collaborate better. So it's win win. And frankly, you we all go to happy hour like I was talking to Tricia a little while ago. It is actually the best happy hour. We don't add calories. We shed calories, and we get a real high at the end of the shift because we can actually see the instant gratification of work we have done. So it's truly a game changer for us to connect with each other as a team, with our customer team. Hundred percent. Raj, can you share a success story that you've seen with other organizations? Sure. Over the four decades that I was in the corporate world, you know, one thing I saw is that, you know, there are what we call stakeholders. So every business, every venture, whether it is for profit or nonprofit, has four major stakeholders. And those are employees, customers, investors, and the community. There are several, unfortunately, who don't recognize community as a stakeholder. They tend to forget it is from the community that the investors come from. It is from the community that the employees come from Yeah. That the customers come from. So it becomes our duty to ensure that the communities in which we are working, we are also seen as an organization that is giving back. And frankly speaking, here, I see in the United States that there are many opportunities, many organizations that actually allow you to make a difference and be recognized as a corporation that is making a difference. I remember I used to be involved with the Heart Walk. So the company that I worked for, we were one of the key sponsors of the Heart Walk. It was not just writing a check. It's getting the employees to come out there because we wanted healthier employees. Yeah. We wanted employees to not be ignorant about their health. So we wanted them to get out there. Understand about the simple seven, that way you can check out your make sure that you're not on the path to disaster. Right? So I think it is a duty of every corporation to ensure that they look at corporate social responsibility. It's called CSR, but the fact of the matter is that it should be genuine. It is not simply, okay, check mark. Okay. I also have a CSR program. I have a person heading it. No. I think leaders need to walk the talk. They need to get involved. They need to be leading from the front on on these kinds of initiatives. So I have seen organizations that have taken on meaningful CSR programs and supported causes like North Texas Food Bank, American Heart, etcetera. And I have seen, like what Surjit mentioned, a high degree of loyalty. Employees want to work for organizations like that. Also have seen in my life, I mean because I was in the IT world, and it's a very competitive world. We are competing with the big boys and, you know, the smaller up and coming organizations. So what I noticed was at one point, when it comes to the solution, when it comes to the talent, we were all at par. Then what makes the customer to decide one over the other? And I noticed it was the CSR program. I saw that organizations said that, hey. You are you got talented people. You have the right solution, and you're also a good corporate citizen. I want to work with you. It's that extra ingredient. Right? Exactly. I mean and It's beyond the bottom line. Exactly. Beyond the bottom line. Correct. You know? That's such an important point you raised, Raj, about the community being a stakeholder. I think that's such an important point for all of us to remember is that our community is a stakeholder. Right. Yeah. Trisha, from your perspective, so for those people out there, the leaders out there that want to kind of get started because they're inspired by what they're hearing. What is some maybe tactical advice that you can give at this point to help an organization get started with a new CSR? So number one, I think you have to decide what's important to you and your company. You know, you can really spread the peanut butter very thin as I would say, and not have a very satisfying sandwich, you know, but if you really focus your efforts and you really think about, okay, where can we make the most impact? Survey the needs in your community. What are the greatest needs in your community? Understand where you can try to connect your people to those needs. You can survey your own employees. You can find out from them, what do they care about? What are cause areas that they care about? If you wanna start, you know, just sort of grassroots really building up that program, your employees, if they feel like they're being listened to on what they care about, then that's really important to be able to put into your CSR program as well. One of the ways that we did that through at Texas Instruments, we had a matching gifts program. So we had money set aside in our TI foundation budget that we could match gifts for employees that were giving dollars. And we could track where those gifts were going. So we knew what our employees were interested in because that's where they were giving their money. We also then later implemented a dollar for doers program is what they call it. But based upon certain number of hours, then the company would give a financial contribution based upon the number of hours that that employee was giving. So then we could track where people were giving their time. And it was very interesting to see that dynamic of where people were giving their time and their treasures. And it helped us to inform what they cared about. Another tactic that really was helpful for us at Texas Instruments, we had a lot of the employee resource groups. And they were given, a very small budget to basically go do good in the community. And they ended up being some of the best arms and legs out in the community because they wanted to do things together with their employee resource group. Sort of taking Hunger Matau, which is a larger effort focused on a particular issue, but it's really taking inside a company, a group of employees and helping them to sort of say, this is what we care about. And so women's initiatives that we were a technology company, they often wanted to focus on trying to help women and girls ensure they had the skills they needed to be able to be, achieve and thrive in math and science. And so they might have a mentor program where they might support a particular program like that. You had another group that they might wanna support hunger. You had other groups that might wanna support, other youth programs or they might have a health issue. So it really helped to get the employees out in the community. They got to build community with those in their ERG group. And then the communities who won. Yeah. Because they really gave back. Yeah. And it's such a I wanna repeat to the audience again what you said, because I think you really stress this importance of the employees feel heard. Yes. Right? By asking them what they want to help with and serving them, making them feel seen and heard, then that creates that kind of extra employee involvement and engagement. Because you can have your overall umbrella strategy. And then what you find out is that usually those employee cares fit really well within that. Yeah. Well, Tricia, you brought us a video here to kind of give some background about North Texas Food Bank. Can you tee it up a bit before we roll it? Sure. So many people I know this probably watching this don't really understand the role of a food bank. You know, a food bank, I call us, we're sort of the B2B connection. And then we distribute out to hundreds of food pantries and other outlets that allow us to be able to get the food into the local communities. And so that's sort of the B2C once they get to us. And so you're gonna see a video here that really talks a little bit about how the food bank works. I mean, here at the North Texas Food Bank, I call us a two hundred million dollars supply chain and logistics organization that happens to be Love it. Let's roll that now. When you think about food insecurity, it just means that someone doesn't have access to the amount of nutritious food that they need for their families on a weekly basis. Our community needs help now more than ever because of inflation. Many people are having to deal with twenty five percent increases in rent, fifteen percent, twenty percent of the grocery store. There's a misperception sometimes that we primarily serve the homeless, which is a population that we serve. But what many people don't realize is food insecurity has always been primarily serving the working poor. This is their neighbor. This could be the person that's helping them at the grocery store. So we're seeing families that are middle class working families, they still can't make ends meet because their salaries haven't gone up as much as the inflation has. I think the thing that's most surprising to people whenever I speak to them is they think that the North Texas Food Bank is a big food pantry. We're actually more than four hundred food pantries out into the community because our primary role is a non profit logistics organization. You see a huge volunteer center and you see an expansive warehouse where we have pallets of food that are coming in and about half of everything that we distributed last year is fresh fruits and vegetables. And it is a logistics and warehouse operation. We have a fleet of about thirty trucks and we're doing distributions and we work with our partner agencies. We have an entire social services team that is going and trying to connect people with benefits that they may not normally know about. So whenever our donors make a contribution to the North Texas Food Bank, they're fueling all of that work. For every dollar they give, we can provide access to three meals. So we try to do that very effectively and very efficiently knowing that more than ninety four percent of all of our resources goes directly into our programs. As you can see, it makes such a big impact. I wanna read one of the comments we got from Jacqueline here in the comments. One of the big benefits that she's seen in her organization is the increase in the happiness of their employees. It shows an increase is up to twenty two percent. Based on neuroscience, a happy brain makes us more creative, output is higher, and engagement with customers improves. Truly a win win. Right? And then, Raj, I mean, we have a whole new generation of professionals coming up in the workplace. Right? Gen z, millennials, even alpha, I think. Right? And a lot of them are very conscious about corporate responsibility. Right? And talk us talk us through a bit about how you see this newer generation coming through corporate and and their need for corporate responsibility. Sure. I think one thing we learn in the corporate world is know your audience, know your market. This new generation that is coming up, you have to keep in mind, their attention span is very little. These are the TikTok generation. Right? So we have to recognize that. And I think that is because that is how brilliant this next generation is. I'm not trying to say that they don't have attention to detail. It's just the fact that they are grasping information at a much faster pace than the previous generations did. So they are very action oriented. So if we bore them with long thesis and long presentations and very little action, you'll turn them off. And, fortunately, you know, the hunger issue is such, and the food bank, the way it works, is this that it can deliver that message to them about the hunger issue in a matter of thirty seconds. Eight hundred thousand people, one in four school going children or one in five school going children, when they leave school on Friday, the next meeting is Monday. Millennials can connect with that. They said, what can I do about it? You know? And I think we need to be able to speak their language and get them focused messages. And what I am also very heartened and very happy to see that this next generation is empathetic. They really are caring. They are pushing the previous generation not to be lethargic about this thing. Or if I don't see the issue, the issue doesn't exist. They are challenging them. They're this has become a dining room conversation at many homes. Right? What we are finding in the hunger meter volunteer lines, parents are telling us, it's our children who have brought us to the volunteering session. It's not it used to be I remember growing up, my parents used to kick me and tell tell me, time to get you know, you need to do your duty. You know? I said, oh, can I sleep a little bit more? Here's another way around. Yeah. So I have, you know, high regards for this next generation and the fact that they are really motivated to, you know, make this world a better place. And I think we we owe it to them that we understand how they act and how they consume information and start delivering it in that manner. Beautiful. Cultivating empathy, especially in our young kids. Tricia, you brought this really cute book. Yay. Please walk us through it and talk us through what this means. So I think this is a perfect segue with what you just talked about. So we realize that it doesn't matter what age you are. People can understand the issue of hunger. They know what that rumble in their tummy feels like. And in here, this is set in Jan's garden, which is just outside our North Texas food bank area. And we have some bees and butterflies and different animals and different insects inside the garden and butterflies hungry. And butterfly has a rumble in her tummy and her friends get together and they help butterfly not be hungry anymore. And there's activities in the back for parents to be able to help them, any age child to show areas that they can understand about this and ways that they can make a difference. It's so important, I believe, our children to ensure that they know that they have a responsibility to give back. Just like we're doing in the corporate world with employees, you know, people, Gen X, and Z, they will turn jobs down. Yes. If they feel like they cannot find purpose in the organization that they're working for. And you don't have to work for a nonprofit to find purpose. If you can find purpose in the corporate world, you can absolutely be the hands and you can write the checks and you can do the things to support the nonprofits. And maybe still your passion is software engineering or something in the technology field. So you can do and fulfill that passion while you're also feeling that social return on investment as well. But we're so excited to be, we have three of these we're gonna give away today. And so hopefully, one of you can get this and you can read it to your children. I have a three year old niece that I started reading this to her when she was two. And it's still her mom told me it's still her favorite book today. Beautiful. Okay, make sure you watch till the end to learn how to win. Yeah. One for each panelist also. Yes. I want to read it. They are available in our marketplace. If you're not a lucky winner, we do have them in our marketplace at ntfb dot org for thirty. And that thirty dollars will provide ninety meals out in the community. So if you're not lucky enough to win one, we do have them online. Win win. Win win. Set it up for win win. Sarjeet, you brought us a video to kind of demonstrate this one percent pledge. Tee up this video and kind of like share a little bit about how you've kind of rolled it out to all your different offices. Yeah. You know, I love to tell you that we have to come up with a strategy and a plan to execute. It's really took off. It gained its own momentum internally. Yes, we in twenty twenty, it was clear to us that community needed our help, especially, you know, not many people who are going out and volunteering. So it started, but we enjoyed it so much that it has become a grass root level effort. Like I don't get involved. I don't think my direct reports are getting involved. I was just visiting our Houston offices yesterday and they just announced to me, hey, are you coming back on Thursday next week? We have another shift. And I'll give you another example. Like there was a sign up email, went to our Dallas group maybe two weeks ago and, you know, we were forty eight hours late and the shift, is gone. Like this is I was sad and happy at the same time. So now it has become a competition also, right? Who can give faster than Yeah, that's awesome. So to me, it actually has become our second nature. I think we're doing in Dallas at least every other month, if not more than Yep. Sometimes we come up with some ad hoc shifts and we have about one hundred and twenty people, employees here and the participation rate is extremely high. We will go and fill a shift in no time of fifteen people, twenty people in no time. So again, one percent pledge the whole idea that we inherited or learned from Salesforce dot com, it has become our own system inside the company. And really, there is nobody managing it or monitoring it. There people It has its own momentum. Momentum, and it is But leadership matters. Leading by example, that Yeah. You go to the CG infinity offices from over the last two years, since twenty twenty, you'll find in the lobby a Hunger Metau North Texas food bank box is there permanently. So they don't do a food drive like, okay, this is a special month. Let's do a food drive. It's a twenty four by seven, around the clock, employees can come in, drop off, whatever they can. So that's something that shows commitment to me. So this is something really good. Let's see it in action and roll the video. Here at CG Infinity, we find value in supporting our community. That is why we pledge our time to those who need our help. By fighting against hunger, we hope to make a change one person at a time. Volunteering with CG Infinity at the Food Bank of the Rockies was a truly meaningful experience for all of us. It's a privilege to work for a company that really cares for the communities we do our business in. Seeing that video reinforces it's not just a, mental thing. It's also a physical thing. It's like physical health, mental health by giving back. So much of our techie people, we sit in front of the computer and just kinda, like, hunched over our laptops. But I watched that video, and it's just everyone getting involved, being hands on, moving things, shaking things up, supply chain, like you mentioned. It's it's so thrilling and such a happy moment to see that. Well, Tricia, I wanna talk a bit about just the even broader impact. Right? We talked about benefits to employees, to companies, the community. But in a way it's kind of worldwide impact and like broader community impact as well. Talk a bit about that. Well, first of all, I think with what we do with hunger, it doesn't matter where you go in the world, it is the most basic need. You know, in some countries it's also water, but hunger is something that it doesn't matter where you live. You can identify with that. There are people in every country that struggle with having enough nutritious food on their table. So number one, I will just start with that as sort of the baseline for global impact. But whenever you think about someone who maybe has come and volunteered, so this one percent pledge, they may come and they have a great experience. Well, I've had people that they come with their companies and they said, oh, I wanna bring my book club members with me, or I wanna bring my church group with me, or I wanna be able to do that. Well, those people come. And then you've got other people that come, maybe they're visiting from out of town. Guess what? They go back in their local community and then they start doing the same thing. And it is truly a ripple effect because it's something if you let them know how valued they are and how critical they are to our mission to be able to be there. And then they're able to take that back in their own communities because they realize they truly can make a difference. And that's what we wanna do. I mean, that's what I wanna do. I mean, one of the mantras I have is always been about loving my neighbor as myself. And I can't do that if there's still unmet needs. And so that's really what drives me and everybody has their own passion and their own drive. But once you connect that and then they can share that passion with their friends and their family, no matter where they are. Hunger Matau is in India now. It's not just in the US. Hunger Matau has continued to grow and expand. So these are what makes us better as a community. Beautiful. Truly good. And for those of you out there, share with us your most rewarding aspect of volunteering. What's been kinda like your rewarding story as well? So please share that in the comments below. Raj, I know that not just India, you also mentioned when we were kinda prepping for this show, there's this Ni Hao Youth Yeah. Yeah. Initiative in China. That's Please talk about that. So actually, to make an impact, you know, at a local level as well as global level, that is something that every organization wants to do. So nonprofits are no different. So we believe that the way to make a difference in this world is through scale up and scale across. If you have something good, don't hold it back. Right? It's like open source in our technology world. So, you know, thanks to Tricia, because not only did she give us the challenge at the very beginning that whatever you do with this Indian community, make sure it is applicable. Right? Make sure it is scalable. And that's why everything that we did down to the email request to Tricia is templatized. Wow. So we have everything templatized. So during the pandemic, when Asian hate was unfortunately very high and when the Chinese community reached out to us through Tricia, we shared everything with them. And what took us several months of due diligence and getting it going, they were up and running in six Right. Because you had all the templates. Exactly. They had made it. And we have done the same thing with the Hispanic community and last year with the Japanese community. So we have communities involved one after the other. So I would say to your audience today, any community that is interested in joining this fight against hunger, throwing the support behind North Texas Food Bank, drop us a line. We will share with you our models. Food Bank will share with you their resources, and let's all get involved. Let's all roll up our sleeves, and let's all make sure nobody goes hungry across North Texas and, hopefully, United States and around the world. And you're showing people that they can give where they live and make an impact. Exactly. Exactly. That's true. That is our That's the mantra. Yeah. And that's really I see that intersection of business and giving back, right? Repeatable, scalable, those things you apply from business towards the nonprofit. And it works just as well. And in fact, it accelerates giving. Exactly. Because there's also another good thing is that there's less because ours is a movement. We are not even an organization. Right. So Hunger Beta was a movement. We said that Foodbank is already the nonprofit organization. So we throw our full support behind them, get the community involved. So that way we don't have any bureaucracy. Right? And yet we are able to make a difference. It's a great model. Well, Sarjeet, as we kind of come towards the end of the hour, what kind of closing message or advice would you give to the corporations out there to kinda empower them to start their one percent pledge or whatever initiative they want around the CSR? Yeah. Absolutely. So, you know, in in the beginning, I would like to say that there are many corporations that are doing the right thing. They're being a part of the community. And we, especially in North Texas, in a DFW Metroplex, we're fortunate to have many corporations who are already involved. So I want to thank them for what they are doing and expect the continued support. But we also know that our community is growing and growing fast. You know, and we welcome that. And and I would encourage that the corporations that they have not been involved as much. I would encourage them to come and get involved in this. What I would like to tell everyone that I never believed in this, but now I do, that you can never out give to your community. Your community always gives you back Yep. That's a good point. For commercial reason as well as social reason, it makes sense for us to do. Yeah. And even whether it's corporations or I see in the comments as an individual, Ann Small mentioned, I volunteer with the homeless in a park near me. One person started an incredible movement in Fort Worth and talking to the people and hearing their needs makes giving extra special. Raj, any closing advice for those that want to start a CSR program in their Yes. I will jump on what Surgi just mentioned. You know, small organizations often wonder how do they go about getting started. And we saw that in the Indian community when we started HungerMittal. So we came up with an idea working again with the food bank. We created a CSR in a box. So you don't need to have a CSR department because they're too small to have that kind of quote unquote overhead, etcetera. But Foodbank makes it very easy. We have identified all the right template that is needed for them to basically drop in, have their own page set up, you know, roll it out to their employees, company does their matching challenges. Right? It's all ready to go. So if anybody's interested, any entrepreneur out there, any small businesses out there who are now moved by the one percent pledge that Surjit shared with you that he started and look where they are now. I think each one of us can do that, and we are here to help you. So just drop us a line, and we will be happy to share the CSR in a box model. One last thing I would like to say, we are living an interesting time, to say the least. And I believe each one of us have, in our mind, figured out that someday I will do this. Someday I will give back. Someday I will make this big difference, etcetera. Folks, that someday is here. What we are seeing out there, as Tricia mentioned, we are serving more people today than during the height of COVID. The government programs are at risk, all kinds of situation and challenges, so I won't bore you through that. But if you are moved by today's session and you would like to get engaged, please get engaged now because the need is now and the need is paramount. Tricia, please, any advice you can share on how people can get involved? Even if it's not the food bank, other ways to get involved. Sure. Well, I I think to me to sum up this whole segment, businesses thrive when communities thrive. Yeah. And I think find a way to get involved, engage your employees in those decisions, and then just go do it. Invest, get involved, and make an impact. Four hundred percent. And on that note, we wanna make sure that we get to the giveaway here. Right? So for those of you out there, put in the comments hashtag volunteer. Right? Because we wanna take action. So put hashtag volunteer, and we'll select winners from everyone that puts hashtag volunteer in the comments, and then this book will be mailed out to you. And our team will follow-up and get your address. So hashtag volunteer, take action, read the book, contribute back, engage the community, think of the community as a stakeholder. And for the next time, I wanna actually right now thank our guests. Thanks for the inspiration. Thanks for the motivations, the empowerment. I think all of you out there, please connect with our guests here and look at ways to get involved. There's a lot of options, a lot of things that are very easy to implement quickly. Right? So thank you, Tricia. Thank you, Raj. Thank you, And for those of you out there, make sure you tune in to CG Hour next time as well on April ninth. We are gonna do a segment around the energy industry and Salesforce, one of the great partners with CG Infinity. So until next time, I wanna repeat back this great tagline of CG infinity, people first driven to transform. And you can really see it here on today's episode. So as we roll out, I wanna share with you this wrap up video and we'll see you next time on the CG Hour.