Above: Box.org Executive Director Bryan Breckenridge during a presentation at the 2019 NetHope Global Summit at the Royal Dublin Society in Dublin.
This episode six in our ongoing NetHope Destination Digital podcast series.
Community involvement and empowerment is a legacy for Box.org executive director, Bryan Breckenridge. From childhood, the charismatic Breckenridge volunteered around his community; then in college, he channeled his passion for helping into enabling nonprofits to work smarter.
When Breckenridge began his professional life, it was important that wherever he worked, the company also championed these ideals as part of its corporate vision and employee programs.
“I needed to work with a company that championed and supported volunteering,” emphasized Breckenridge as he spoke with NetHope CEO Lauren Woodman during our sixth Destination Digital podcast.
When he started with Salesforce nearly two decades ago Breckenridge viewed it as “a perfect opportunity,” to combine his knowledge of the commercial side with “the importance of values and staying true to those values” at work.
Not that any of this hasn’t come with a bit of a paradox: How do you balance the priorities of work to shape the corporate priorities, along with motivating and involving employees to make a cohesive philanthropic, nonprofit package?
At Box.org, Breckenridge outlines the need to always think about three stakeholders: 1) Nonprofits―”what can we do for nonprofits that are often plugging gaps in communities or communities in need or underrepresented communities?” 2) Its employees―with 73 percent of its 2,000 employees volunteering, how can it meet their concerns, motivate them, and educate them on the missions of the nonprofits the company is involved with? 3) The organization―how can Box promote and encourage its brand while balancing the aims of its other two stakeholders?
“(With more than 8,000 nonprofit customers) Box very much feels like the embedded social enterprise principles and practices build our mission: the beneficiary is the hero in the NGO setting, the customer is the hero especially in the Cloud setting. So, we made certain that those two principle areas were blended.”
Box.org, along with Microsoft, Okta, Blackbaud, Oracle NetSuite, and Avanade, is a founding partner of NetHope’s Center for the Digital Nonprofit. The Center is creating the building blocks to propel digital transformation among its member organizations. By offering guidance, assessments, frameworks, resources, and other tools under the auspices of The Center and through the help of corporate partners like Box.org, The Center aims to accelerate the transformation process for nonprofits to help them achieve their missions.
Breckenridge is enthusiastic about the progress that’s being made by this iterative process. “I've seen members of (NetHope) digitize an office from paper to digital and immediately be able to collaborate better around the world, which in turn unlocked more funding, which in turn allowed the processes to be more nimble to serve more people in area(s) of critical need.
“It's been amazing to see how much (NetHope has) grown,” noted Breckenridge. “Seeing my peers in technology continue to embrace your work, I'm excited to see where NetHope is going.”
Hear Bryan Breckenridge’s complete Destination Digital podcast.
