How Kyndryl Is Partnering With Deed And Echoing Green To Innovate In Purpose

Kyndryl’s volunteers | Kyndryl

Kyndryl, the world's largest IT infrastructure services provider, will now offer its growing 88,449 employee base opportunities to volunteer and donate to charities they feel passionate about through Deed, a full-service giving and volunteerism platform. This move is driven by a culture of world-class professionals who care deeply about their communities and have a passion to volunteer.

Additionally, Kyndryl will kick off its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Environmental Social Governance (ESG) program with a focus on Black entrepreneurship. This includes partnering with Echoing Green, a global nonprofit focused on identifying and investing in early-stage social entrepreneurs. Kyndryl's contributions will be spread across Echoing Green's fellowship programs, including its follow-on funding program which provides grants to Fellows performing racial justice work around the world.

Spearheading these efforts is Utaukwa Allen, VP CSR and ESG at Kyndryl, Cheryl Dorsey, President of Echoing Green, and Deevee Kashi, social entrepreneur and Co-Founder of Deed. I sat down with Allen, Dorsey and Kashi to learn more about what is in store for Kyndryl CSR and ESG efforts:

Utaukwa Allen, VP CSR and ESG at Kyndryl

Allen framed the partnership. “Kyndryl is the world’s largest IT infrastructure services provider. We operate at the core of the global economy, working closely with industries and businesses that drive commerce and keep the world moving forward. And our mission, is to be a purpose-driven, technology services company that is a partner and employer of choice. As an organization, I think our approach to CSR is similar in many ways to how we tackle business challenges. Placing an emphasis on purpose and people. Our business is centered around our people, our customers and our communities. With an 89,583+ employee base across 60 countries, our people represent our values of restlessness, empathy, and devotion to shared success. Whether as a partner to our customers or with our own CSR partners, like Deed or Echoing Green, we are focused on delivering solutions that address challenges and create opportunities within our communities. Echoing Green and Deed are the organization's first two global CSR and ESG partners since launching as a public company in November 2021. With a focus on employee empowerment and social entrepreneurship, Kyndryl is shaping its culture, placing customers, community, and the environment at its core.  

Deevee Kashi, social entrepreneur and Co-Founder of Deed

Kashi shared what the partnership meant to Deed. “Kyndryl is the largest global corporate partner to date utilizing the Deed platform. Its application is a sophisticated approach towards corporate giving and volunteer engagement. Deed was built on the belief that CSR/ESG should be centered around a company’s most valuable resource: its employees. What makes Kyndryl’s approach so interesting is how they are seeking to be inclusive in their execution of CSR and ESG; giving employees a voice in establishing their strategy but then also supporting their ideas with time, resources and money.”

Dorsey also contextualized what the partnership meant for Echoing Green. “Echoing Green is the leading source for finding social innovators – leaders with the boldest ideas for change. We find them as early as possible on their journey and then fund, support, and connect them. Through our fellowship, we provide seed funding and leadership development for our community of almost 1,000 social innovators, including first lady Michelle Obama and the founders of organizations like Teach For America and One Acre Fund.”

“Today we are thrilled to welcome Kyndryl into our family of supporters. Through our work to support entrepreneurs and communities of color globally, Kyndryl's backing advances our goals to launch and scale 500 social enterprises advancing racial equity. It will also help us build new pathways to social entrepreneurship through programs and trainings offered to more than 5,000 emerging leaders. When I think about the role of corporate citizenship today, the timing is right for corporations to make significant and authentic investments in strengthening our communities. Social innovators need an ecosystem of bold partners, like Kyndryl, willing to support them and provide them with the space to grow and thrive,” she said.

"Kyndryls want to connect with their colleagues globally and locally around shared volunteer opportunities, whether virtually or in-person."

Allen shared more on process of engaging their employees on what impact areas they were passionate about. “Within weeks of becoming an independent, public company, we launched an all-employee CSR engagement survey to better pulse our employees' priorities and interests, including how they wanted to apply their time and what they wanted to see in a social impact platform.We also created a selective group of employees who demonstrated high engagement around community issues to develop a core group for input on program decisions. This group continues to be central to our CSR growth strategy and provides tremendous value on how we evaluate program additions.”

She continued, “When looking at our survey results globally, we found that Kyndryls care deeply about education and workforce readiness, social and community service, environmental sustainability, humanitarian action and aid, and social entrepreneurship and innovation. When looking at these results, something that stood out for me is how Kyndryls valued innovation as a key to solving some of the world's most significant economic, social and environmental challenges. Because of this feedback, we are working tirelessly to apply a social entrepreneurship and innovation lens on how we make an impact with our partners across all of our categories – not just the one.”

Kashi agreed. “Kyndryl is an incredibly rare unicorn - a brand new company born into the Fortune 500 with endless possibilities and a strong desire to create impact. Their innovative leadership team has focused on building a purpose-driven culture and aligning on CSR partners who share those same values. At Deed, we create technology to help employees take action around causes they care about - and for their employers to engage and support them. Working with visionary leaders, who make sure the diverse voices of their employees are heard through an inclusive CSR program, is what excites us and their 89,583 employees the most.”

Allen shared more on what their employees were looking for. “To some degree, we saw from our employees that they wanted all of those things. The one feature they emphasized the most was having the ability to connect with people. And we understand even more, the importance and centrality of “connection,” given the impact of COVID on our ability to interact with others. Kyndryls want to connect with their colleagues globally and locally around shared volunteer opportunities, whether virtually or in-person. They also value a user-friendly, adaptive platform with mobile capability, enabling them to find hyper-localized opportunities. They want to see their organization of choice listed and want assurance that all organizations on the platform are vetted.” 

This pushed Deed to innovate more to meet the needs of the company. “Kyndryl was clear from the very beginning that they needed a partner who would be innovative, entrepreneurial, and nimble enough to meet the evolving needs of their employees and communities. One area where Kyndryl’s vision aligned perfectly with Deed’s was around Business Resource Groups (BRG’s). Kyndryl has made a deep commitment to DE&I, and Deed’s new BRG community feature makes support both tangible and accessible for employees. Kyndryl’s broad and holistic approach towards ESG has also helped Deed prioritize exciting new initiatives on the roadmap, including cutting edge ways to manage ESG data and to take sustainability-friendly actions (like tracking and reducing carbon emissions). We anticipate and expect Kyndryl’s employees to continue pushing the boundaries of how we can together use technology to do more good,” said Kashi.

Kyndryl's offices in Madrid

Finally, Allen shared what was coming next. “As a growing 'start-up' with extraordinary talent from over 60 countries, Kyndryl is powered by employees committed to pushing purposeful and lasting impact forward. From their contributions advancing the vital systems that our customers depend on to championing social change and entrepreneurship within Kyndryl and their community, Kyndryls are at the heart of progress in every sense of the way. 

Our CSR and ESG work is just beginning, but as a technology company, we understand the impact innovation has when scaled across communities and geographies. We look forward to championing such innovators and advancing a sustainable and inclusive future for all communities worldwide.”