How Zoom Is Investing With Care In Communities: An Interview With Roxana Shirkhoda, Head Of Social Impact

Roxana Shirkhoda, Head of social impact at Zoom | ZOOM

One of the brands that’s experienced dizzying growth over the last few years is Zoom. It’s become such a part of our lives, and an essential part of the infrastructure that keeps us connected and the world moving.

Roxana Shirkhoda is the head of social impact at Zoom. She talked about her own life journey, the brand’s approach to Purpose and how the company thinks about investing in social issues.

Afdhel Aziz: Roxana, welcome. Please tell us a little about your journey to Zoom and what drew you to the company?           

Roxana Shirkhoda: My experiences and environment as a young person are what inherently shaped my professional journey. I grew up in the suburbs of Detroit, raised by immigrant parents from a country with turbulent political US-relations. That meant I was exposed to stories about redlining, race riots, and auto-industry labor strikes. And I saw first-hand how shopkeepers looked at my family after 9/11. These experiences laid the foundation for what I would eventually do.

I was drawn to Zoom given the company’s servant leadership and culture of care led by Eric Yuan. Similarly, I was curious to re-enter corporate philanthropy after having left it six years prior. Not only did Zoom stand out as a company playing an outsized impact during the pandemic, so did the opportunity to ‘do philanthropy’ differently during a global calling for equity and corporate accountability.

Aziz: Thank you for sharing that story Roxana! Zoom has had an incredible period of growth over the last couple of years - because of this, do you feel like there are increased expectations around how Zoom gives back, both from your consumers and employees?

Shirkhoda: There are of course more eyeballs on us as a company today than ever before. But first and foremost, we hold ourselves accountable to caring for our communities globally – and doing so in line with our growth. This care is embedded within our value-set regardless of customer, investor, public, or employee expectations.

That’s why we launched our social impact team in 2020, and it’s why we will have donated over $10M in charitable funds by the end of this fiscal year. And incredibly, in place of high-pressure demands we regularly receive notes from schools, nonprofits, and individuals sharing how our platform has positively impacted their lives. It’s game-changing to be at a company where both our core business and our philanthropic efforts are together making a difference.

A great shot of how one of our mental health grantees, iCALL, uses Zoom. iCALL is a psychosocial helpline that provides people in India, particularly those who belong to marginalized communities, with counseling by trained mental health professionals | ICALL

Aziz: That’s awesome. Let’s talk about how you articulate the purpose (or mission) and vision for Zoom? And intriguingly, how you only have one Value (Care)?

Shirkhoda: From my social impact perspective, I talk about our company’s purpose by centering communication. Communication is at the heart of being alive. It’s how people build relationships, exchange new ideas, learn, and grow as a collective. Video communication is no different. Zoom is how the world connects, and that includes nonprofits, community advocates, and individual leaders virtually working together to make the world a better place.

When it comes to our core value of care – it really is just that. We care a lot! It’s in our DNA. It’s how we operate at Zoom. We care about our community, our customers, our colleagues, and ourselves.

An example of this is when overnight millions of students lost access to their classrooms - widening achievement gaps for low income and under-resourced students of color already facing barriers to progress due to systemic inequity. It was a no-brainer for us to provide over 125,000 schools in 25 countries with limitless access to our platform – ensuring distance learning could take place seamlessly.

Aziz: Very intriguing. How does that translate into your Purpose strategy? What are your core areas of focus?

Shirkhoda: Our social impact arm, known as Zoom Cares, aims to leverage all of Zoom’s assets to help address some of humanity’s biggest challenges. We have five strategic pillars that provide a framework for our work.

Simply put they are: philanthropy (how our dollars fuel positive impact), product (how our product enables good globally), people (how our employees show they care), policy (how we advance systems change), and power (how we use our voice to advocate for equity).

We currently have three focus areas that we’re leaning into as we explore our purpose: social equity, mental health, and climate. A throughline across these topics is education and advancing accessible learning opportunities for young people globally.

Aziz: And what are some of the commitments you’re proudest of?

Shirkhoda:  We just celebrated our one year anniversary of Zoom Cares! While that time feels like a blur, I’m proud of what we’ve done so far. We distributed grants, in-kind product donations, and activated our employees to support nonprofits with their time, expertise, and dollars.

Starting this year, we committed to moving resources where it historically has not due to biases or status-quo philanthropic practices. That means we fund BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) led organizations that typically receive less funding than their counterparts. And we fund smaller-budget, grassroots organizations that don’t often attract major corporate grants due to their size and the ‘absorption myth’ that only large nonprofits can manage large checks.

We R Native is a Portland, Oregon-based comprehensive health resource for Native youth, by Native youth, that provides content and stories to promote holistic health and positive growth for young people across the U.S. | WE R NATIVE

Just recently, we announced $2 million of new funding to a collection of eight global nonprofits supporting mental health among native, LGBTQ, and young people of color who have been disproportionately affected by COVID-19 and systemic racism.

Aziz: And finally, how have you articulated your strategic principles around how you involve communities in decision around grant-making? You’ve really thought in detail about inclusivity in multiple aspects.

Shirkhoda: Our social impact team rallies around an approach of ‘nothing for us without us.’ We are currently a team of individuals from communities that have and continue to experience marginalization and systemic discrimination. We are first-generation immigrants, people of color, LGBTQ, women, AAPI, gender non-binary, mothers. Each of us personally knows the importance of being invited to the decision making table. Especially when the decisions being made impact you. 

So that’s what we set out to do in our grantmaking – invite those with lived experiences and expertise from within the communities we want to serve to the virtual table. In our latest funding round to support youth mental health, we asked seven global issue-area experts to join us in a participatory grantmaking process. Guided by a third-party facilitator, the group collaboratively decided on which nonprofits we would donate to, and how much. The result was eight nonprofits, all under $5M in size, with community-representative leadership - who received multi-year, unrestricted funds free of burdensome applications or reporting requirements.

The opportunity to support these incredible organizations would not have been possible without our external facilitators, and our seven youth mental health advocates. We are grateful for them, and the leaders of our nonprofit partners who work day in and day out for a more equitable future