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Announcing Snyk Impact

Written by:
Bry Breckenridge

Bry Breckenridge

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October 6, 2021

0 mins read

At Snyk, we envision an inclusive technology industry powering a more sustainable and secure world. Since our founding, Snykers have cared deeply for one another and the developer and security communities as well as the larger world around us. This spring, I joined Snyk to formalize how we mobilize Snyk’s unique, compassionate culture and our valuable assets to scale social and environmental returns across all aspects of our operating model.

Today, I’m excited to share Snyk Impact, the ESG-aligned (environment, social, governance) gear we’ve embedded in the Snyk engine to deliver this vision.

Snyk Impact’s mission is to effectively mobilize our technology, resources, and community (Snykers + our users, customers, partners and investors) to enable a more secure, inclusive, and sustainable sector and world. The main problems we’re solving for are:

  1. Resource Shortage and Lack of Diversity: The global developer community faces a resourcing shortage that we can’t address without creating more DEI&B (diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging).

  2. Digital Capacity Gaps: Social impact organizations (nonprofits and social enterprises in particular) don't currently have the necessary technology capacity to fulfill and scale their missions securely.

  3. Climate Crisis: Our shared planet is currently experiencing a climate crisis that directly impacts all of humanity.

We're committed to tackling these complex, multifaceted problems to ultimately increase DEI&B at Snyk and in our industry, enable digital security and readiness in the social impact sector, and operate in a strategically sustainable way. Importantly, we don’t consider these endeavors side projects so Snyk Impact will sit within our recently formed Office of the CEO and be guided by a senior executive steering committee composed of Snyk’s top officers and scaled by all departments, ensuring we scale impact in tandem with our massive scale in the marketplace. 

Moving forward, social and environmental impact strategy and enablement will be fully woven into how we construct our overall business strategy and plans, design and build products, engage our networks, go to market and measure our success. Our entire ecosystem will be enabled to partner with us to drive long-term social, environmental and financial returns.

Our structure to achieve this, consisting of key asset pillars representing Community, Tech, Snykers, and Impact Partners, is outlined below:

Snyk Impact: Community

In June, we made increasing diversity in our industry a focus of DevSecCon24, including donating significantly to leading DEI&B nonprofits around the world. In August, together with 15 of our top customers and partners, we volunteered to build AI robotics learning kits for under-resourced schools with the AI Education Project.

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Ora Tanner, Co-Founder of AIEDU, and Snyk Community Impact volunteers

We’ve now threaded enabling positive social impact into SnykCon 2021 as well (one day left as of publication, so it's not too late to register). Specifically, we have:

  • Snyk Impact Party:Join us later today at 11:30 a.m. ET for a fun and inspiring 30 minutes sponsored by Black at Snyk and facilitated by Snyk Impact, Impactree, and UPchieve.org.

  • 10/7 Keynote: Join Dipti Salopek, Chief of Staff at Snyk, along with three of our tech nonprofit partners (FastForward, CareerVillage, AIEDU), to learn about our social impact vision and how we can make a difference together.

  • Customer Awards: Yesterday we celebrated BCorp Classy as the first ever recipient of the Snyk Social Impact Award. The secure products they build with Snyk enable impact orgs to raise the funding they need to fulfill their missions!

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Classy CEO Chris Himes shared his thoughts about the recognition.

Snyk Impact: Tech

We’re currently donating and discounting Snyk products for nonprofits and social enterprises that face barriers to developing securely. Software for Love and UPchieve.org are two such organizations. We also look forward to partnering in the near-term with TechSoup.org, Nethope.org, and other social impact sector digital readiness and public good tech communities to scale this effort globally.

Longer term, our plan is to redirect a significant percentage of the revenue contributed to Snyk by the social impact sector back into the Snyk Impact mission.

We’re also excited to collaborate with all of our technology partners and awesome www.impactcloud.org peers. We’re optimistic about the collective impact we can enable with these incredible cloud brands working together on social impact sector digital readiness.

Snyk Impact: Snykers

All Snyk leaders and individual contributors are encouraged to weave social and environmental strategy into their annual planning and execution approaches. Snyk Impact leadership is always happy to consult and help make these efforts scalable.

Over the course of 2021, our employees have dramatically increased their commitment to volunteering and giving. For example, on August 5th, 19 Snykers micro-mentored founders of FastForward’s 8th Accelerator cohort tackling a host of social challenges.

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FastForward leaders and Snyk mentors getting ready to head into mentoring sessions!

Increasing Snyker giving and volunteering significantly, especially in our top focus areas (DEI, social sector digital readiness, and climate stability) is our aspiration. Snykers worldwide are excited to mobilize their networks, maximize financial support and share their individual areas of expertise with social impact organizations in their local communities and around the world.

Snyk Impact: Funding and Partnerships

In 2021 thus far, Snyk has collectively contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to several social impact partners. For example:

  • We commonly mobilize financial support for nonprofits responding to disaster scenarios such as the recent wildfires in western North America and instability in Afghanistan.

  • Together with our DevSecCon24 sponsor partners, we donated over $50,000 to leading DEI nonprofits around the world in June.

  • With our SnykCon sponsor partners, we’re committed to donating at least $100,000 to Fast Forward, a tech nonprofit accelerator, and five organizations in their portfolio, focused on increasing diversity in the tech sector.

“During this time unlike any other, the need for tech-centric social interventions has never been more crucial,” said Shannon Farley, Co-Founder and Executive Director, Fast Forward. “We're excited to partner with Snyk Impact to support tech nonprofits addressing DEI&B and other issues with mentorship, capital, and opportunities to engage at SnykCon.”

Take Action Today

Please visit theSnyk Community Impact Center to take immediate action with us! And, if you’d like to collaborate with us on this important work or your nonprofit/social enterprise is interested in leveraging Snyk products, please contact us.

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