Reflection on Salesforce Impact Labs Fellowship
Anyone who has been around the Salesforce ecosystem for some time I am sure you have heard of the Salesforce 1-1-1 philanthropy model. When the company was started leaders decided from the start to contribute 1% of the product, 1% of the time, and 1% of revenue to philanthropic activity. Part of this commitment is all employees at Salesforce are encouraged to participate in volunteer activities (VTO). For this purpose company allows every employee to take time for VTO projects.
In February 2022 I was fortunate to get an opportunity to be selected for Impact Labs Fellowship. This is my reflection on my journey with Impact Labs - Climate Justice, using my Salesforce Developer skills for good causes.
The term Climate Justice is known not only in USA but、around the globe and you may have seen such Climate Justice posters on the streets in Japan.
Organization Description
Salesforce.org Impact Labs - Climate Justice Climate change is one of the most pressing issues of our time. The urgency around our climate is high, and the rallying cry is clear: We have to act. Now. Together, the Salesforce.org Impact Labs Community Fellows identified a few areas that need improvement: funding via Grants for climate community-based organizations (CBOs) was one of these areas. We created a tool called Grants Content Kit. It is designed to help climate-focused CBOs write award-winning grants more effectively, thereby moving money in the right direction.
Why I chose this project - Impact Labs Fellowship?
There are many reasons for me personally to be a part of this project, and here are some of them:
- Giving back in the spirit of #Trailblazers using Salesforce skills for good to multiply impact climate change (10X thinking & Be A Multiplier BAM!).
- Working in a global team alongside with Community Fellows and other Salesforce employee volunteers.
- Building Salesforce product for Open Source as part of Salesforce Commons
- Community Sprints
Project Story
The Grant Content Kit from Salesforce.org Impact Labs was created as a Salesforce packaged application to assist climate community-based organizations (CBO) in writing winning grants. This application was designed and developed by a global sprint team of community fellows, UX Designers & Salesforce Labs Fellows.
Result: Package is easy to adopt by NPO/CBOs to any Salesforce or NPSP install. Distributed as Open Source under Salesforce Commons to be extended by community developers. Dreamforce 2022 activities:
- Climate Justice Panel Discussion. (DF’22)
- Demo Jam of Community Solutions 5 nonprofits, including the Grant Content Kit (DF’22)
Skills & Technology: Salesforce, UX Design, OpenAI API (GPT-3), Salesforce Lightning Design System (SLDS), Lightning Web Components (LWC), APEX, VisualForce, SFDX CLI, GitHub and CICD, Salesforce DevOps
The Grants Content Kit project is available as Open Source on GitHub to try it out or contribute to improving source code or documentation.
Milestones and Future
- Community Sprints (Nov 2022, March ‘23, Oct ‘23, Nov 23)
- Salesforce Commons Open Source project launched on GitHub - August 2022
- OpenAI GPT-3 prompt POC (May 2023)
- Generative AI Demo (May 2023)
- AppExchange package in-progress 2023
- Adoption of Einstein GPT APIs
Conclusion
The Grant Content Kit app was released officially in August 2022 and continues to evolve as part of Open Source Community Sprints. However, the Impact Labs story does not end there, starting from October 2023 the new chapter opens with the introduction of Salesforce Accelerator AI for Impact