Equity and Advancement Initiative advances social impact with Adobe’s people, products & philanthropy

Image credit: Adobe Stock/ By Hurca!.

Adobe’s commitment to doing the right thing by focusing on people, purpose and community has guided our evolution and growth for more than four decades. As part of our Adobe for All commitment, we believe that greater representation leads to a virtuous cycle of more role models, advancement, growth and meaningful innovations for our customers and communities. Although there is still more work to be done, we are proud of our progress across diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) by building a more diverse workforce, fostering an inclusive workplace, and mobilizing our partner ecosystem to drive positive impact for our industry and society at large.

Adobe, with financial support from the Adobe Foundation, established the Equity and Advancement Initiative (EAI) last year alongside 11 best-in-class nonprofit organizations to address systemic barriers to opportunity and advance social equity within our business and communities. As part of Adobe for All Days, our annual event where we come together to celebrate the uniqueness of Adobe’s people, places and products, I’m happy to announce that the Adobe Foundation is granting an additional $10 million across the EAI cohort to foster racial and social justice worldwide — bringing its current overall investment to $30 million.

A differentiated approach to corporate philanthropy

We continually work with nonprofits to support creative and digital literacy, social equity and opportunity, and active engagement in global communities where our employees live and work.

With the EAI, Adobe is taking a unique, global and multi-pronged approach to nonprofit collaboration grounded in people, product and philanthropy.

• Aside from multi-year general operating grants from the Adobe Foundation, Adobe is further engaging with EAI organizations by providing access to our products, employee pro bono consulting and volunteering, and legislative and advocacy support.
• Given our model for “trust-based philanthropy,” we empower EAI organizations to make critical investments in areas where they can best scale their work and make an impact — rather than dictate where grants should be allocated. This has equipped EAI nonprofits with stronger infrastructure to expand programming in education, workforce and community development.
• Together with the Adobe Foundation, Adobe is making long-term, strategic commitments and investments through the EAI to provide meaningful partnership opportunities, learning experiences for employees, and new ways of leveraging Adobe’s unique strengths in support of key issues to our company and communities.

We are proud to be working alongside these inspirational organizations for the EAI — Asian Americans Advancing Justice –Asian Law Caucus, Disability Rights Fund, Equal Justice Initiative, Equality Now, First Nations Development Institute, Hispanic Heritage Foundation, Human Rights Watch, Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Outright International, United Service Organizations, and VetsinTech. Each of these organizations are aligned with the priorities of our DEI teams and Employee Networks, which helped select the nonprofits.

Bringing Adobe’s employee expertise to nonprofits

We’ve mobilized nearly 100 U.S. employees to contribute their professional skills to address marketing, strategy, or technology challenges facing EAI nonprofit partners through Adobe’s Pro Bono Residency program. Nine participating EAI organizations were matched with Adobe employee volunteer teams, who provided ten weeks of pro bono consulting to help address specific needs, including:

• Supporting First Nations Development Institute in creating a holistic social media strategy to drive awareness around its mission and audience engagement.
• Conducting a cybersecurity audit and providing technical recommendations for Outright International.
• Helping the United Service Organizations develop a new data collection and analysis infrastructure to aid business strategy.
• Developing a strategic messaging and content framework for VetsinTech to facilitate more impactful, scalable and consistent communications across its channels.

The power of Adobe’s products in action

Adobe’s product donations also enable EAI nonprofits to create compelling and visual stories to increase promotion for their social causes, accelerate business productivity, and boost audience engagement across digital channels.

• Asian Americans Advancing Justice – Asian Law Caucus creates digital content with tools like Adobe Photoshop, Acrobat and Premiere Pro to promote its mission and support fundraising efforts, as well as digitize business documents via PDF.
• Disability Rights Fund benefits from the flexibility in creating, editing and sharing PDFs via Adobe Acrobat to make its business processes more seamless and efficient.
• Equal Justice Initiative deploys Adobe Acrobat across its teams to digitize and expedite traditionally paper-based workflows. They also use tools like Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign to create educational and marketing materials to advance their community work while saving time and resources.
• Human Rights Watch (HRW) uses Adobe’s products in most of its visual investigations to research and expose global human rights abuses. Tools like Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and Premiere Pro assist HRW with visual analysis of photographs and videos, and its presentation.

Additionally, Taproot Foundation, which connects nonprofits and companies including Adobe with skilled volunteers through pro bono service, supports the EAI. Taproot published a case study validating the EAI’s impact in driving social change and Adobe’s innovative approach to corporate philanthropy and working with nonprofits.

We are continually iterating on our approach to supporting nonprofits while also providing best practices for joint collaboration. Using Adobe’s broad resources and unique strengths to take meaningful action with efforts like the EAI, we can make a long-term impact for the company, our industry and society. The intent to do good is core to Adobe’s culture and by leading with purpose, we are committed to inventing the future and changing the world for the better.