Our first Impact Day supports Black and Women’s history months

This year, we launched our first-ever Impact Day—a designated day of service each quarter for Dropbox employees across all our global offices to give back. Our goal is simple—to encourage employees to do good, whether it’s participating in one of our company organized events on Impact Day or volunteering on their own time. Having Impact Days is also a way for remote employees to engage with company initiatives and connect with fellow colleagues.

“I appreciate that Dropbox created dedicated days for volunteering,” says Mariama Eghan, head of global talent brand at Dropbox. “Setting aside time and looking for opportunities can be tricky, so I’m grateful that I work at a company that cares enough to make it seamless for not only the organizations we volunteer with, but also for employees.”

With our transition to Virtual First, in which employees will primarily be working remotely, we’ve had to rethink how to keep volunteering active at Dropbox. Our first Impact Day fell in between Black History Month in February and Women’s History Month in March, so we decided to curate opportunities focused around supporting these two heritage months.

In collaboration with the Dropbox Foundation and our employee-led group, Dropbox for Good, we held 16 events. Together with our partner Oakland Public Education Fund, Dropbox employees created career exploration videos and participated in a read-in for children celebrating African American authors and stories. We also hosted a career panel with She is a CEO, for employees to share life experiences and give professional advice to girls ages 11-13. And we partnered with Missing Maps to host a “mapathon” in which employees helped trace satellite imagery of remote areas in the world where humanitarian organizations are trying to meet the needs of vulnerable people.

Our Dropbox for Good leads across our global offices also helped organize events with several local youth-led organizations such as TeenTech, The Girls and Boys Brigade, and Enterprise for Youth to participate in career panels, networking activities, recording audiobooks, and mentorship opportunities.

Together on our inaugural Impact Day, we fundraised more than $60k, logged over 200 volunteer hours, and collaborated with almost 200 community nonprofits to bring awareness and support to their missions.

“The switch to virtual service days was challenging, but we reached far more people globally than we planned,” says Easlynn Lee, social impact program manager. “We’re excited about how we can include virtual volunteering in our future Impact Days so that we can continue to build community across locations and champion global citizenship.”