New York Times
With New Antipoverty Initiative, Salesforce CEO Puts Silicon Valley on Spot
For all the tension and media coverage of San Francisco’s rising rents and tech shuttle buses, there have not been a whole lot of people stepping forward with solutions. Enter Marc Benioff. Salesforce’s chief executive used the occasion of his company’s 15th anniversary to announce the formation of SF Gives, a partnership with the non-profit organization Tipping Point, that hopes to raise $10 million over the next 60 days for Bay Area antipoverty programs.
With SF Gives, Benioff channels local philanthropic heroes like Charles R. Schwab, founder of the giant discount brokerage firm, the Gap co-founders Don and Doris Fisher, and Warren Hellman, the deceased investor who gave millions of dollars to cultural, educational and medical charities in the Bay Area and founded and financed a free bluegrass concert series, Hardly Strictly Bluegrass. Benioff is also putting his colleagues in the tech industry on the spot.
SF Gives is challenging 20 companies to pledge $500,000, and eventually expand the program to $100 million. The initiative has already received $5 million in commitments for donations from companies like Box, LinkedIn, Google, Zynga, PopSugar, IfOnly and Jawbone. The end goal, Benioff told The San Francisco Chronicle, is to change the way Silicon Valley thinks about local philanthropy.
[March 7]
NBCUniversal to Combine ‘Upfront’ Presentations for Its Cable Channels
For the big television industry event called Upfront Week, NBCUniversal will borrow a page from the playbook of its parent, Comcast, and bundle together its cable channels.
NBCUniversal intends to invite Madison Avenue to a combined presentation of plans for the 2014-15 season by the company’s cable holdings, which include 17 channels like Bravo, E!, Esquire Network, Oxygen, Sprout, Syfy and USA Network. For the last several years, NBCUniversal has hosted its cable upfront parties, receptions and other events separately, typically scheduling six to eight -- or more -- in February, March and April. The combined presentation by what is known as the NBCUniversal Cable Entertainment Group -- including discussion of digital content like online video -- will be on May 15, the final day of the 2014-15 Upfront Week, in an afternoon time slot used since 2011 for upfront events for USA. The presentation will be at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, a site that NBCUniversal has also reserved for a presentation by its broadcast network, NBC, to be held on the morning of May 12.
[March 7]