Progress - Corporate Social Responsibility Program of the Year

Company: Progress, Bedford, MA
Company Description: Progress (NASDAQ: PRGS) is a global software company that simplifies the development, deployment and management of business applications on-premise or in the cloud, on any platform or device, to any data source, with enhanced performance, minimal IT complexity and low total cost of ownership. Progress can be reached at www.progress.com or 1-781-280-4000.
Nomination Category: Company / Organization Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Corporate Social Responsibility Program of the Year - At Organizations With Up to 2,500 Employees

Nomination Title: Progress for Tomorrow: Giving Back to the Communities We Serve

Progress provides the best products to develop, deploy and manage high-impact business applications. Our comprehensive product stack is designed to make technology teams more productive and we have a deep commitment to the developer community, both open source and commercial alike. With Progress, organizations can accelerate the creation and delivery of strategic business applications, automate the process by which apps are configured, deployed and scaled, and make critical data and content more accessible and secure—leading to competitive differentiation and business success. Over 1,700 independent software vendors, 100,000+ enterprise customers, and a three-million-strong developer community rely on Progress to power their applications.

The business operates across the globe and its biggest offices are located in Bedford, MA, USA; Sofia, Bulgaria; Hyderabad, India and Rotterdam, the Netherlands, employing nearly 1,500 people. Through its global CSR program, the company invests in the development of their local communities.

Our Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) program, ProgressforTomorrow, is organized around three pillars: Our People - inclusion, diversity (I&D) and social justice, Our Communities - our philanthropic efforts, and Our World - environmental sustainability. Progress for Tomorrow began with a focus on gender diversity but, understanding that inclusion and diversity goes beyond gender, in 2020, we expanded our areas of focus to include a greater emphasis on race and ethnicity.

Three new Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) formed in 2020: LGBTQ+, Blacks@Progress and Military Veterans @Progress. In addition, Progress signed the Gender and Diversity KPI Alliance (GDKA) to measure gender and diversity, and joined MassTLC’s Tech Compact for Social Justice, spearheaded by Progress CEO Yogesh Gupta, to encourage greater inclusion of Black, Latinx and Indigenous people within the technology community in Massachusetts. Moreover, Progress added International Women’s Day to the global calendar of paid holidays, and Juneteenth to the US holiday calendar.

In 2020, we established a matching program in the U.S., announced our first recipient of The Progress Software Mary Székely Scholarship for Women in STEM, and launched the Women in Technology Scholarship Fund at the American University in Bulgaria. Progress donated $100,000 to organizations in the fight against COVID-19, and $100,000 to organizations supporting racial and social injustices. We were honored for the third consecutive year as the Most Valuable Corporate Partner from SOS Children’s Villages in Bulgaria.

Progress headquarters was ENERGY STAR® certified by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

As an organization, we consider it our duty to use our talents, resources and vision to work toward advancing social justice, tolerance and creating a better, more sustainable world. We donated significantly to charities focused on eradicating racial and social injustice, domestic violence and child endangerment. And to help communities cope with COVID-19, Progress donated $100,000 to employee-chosen organizations around the globe.

Only 5% and 7% of tech occupation workers in MA are Black and Latinx respectively. Devised by the Executive Diversity and Inclusion Steering Committee of the MassTLC Board of Trustees, of which Progress CEO Yogesh Gupta is Co-Chair, the Tech Compact for Social Justice is made up of 90 Massachusetts companies committed to educational programs, financial contributions, improved hiring practices, expanded training and development, advocacy for change to public policy and adoption of self-reporting on racial diversity, pay parity, executive and board appointments and more.

Progress deemed March 8, International Women’s Day (IWD), a global company holidaythis year, and declared Juneteenth a US holiday. Celebrating holidays together is one way we can ensure every aspect of our global company’s culture encourages inclusion and diversity. Our Human Capital team shared that as they planned the holiday schedule for the year, they decided to take a fresh look at all our company holidays and think broadly about them through the lens of inclusion and diversity.

“We at Food Bank Rotterdam are very pleased with the donation we received from Progress. With this donation we can support about 7.000 families in our region.”

"We are extremely grateful to Progress for the generous donation to the Emergency Fund for Combating Domestic Violence in the conditions of COVID-19. This donation has already been distributed to the Crisis and Counseling Centers across the country, as well as temporary shelter for women victims of domestic violence and their children” (Bulgarian Fund for Women).

“We are ever grateful to Progress for your Social Consciousness and for stepping up as a responsible organization, and showing the willingness and intent to reach-out to the adversely affected populations, in this time of crisis that the world faces” (Swakshatra Home for Children, India).

Why the Tech Compact for Social Justice Is Important to Progress https://www.progress.com/blogs/tech-compact-for-social-justice

How MLK and His Legacy Brings About Blacks@Progress https://www.progress.com/blogs/how-mlk-and-his-legacy-brings-about-blacks@progress

Apply Now for the Progress Mary Székely Scholarship for Women in STEM https://www.progress.com/blogs/apply-now-for-the-progress-mary-sz%C3%A9kely-scholarship-for-women-in-stem

Giving Back Globally on Giving Tuesday & Beyond https://www.progress.com/blogs/giving-back-globally-giving-tuesday