Giving back to our communities is essential to Swimlane’s DNA. The purpose of our product is to help support the security operations (SecOps) community be more effective and help the world be safer from cyber threats. From day one our CEO, Cody Cornell, has encouraged us to embrace, not only the SecOps community but the communities in which we are based, which includes communities across the United States, Europe and even Australia.
As a scrappy, thrifty and frugal startup, there are some initiatives we can’t quite take on yet–even though we hope to soon. But that doesn’t mean that we’re going to sit back and do nothing. It just means we get more creative!
At Swimlane, we encourage everyone to give back and do what they can in their own communities. Everyone is granted 8 business hours per year to volunteer with a cause or group that matters to them.
Each quarter, the staff based in our Denver HQ complete a half-day volunteer project with local organizations. Not only are we doing something great for our community, we’re bonding as a team and getting to know people at a deeper level across departments and roles. So far we’ve volunteered nearly 100 hours in 2019, and the year is not over yet!
One of the organizations close to our hearts is the Community Food Share, which helps provide direct support to families, seniors, and other individuals in Boulder and Broomfield Counties struggling with hunger and food insecurity. Our teams have sorted and repackaged thousands of pounds of food over the course of the year. In September alone our efforts enabled them to serve more 2,640 meals!
For Q4, Community Food Share gets a slew of volunteers from many other local organizations, which is great! Since we work with them throughout the year, not just around the holidays, we wanted to go a different direction while still doing our part to support their cause and our community.
This quarter, we decided to do a fundraiser! As Community Food Share leverages local and national food donor relationships, negotiates significant savings on produce and protein purchases, engages a volunteer corps of 6,600 people, and collaborates with a strong network of community partners, every dollar donated turns into three meals for families in our area. Swimlane and Cody decided to each match donations of up to $250 ($500 total), and together we raised $1,078 (3,234 meals) and counting!
During this time of year especially, we feel it’s important to think bigger than ourselves and be thankful for the privileges and opportunity we have by supporting our community.
So, from all of us at Swimlane, embrace the spirit of giving to benefit your own community, and have a happy Thanksgiving!