At Cisco, we make social investments in three areas where we believe our technology and our people can make the biggest impact—education, economic empowerment, and crisis response, the last of which incorporates shelter, water, food, and disaster relief. Together, these investment areas help people overcome barriers of poverty and inequality, and make a lasting difference by fostering strong global communities.
Our strategy is to inclusively invest in technology-based solutions that increase equitable access to education while improving student performance, engagement, and career exploration. We support K-12 solutions that emphasize science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) as well as literacy. We also consider programs that teach environmental sustainability, eliminate barriers to accessing climate change education, and invite student engagement globally to positively affect the environment.
What we look for:
Note that Cisco does not provide direct funding to nonprofits or schools for the following:
Learn more about our community partners and CSR programs in education.
Our strategy is to invest in early stage, tech-enabled solutions that provide equitable access to the knowledge, skills, and resources that people need to support themselves and their families toward resilience, independence, and economic security.
Our goal is to support solutions that benefit individuals and families, and that contribute to local community growth and economic development in a sustainable economy.
We target our support in three interconnected areas:
Learn more about our community partners and CSR programs that support economic empowerment.
We seek to help overcome the cycle of poverty and dependence and achieve a more sustainable future through strategic investments. We back organizations that successfully address critical needs of underserved communities, because those who have their basic needs met are better equipped to learn and thrive.
What we look for:
Note: By policy, relief campaigns respond to significant natural disaster and humanitarian crises as opposed to those caused by human conflict. Also by policy, our investments in this area do not include healthcare solutions.
Learn more about our community partners and CSR programs that support crisis response.
Funding to multiply the tech-fueled impact of organizations with national or multinational operations.
Funding for programs that serve the underserved in India by leveraging technology.
Funding to support Bay Area programs within a 50-mile radius of Cisco’s San Jose, California headquarters.
We donate Cisco’s best-in-class networking technology to help nonprofits make innovative use of the Internet.