At Cisco, our purpose is to Power an Inclusive Future for All. It’s why we exist and who we are. We invite you to join us – everyone has a role to play. Fulfilling our purpose will take more than words, so we established the Inclusive Future Action Office to oversee and activate our Inclusive Future initiatives, starting with our Cisco Social Justice Beliefs and Actions.
When we say Power an Inclusive Future for All, we mean everyone: all communities of color, races and ethnicities, gender identities, military service, abilities, age, sexual orientations, social classes, faiths, nationalities, relationships, and family status. With our purpose at the heart of everything we do, you can count on Cisco to be bold, brave, and deliberate about our role and the actions we will take in support of social justice.
Beliefs inspire us; frameworks guide the decisions that result in our actions. These beliefs inform how we act as a business, including our commitment to social justice.
We believe that technology makes the world better. We’re committed to building technology that empowers people and communities to create new possibilities. In doing so, we will not customize our technology to facilitate censorship, injustice, or oppression.
We believe in modeling curiosity by continually educating ourselves about all forms of inequality and injustice. Our understanding grows more when we get proximate to the most vulnerable and insecure in our communities. By engaging in proximity, empathy and ultimately action can be realized.
We believe in fostering a culture that is beneficial to all. In moments when we see an opportunity to unite the whole, we will coalesce our people and our resources to take action to drive meaningful change. And we will encourage our employees, suppliers, communities, and partners to join us in working alongside diverse communities.
Cisco has long believed in addressing insecurity across fundamental human needs, rights, and access. We are expanding our commitment and addressing a new area: an insecurity of being. Insecurity of being happens when one is a target of hate and violence solely due to their existence in a marginalized group, be it in the physical or virtual world.
We believe that social justice is apolitical. It’s our calling to ensure that communities on the margins experience a world that is just where they are valued, validated, and empowered.
We believe that impact is only real if it is sustainable, systemic, and inclusive across the full spectrum of diversity. We know this requires continual evaluation and recalibration of our efforts as we expand our actions on a global scale to ensure recurring impact and generational change.
Our Beliefs and Actions began as a show of support and solidarity with the Black community, but they provide a blueprint for how we respond to injustice and address inequity for any community.
Our Actions are enterprisewide, global priorities. We have written goals and metrics for each of our Actions, although these goals may evolve as community needs change.