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Partner Story:
Cisco’s Purpose
As a purpose-driven company, Cisco celebrates and supports employee-driven community engagement. Cisco has a long history of taking a bottom-up approach, incorporating employee-led community action at the core of their broader social responsibility commitments. Two focus areas identified as priority issues by employees are affordable housing and enabling safe communities. Cisco mobilizes their workforce to support partnerships with nonprofits addressing these issues like Habitat for Humanity across the country and in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Cisco employees have been participating with Habitat for Humanity since the 1990’s. Their employees’ continued passion for addressing the affordable housing crisis led to the establishment of a dedicated program for employees to volunteer locally with affiliates including Habitat Greater San Francisco.
Partnership
Cisco partners with Habitat for Humanity Greater San Francisco to:
- Fulfill their commitment to engage 80% of their employees in giving back to the communities where Cisco operates.
- Meet their goal of enabling a healthy and safe place for community members to thrive.
- Strengthen connections amongst employees through group volunteer activities.
Cisco has been a vital partner for building Habitat Greater San Francisco’s latest development at Amber Drive. Meraki Gives was the main driver that led the charge to direct resources and volunteers to this eight-home condominium development in the Diamond Heights neighborhood of San Francisco, an area historically lacking in affordable housing.
Lasting Impacts
Cisco’s generous financial and volunteer support has a tangible effect.
Helping Build Homeownership
Enabled eight families to become first-time homeowners to purchase their homes from Habitat with a zero-down payment, zero percent interest rate, monthly housing payment no higher than 30% of the family’s monthly income, and 500 hours (about 3 weeks) of sweat equity contributed to building their future home.
Generational Wealth Building
This leads the way for creating generational wealth through homeownership for populations that have been traditionally and systematically excluded.
Building Access
Ensures homeownership for people of color in the Bay Area, with 89% of Habitat Greater San Francisco’s homeowners identifying as people of color compared to the broader rate for the SF Bay Area with only 44% of homeowners being people of color despite making up over 55% of the population.
Driving Equity
Homeownership has led to stronger and economic outcomes for families of color through increased savings, wealth building, and improvements in physical and mental health.
Partnership Outcomes
Cisco employees have played a critical role in supporting HGSF’s mission to build and sustain affordable homeownership opportunities for hard working local families in the Bay Area.
Through the work at our past developments, HGSF has provided fulfilling team building experiences for Cisco employees to work toward their community engagement goals while deepening their connections amongst their colleagues.
Together we have achieved our goals and continue to make progress for our ongoing shared commitments. This has resulted in:
200+ Volunteers
Over 200 Cisco employees volunteer in 2022-2023 alone, culminating in 1,406 volunteer hours, making notable progress toward Cisco affordable housing and community commitments.
12% Increase
Increased engagement from Cisco Meraki employees from 64 – 72% due in part to Habitat GSF volunteer opportunities.
8 New Homes
Cisco employees were essential in building eight townhomes in San Francisco’s Diamond Heights neighborhood, preventing displacement for longtime lower income SF residents.
1,300 Donated Volunteer Hours
Donating 1,300 volunteer hours that help future homeowners complete their sweat equity.
Over $700,000 donated
Throughout our longstanding partnership, Cisco Foundation has generously provided over $700,000 in financial support for Habitat Greater San Francisco’s new home building and critical repair work.
Community Impact
in addition to helping build homes, cisco volunteers built two playhouses for local children and helped two community gardens continue to provide access to fresh produce for their neighbors.
“Cisco’s partnership with Habitat for Humanity Greater San Francisco has been a key driver in advancing Cisco’s priorities of creating affordable housing and enabling safe communities in the places our employees live and work. We are proud of our employee led volunteer efforts to make the dream of homeownership a reality for so many hard-working families in the SF Bay Area.”
About Cisco
Cisco Systems Inc. and Cisco Foundation collaborate with nonprofits and non-governmental organizations at the local, national, and global level to develop technology-based solutions in their key focus areas. The Foundation focuses their work where they can make the biggest long-lasting impact on underserved communities and looks for solutions that harness the power of the internet and communications technology in areas including: crisis response, education, economic empowerment, and climate regeneration.
About Habitat Greater San Francisco
Habitat GSF has been leading the response to the Bay Area’s affordability crisis for over 30 years by building and sustaining affordable homeownership for low-income working families across San Mateo, San Francisco, and Marin Counties. Habitat GSF’s work to build new homes and repair existing homes is done in partnership with foundations, counties, city and state agencies, other nonprofits, and values-aligned companies like Cisco Systems.