The Daily Tell

A growing number of businesses are attempting to give back to the communities around them with many donating money to organizations or entities close to their heart. But enterprise cloud computing company Salesforce.com is trying to get companies to give not just money, but time and effort.

With its 1/1/1 model, the Salesforce.com Foundation is encouraging other firms to give 1 percent of their time, 1 percent of their product and 1 percent of their equity back to their communities. It’s an effort that Suzanne DiBianca, executive director of the foundation, says has been a decade in the making.

"Ten years ago, Salesforce.com set out to change the way companies think about philanthropy, and today more than ever it continues to define our focus," she said. "The hundreds of other companies that have joined us in giving their resources forward to empower nonprofits to realize their missions are truly exemplary of the power that business has to affect positive change."

The foundation says the 1/1/1 model allows a company to not only share its financial wealth but its "intellectual wealth of its employees, technology or products and financial resources to improve communities and promote compassionate capitalism."

But Salesforce.com isn’t just persuading others, its practicing what it preaches. The company currently gives employees six paid days to volunteer their time each year, with employees donating 178,000 hours over the course of the program.

Similarly, the foundation has donated its Salesforce.com CRM license to 8,000 nonprofits in 70 countries and, by donating its equity, has given almost $20 million in grants to nonprofits.

If recent news is any indication, it seems that giving back is also good for business. The company reported this week that its fourth quarter profits increased 48 percent over the same period a year earlier.