Tough times are, well, tough, but they’re also clarifying. That’s where I find myself as I reflect on the past year – in a turbulent macro environment that is pushing organizations to get very clear about what matters and what doesn’t. For Twilio, what has always mattered is that as we build a generational company, we leave society better than we found it. To make good on this commitment, ten years ago we launched Twilio.org, the social impact arm of Twilio. This year, we’re celebrating a decade of Twilio.org leveraging our product, capital, and people to drive positive change in society. Today, that value remains core to our business, even as we adapt our organization to become a profitable growth company.
During a year of continued geopolitical conflict, climate change, and an unpredictable global economy, we continued to focus our social impact efforts where Twilio’s products, funding, and team could drive the most impact. To do that, we deployed Twilio technology and funding to help organizations support communities recovering from humanitarian crises around the globe. We also made improvements to how we measure demographic employee data and challenged ourselves to make decisions through a more equitable lens, all in service of creating an inclusive environment where all of our employees can do meaningful work. These are areas inside and outside the company where we are uniquely positioned to make the most difference. Looking back on 2022, I’m inspired by the results of this focused work. Over 15,000 social impact organizations, including nonprofits, social enterprises, government agencies, and educational institutions rely on our customer engagement platform to reach 559 million people each year and provide vital social support. Twilio.org partners leveraged our technology to aid people displaced by humanitarian conflict, inspire action around climate change, and create more equity in communities facing systemic barriers. Organizations like the Norwegian Refugee Council used Twilio chatbots and SMS to address financial requests from Ukrainian refugees in need of financial support as they fled the conflict in their country. Inside the company, Twilio employees volunteered more than 7,600 hours of their time to do good in their communities. We also continued our work to build a more inclusive and representative workforce, with Twilions from underrepresented backgrounds attending 102 leadership training opportunities.
