Empowering Community-Based Giving to Bridge the Digital Divide

November and December are recognized globally as the season of giving—a time of year that underlines the importance of generosity and community support. For nonprofit organizations, it’s a crucial fundraising period: Roughly 30% of annual charitable giving happens in December, with 10% in the last three days of the year.[i] Alongside charitable giving, the giving season can also serve as a time to reflect on the past year and look ahead to opportunities to support the communities where we live and work.

As a digital infrastructure company, Equinix has a deep commitment to helping ensure a more accessible, equitable and interconnected digital future for people around the world, with a focus on the communities where we operate. Equinix has been investing in digital inclusion as well as other local initiatives since 2015 through our Community Impact program, in which Equinix employees donate their time and money to the nonprofits they care about most.

In 2022, the Equinix Foundation was launched to scale up our impact. Since that time, the Foundation has issued grant funding to more than 65 organizations working to advance digital equity at a local, regional and global scale—an effort that has been propelled by Equinix employees and the passion they bring to nurture meaningful change in their local communities.

Employee-driven community impact

Equinix employees have always fueled the company’s social sustainability programs. In many of the 72 markets where we operate globally, our local teams are actively involved in helping to address the most pressing digital inclusion needs of their communities. Through the Equinix Foundation WeGive program, local Equinix volunteer teams use allocated Foundation funding to donate to a community-based charitable organization bridging the digital divide. Employees then volunteer with the organization to support their mission during Impact Month, an annual month-long celebration of volunteering and giving. This year marked the 10th anniversary of Impact Month at Equinix.

Community-based giving at work

In addition to WeGive, the Equinix Foundation also makes community-centered grants in primary Equinix metro locations. Here are a few recent examples of WeGive and Foundation grant partners working at a local level in partnership with Equinix employees:

Learning Undefeated is a mobile STEM lab for middle school students in Loudoun County, Virginia. In October 2024, in partnership with Loudoun Education Foundation, more than 40 Equinix employees volunteered to share their passion for technology, data centers, AI and more with students at River Bend Middle School.

Going to School is an education initiative that works on the ground in thousands of government schools in India to teach wide-ranging skills. This October, the Equinix India team volunteered for a day of fun and skill-building to help students at GaibanShah MUN in Mumbai explore creativity, environmental sustainability, sports and more.

Bordeaux Mécènes Solidaires (BMS) is a community-centered organization in France that trains neighborhood associations to work as effective digital mediators for the benefit of their residents. This October, Equinix employees hosted a tour of one of our data centers and presented on data center careers to local students.

Connectivity and digital literacy remain pressing global issues

According to the UN tech agency International Telecommunications Union (ITU), 2.6 billion people remained offline as of 2023.[ii] While there’s been progress on this issue, nearly one-third of the world’s population still lacks connectivity. We must accelerate our global efforts to create a more digitally inclusive world in the coming years.

This giving season, we couldn’t be more thrilled about the grassroots work of Equinix employees, who are constantly inspiring and mobilizing others in their communities to do good work. Equinix Foundation is committed to facilitating community-based giving strategies through our grantmaking, in alignment with our employees’ deep knowledge of the places they call home.

Learn more about Equinix Foundation on our website.

[i] Population of global offline continues steady decline to 2.6 billion people in 2023, International Telecommunications Union, September 12, 2023.

[ii] The Ultimate List Of Charitable Giving Statistics For 2024.