Our strategy

The blueprint for accelerating
social impact

The guiding principles we followed can be applied to any sized
organization that wishes to increase social impact.

Start with “Why” and "Who.”

Define the “why” for your organization, which will be unique based on your people, the products and services you offer, and your organization’s expertise. Also determine who you are aiming to support — specific populations, certain geographies, or another group.

Think through your “How” and “What.”

Develop your strategy and approach for achieving your impact. What is your unique value add? How will you go about investing in partnerships
and solutions?

Clearly define your intended impacts.

Once you have established your Why, Who, How, and What, define your intended impact. Be specific about how your organization defines the impact it wishes to make and how progress toward your goal will be measured.

The blueprint for accelerating
social impact (continued)

Build a rigorous tracking methodology.

It’s critical to track progress and validate success accurately. This requires developing a set of leading
indicators to track so you can understand whether you are making incremental progress toward your goals, as well as longer-term impact. As you progress, your organization must be transparent and accountable in tracking and reporting progress, both internally and externally.

Invest in potential.

You might start with proven solutions to address immediate needs. But by expanding your scope to identify and invest in new and innovative solutions, you will amplify your organization’s impact over time. This requires thinking through your appetite for risk and how to balance risk across different types of solutions. Investing in new, unproven solutions also means accepting that this approach has a longer time horizon for seeing results.

Adjust course as needed.

As you gain insights and information along the way, be willing to adjust course as needed to ensure your outcomes are on target. Continually evaluate and refine your programs to ensure you are advancing toward your goal. Build in flexibility to apply lessons learned, incorporate insights, and be agile so you can respond to emerging needs and opportunities.

Solving the world’s greatest challenges

Our vision: Cisco Social Innovation Investments (SII) and the Cisco Foundation's vision is a world of equitable, resilient, and empowered communities where everyone has the opportunity to reach their full potential and thrive.

Our mission: We partner with organizations to create and scale innovative digital solutions that promote a healthy planet and advance the well-being and self-reliance of underserved communities globally. We accomplish this by harnessing the breadth of Cisco’s offerings of strategic guidance, catalytic funding, technology donations, and support from the Cisco community.

Our approach: We regularly conduct research and undertake market assessments and benchmarking to inform where and how to intervene. We invest in and along a continuum of needs–starting with crisis response and critical human needs, then moving along the continuum to support education, as well as economic empowerment. We also look to address both global and local needs, and where we can bring our unique value add to address those needs. Our approach is iterative and adaptive, to enable agile and rapid response to emerging needs and opportunities.

Watch this video to learn more.

Priority sectors

Our work focuses on the following three priority sectors, partnering with non-profit organizations that support underserved populations:

Cisco crisis response

Supporting programs and solutions that are focused on equitable access to disaster relief and preparedness, food insecurity, housing, and clean water. Learn more.

Learning and digital skills

Expanding equitable access to quality education, with emphasis on science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM), literacy for school-age children, and teacher professional development. Learn more.

Economic empowerment

Driving equitable access to resources, skills, and knowledge for employment and career development, entrepreneurship, and financial inclusion for long-term independence, well-being, and economic security. Learn more.

Cisco Networking Academy

For 25 years, this academy has provided high-quality IT courses, simulation software, and hands-on practice, supporting instructors and engaging learners around the world. In FY23 we serviced 3.7 million learners and 29,700 instructors in 190 countries.

Explore the Cisco Networking Academy.