Happy New Year, A Message from Our CEO

2021 reflections and looking ahead into 2022

Happy New Year! As we open the door to a new year, it’s time to reflect on 2021 and what 2022 will bring.

I am so grateful to everyone who has been integral to our success. When I think of where we started the year and where we’ve ended up, the word that comes to mind is “amazing!” I would like to personally thank each of our clients and partners who helped us achieve these milestones – we couldn’t have gotten this far without you. And I also want to thank everyone on our team for their commitment to excellence, hard work and the incredible enthusiasm that ensures our clients get the best from us every day.

Bright Funds year in review

Here are a few of our 2021 highlights:

1. We expanded our client base by 48% and the number of employees served by 30% .

2. While donation volume decreased slightly over 2020 (-15%), this was expected since many companies started programs during the onset of COVID. When compared to 2019, donation volume grew by 41%.

3. We closed over 14,000 support inquiries and finished the year with a 98% customer satisfaction score (our clients love us!). Example feedback from our users:

• “The Bright Funds folks are ALWAYS helpful and responsive. If 11 stars were possible, I’d give that many.”
• “The level of customer service is fantastic at Bright Funds. I appreciate you.”
• “Very prompt, thorough and friendly response!”

4. We enhanced the platform with several new features including:

• An improved donor experience with ACH payments, multi-language support starting with Spanish (more coming soon!) and a richer visual presentation of campaigns on the company home page.
• An expanded administrator dashboard with new functionality, tools and resources.
• Several integrations with other systems such as ADP, CAF UK, Stripe, VolunteerMatch and more. Bright Funds is the only workplace giving platform to be present in all three ADP marketplaces (RUN for small market, Workforce Now for mid market and Vantage HCM for large market) – allowing for real-time employee census sync and payroll deductions.
• A relaunched Bright Network to better serve our nonprofit partners.

5. We merged with WizeHive, an industry leading provider of grants management solutions, to better serve our clients with a world-class philanthropy platform.

Serving our clients better has ALWAYS been core to our DNA as a company. And now that we have joined forces with WizeHive, we are even better equipped to strengthen this focus as we head into 2022.

Celebrating our clients

With that focus in mind, I want to take a moment to celebrate our clients. Whether big or small, all of our clients demonstrate their commitment to being responsible corporate citizens by their investment in a workplace philanthropy program. And many of our clients are recognized impact leaders. A few examples of incredible achievements by our clients include:

• Eight of our clients were named as Newsweek’s America’s Most Responsible Companies 2022 including Campbell Soup Company, Cisco, Morningstar and VMware.ⁱ
• Several clients such as VMware had very high employee participation rates (between 65-80%).
• Cisco wins frequent awards for its corporate social responsibility program such as Fortune’s World’s 25 Best Workplaces and 3BL Media’s 100 Best Corporate Citizens.ⁱⁱ One heartwarming example of how Cisco cultivates a purpose-filled culture is outlined in a “We Are Cisco” blog post. It tells the story of how a Cisco team created a pen pal program to keep their co-workers and families connected during a time of social distancing. A friendship that grew out of that inspired one employee’s 8-year-old daughter to start a fundraiser for a wildlife sanctuary on Bright Funds.
• Quotient boosted employee engagement by launching a new giving program on Bright Funds. As an example, the company reached 121% of its goal for its Black History Month and Women’s History Month campaigns.
• Pinterest leveraged employee resource groups (ERGs) to run successful monthly campaigns for different causes. For example, in February, Pinterest’s Women@ ERG sponsored a campaign in honor of Women’s History Month. Then in June, the company’s LGBTQ+ ERG helped lead a Pride campaign to celebrate the LGBTQ+ community.

2022 will be even better!

In closing, I am truly humbled by and appreciative of the achievements and impact by our clients and team in 2021. At the same time, I am beyond excited for what 2022 will bring us. Stay tuned for major items on our roadmap such as increased international support, improved reporting and data visualizations, additional integrations and more.

Happy New Year!

_{i Newsweek, America’s Most Responsible Companies 2022.
ii 2021 Cisco Purpose Report; Fortune, World’s Best 25 Workplaces 2021; 3BL Media 100 Best Corporate Citizens 2021.}