Zumasys has announced its pledge to donate 1% of its 2012 revenue to nonprofit organizations.

Zumasys expects revenues in excess of $20M in 2012, and 1% of this will be given away to organizations selected and voted on by Zumasys' employees in December.* The company has also set a goal of generating $1M in total donations by 2016.

Just three years ago, such a goal would have seemed impossible. "We spent 2009 simply reacting to the economic crisis," said Dave McCary, Senior Solutions Consultant at Zumasys. "But the following year, Zumasys decided that it was not participating in the recession, even if it meant lower profitability. We were not going to diminish the experience of our employees just to save a few bucks."

That's when Zumasys began increasing its work with the Prentice School, a nonprofit, independent day school for students with dyslexia based in Tustin, California. Zumasys first started working with the Prentice School in 2005, when it began transforming the school's IT infrastructure with a simple yet powerful cloud computing platform that could support the students' unique learning needs.

Inspired by the life-changing work being done at the school, Zumasys helped Prentice form a technology committee and develop a multi-year strategic technology plan that spans IT infrastructure and instructional technologies.

Since 2010, the company has also underwritten a large percentage of the school's cloud computing services, which allow teachers and students to access Microsoft® Exchange 2010 and Office 2010 files from anywhere, anytime via Citrix. And over the last eight years, Zumasys has donated tens of thousands of dollars in technology, including HP laptops, desktops and monitors; a new audio/visual system for the auditorium; and educational software for both the administration and students.

"It's like they've adopted us," says Carol Clark, Executive Director of the Prentice School. "The entire Zumasys team scheduled a time to come in to paint our auditorium and put up new fixtures. One employee even came in on a Saturday to finish it."

During the same period, Zumasys also implemented its International Travel Incentive Program. Inspired by his own travels growing up, Zumasys President Paul Giobbi started the program to rejuvenate employees and expose them to new, life-changing experiences.

Each quarter, the ranking employee by tenure is given one week of paid vacation and a stipend to go anywhere in the world. All he or she has to do is leave the continent. To date, employees and their families have traveled to such destinations as Australia, Bali, China, Ecuador, England, Ireland, Italy, England, Peru, Spain and Thailand. When they return, employees share their experiences at the next company meeting.

"It was risky, but it worked," said McCary. "We're doing great, and we have nearly 50 people who love working at Zumasys. And because the company is so focused on the well-being of its employees, there's a lot of goodwill that goes out to the rest of the world."

Since 2009, the company has grown its sales by 92.3%. Zumasys attributes its success to its culture, which enables it to attract and retain some of the industry's most talented and motivated employees. In October 2012, the company was recognized by the Orange County Business Journal, which named Zumasys one of the Best Places to Work in Orange County, California. Yet the company believes there's always room to grow.

Zumasys' 1% Program is perhaps the company's most ambitious program yet. "We wanted our employees to feel like they were working for more than a company," Giobbi said. "Our vision was to make Zumasys into a place where what's important to our employees is what's important to the organization—not the other way around."

"Everyone in the company gets this incredible vibe that we care about more than just our own self-preservation," added McCary. "And our customers get to be involved because they get to make a purchase that will go to something more. I'm really looking forward to when we can reach out to every customer that purchased something from us in 2012 and share with them the story of how that money changed lives."