Claranet is now a Gold Sponsor of the largest Italian event entirely dedicated to FOSS, Open Source Day 2024, but this article is not about that.
Today I’m pleased to tell the story of how the decision came from the people and how you can do the same in your workplace.
What can YOU do for Open Source?
It's undeniable that the world runs on top of Open Source software.
As citizens of the world, we need to take action to keep the wheel spinning and one of the simplest and most effective way is... financially!
At Claranet, the company I work for, we strongly believe everyone has the power and the duty to contribute; actually, a company is made of employees and it should be the sum of their ideas.
It’s too easy to complain that it’s “the company” who has to take action, as we’re expecting things to magically happen, but what if everyone could do its part?
A healthy workplace is not where all decisions are made top-down. Rather, in a company that evaluates its staff, every decision and activity is driven by the collective will and dedication, rather than the directives of management.
However, you cannot just throw the stone and hide the hand, that’s why we like to try when we strongly believe in something.
Skin in the game
In this case, the people of Claranet strongly believe in Open Source and they decided to actively take part in this sponsorship. We’re lucky enough to have at our disposal a 1.000€ budget per employee, per year, that we can spend on training or hardware. And, as you can imagine, is fine!
The company agreed that, if we raised a sum of 1.000€, it would match and double it to 2.000€, so this is exactly what happened.
In a few hours, 26 of us (a very large portion of our development force) jumped on board to participate and it ended up in taking as little as less than 40€ each.
Gentle push
This started out as an experiment, to show how a little nudge from the employees influenced a financial and ethical decision of the company, usually driven by a small set of C-levels or managers.
The results are looking good, everyone is happy and proud of how this is going and we do not exclude that this can be the first of a long series of employee-led virtuous activities.
A virtuous cycle
On behalf of Claranet, I'm thrilled to share this successful story and its powerful message: anyone can make a difference when there is motivation to invest in their beliefs.
By supporting free open-source software, we can help create a better world for all, one contribution and one project at a time.
Top comments (1)
Love the story! It’s incredible how much powerful community is, also inside companies! Big Kudos to Claranet for accepting this thing!
Of course, thanks for supporting the conference ❤️