2023 Okta For Good Impact Report

Learn about our progress toward building a safely connected world where everyone can belong and thrive.

2022 by the numbers

$6M

in cash contributed by the Okta for Good Fund, Okta, Inc., and Okta employees

$5.2M

in technology and services donated

88%

employee participation in Okta For Good (giving and/or volunteering)

3,996

nonprofits supported through giving and volunteering

30

employees and interns brought on as part of our workforce development initiatives

100%

renewable electricity achieved to match our office, remote workforce, and third-party cloud service electricity consumption

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Okta’s vision is to free everyone to safely use any technology. Okta for Good is an important engine for turning that vision into reality. In an increasingly complex world, we believe it’s critical that companies step up to drive positive social and environmental change, bringing all of their resources to bear. For us, that means leveraging our identity software platform, grant dollars, and employees’ time, money, and expertise to support nonprofit organizations, while ensuring the foundation of our core business is built on integrity, transparency, and trust. By working in partnership with all of our stakeholders, including customers, employees, and wider communities, we hope to dramatically expand the boundaries of how business and technology can be a powerful force for good.

—Todd McKinnon, CEO and Co-Founder, Okta

Okta for Good works every day to build a safely connected world where everyone can belong and thrive. For us, this means:

• A digital society and economy in which everyone can fully participate

• Identity and digital infrastructure that protects and enables organizations and those they serve

• A healthy, sustainable, and resilient environment

• A technology sector that mitigates potential harm and works toward the collective good

In 2020, Okta for Good set out several ambitious, three-year public goals, including $10M in cash donations out of the Okta for Good Fund, $10M in technology and services donations, and a $3M grant commitment specifically for racial equity. We are thrilled to announce that by January 2023, we exceeded all three goals.

But that’s just the beginning. Over the last year, we expanded efforts to help the nonprofit sector respond to cyberthreats with the launch of the Okta for Good Nonprofit Cybersecurity Portfolio, providing over $1M in grants to projects ranging from improved staff training to incident response support. We also accelerated Okta’s climate strategy, with an expansion of our 100% renewable electricity commitment and the announcement of our validated Science-Based Targets (SBTs). Importantly, we continued to invest in partnerships that address climate change’s disproportionate impact on marginalized communities.

Okta For Good isn't just a philosophy—it's a practice. Read on to discover how Okta for Good, working at the intersection of humanity and technology, is acting as a powerful catalyst for change.

—Erin Baudo Felter, VP, Social Impact and Sustainability, Okta

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Key takeaways

  • Trust-based giving
  • Digital equity and security
  • Climate action

Trust-based giving

We accelerated our giving, prioritizing long-term partnerships and multifaceted support for nonprofit partners.

We deployed $6M in grants in 2022 from the Okta for Good Fund, Okta, Inc., and Okta employees, supporting nearly 4,000 organizations worldwide. Of our grant dollars, 62% were multi-year commitments and 56% were unrestricted. Unrestricted grants are an important way to build trust, and they enable our partners to invest in their own capacity, infrastructure, and long-term health. Auth0.org (the social-impact arm of Auth0, acquired by Okta in May of 2021) granted an additional $3.5M in charitable grants to support 28 organizations. We also expanded our racial equity work, creating the Racial Equity Philanthropy Fellowship to connect employees to the work of our partners.

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Digital equity and security

We leveraged our people, products, and dollars to address barriers to digital equity and cybersecurity for all.

We supported thousands of nonprofits around the world with over $5M in donated products and services to help them secure the online identities of their employees, donors, and stakeholders. We launched our $1M Nonprofit Cybersecurity Portfolio, and a major public-private partnership with NetHope, USAID, and the CyberPeace Institute to create the world’s first Humanitarian Information Sharing and Analysis Center (ISAC), helping nonprofits better respond to cyber threats. We also deployed nearly $750K in digital equity grants in 2022, supporting partners working to close the digital divide across 13 global communities.

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Climate action

We made significant progress in Okta’s climate journey, and forged partnerships with tech peers and community partners.

After achieving 100% renewable electricity for our global offices and remote workforce as of 2020 and 2021, respectively, in 2022 Okta extended that goal to include our third-party cloud services. In 2022, our science-based targets for absolute emissions reductions were validated, and we expanded our climate equity grants, increasing our focus on the disproportionate impact climate change has on marginalized communities. We also helped local partners build solar capacity for low-income communities.

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Turning commitment into action

The Okta for Good Fund, a donor-advised fund through the Tides Foundation, was established to enable strategic grantmaking via Okta’s pre-IPO equity commitment. Informed by close partnerships with nonprofit and community leaders, Okta’s co-founders and Vice President of Social Impact and Sustainability oversee the fund’s vision, strategy, and grant recommendations.

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We're excited about our progress towards our three-year commitments, having surpassed all three as of January 2023.

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Our work: Tech for Good

Recognizing the power of identity technology, we design programs and solutions that leverage Okta’s technology, expertise, and philanthropy to help meet society’s most critical challenges. This year, we donated over $5M in products and services to Okta’s nonprofit customers, doubled down on digital protection efforts for nonprofits, empowered the next generation of Tech for Good leaders, and continued to explore innovative uses of identity technology for protecting the most vulnerable.

  • Nonprofit Cybersecurity Portfolio
  • Nonprofit Tech Fellowship
  • The Innovation Lab

Nonprofit Cybersecurity Portfolio

Nonprofit organizations are some of the most at risk from the growing threat of cyber attacks, putting millions of already vulnerable people at even greater risk. In 2022, we committed over $1M to six core partners developing innovative strategies to address the security needs of nonprofits: NetHope, CyberPeace Institute, Simply Secure, Norwegian Refugee Council, the UC Berkeley Center for Long-term Cybersecurity, and TechSoup. These grants are powering programs focused on cybersecurity capacity building, coordinated incident response, and helping small nonprofits take their first steps to get into a “security-ready posture.”

We also announced a memorandum of understanding with NetHope and USAID for establishing the world’s first Humanitarian Information Sharing and Analysis Center (ISAC) to build cybersecurity shared services and new tools for this sector. We are already seeing learnings from this collaboration applied to real-world crises and are eager to see this work grow.

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Nonprofit Tech Fellowship

We launched the second cohort of the Nonprofit Tech Fellowship, which supports the professional development of thought leaders building the future of technology, innovation, and social impact. The program offers facilitated gatherings, one-on-one coaching, and networking in addition to providing a $25,000 grant to each Fellow’s organization.

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The Innovation Lab

We announced the Okta for Good Innovation Lab in 2021, and in 2022, we continued our partnership with grantees Tech Matters, Mercy Corps, and TechnoServe. Each organization is leveraging identity technology to transform services for vulnerable people. Okta for Good provides technology donations, unrestricted grant dollars, and a team of pro bono identity experts to support these projects.

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Grantee & customer success stories

Tech Matters

As a grantee of the Okta for Good Innovation Lab, Tech Matters is leveraging Okta’s products, grant support, and employee expertise to update Aselo, their open-source platform for child helplines. In 2022, Aselo went live with five new helplines in the Philippines, Jamaica, Colombia, Malta, and India.

NetHope

NetHope brings together the world’s largest NGOs and the tech sector. Okta’s $375,000 two-year grant supports NetHope’s Digital Protection efforts, establishing a “Dial-a-CISO” program to provide coordinated incident response to NGOs. It also enabled NetHope to partner with the SANS Institute to train 73 people from 40+ NGOs and 27 countries in foundational cybersecurity skills to address critical capacity gaps in the aid sector.

Kiva

Through Kiva’s microlending platform, over two million people have invested $1.9B in real dreams and real opportunity, spanning more than 90 countries and impacting the lives of more than 4.8 million people. Leveraging Okta’s Workforce and Customer Identity Clouds, Kiva can enable secure access for its staff and its vast network of lending partners. Learn more about Kiva’s journey with Okta from their Oktane22 presentation.

“We're not just moving words and pictures around. We're moving actual dollars. A secure identity system is absolutely the backbone of the business, our mission, and the connection between borrowers and lenders. It's imperative for us to have a reliable, accessible, and secure identity system.”

Matthew Flaming

Head of Engineering, Kiva

Our work: Empowered employees and communities

Okta for Good aims to catalyze a community of global changemakers, grounding our work in what communities need. We do this by empowering every employee to drive social impact, fostering strong and collaborative community partnerships globally, and deploying philanthropy to organizations creating impact around the world.

  • Tech Pathways Week
  • Increasing global reach and impact
  • Expanding our commitment to racial equity
  • Record-setting employee impact

Tech Pathways Week

In FY23, we celebrated our 6th annual Tech Pathways Week, which brought together a global community of nearly 750 employees and job seekers to address the opportunity gap in tech careers. Of student participants, 94% said the session improved their confidence in networking with professionals and 89% reported increased expectations for their education and/or careers because of the event.

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Increasing global reach and impact

Our community impact efforts expanded with new partnerships in Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom, and we established our first partnership in Ireland. Partners include Indigitek, hEr VOLUTION, Colorintech, and INCO Academy Ireland, respectively. We are committed to trust-based philanthropy. To better support our grantees we launched a grantee-capacity strengthening program in 2022, focused on delivering value “beyond the check” and rooted in helping grantees meet their missions.  

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Expanding our commitment to racial equity

We evolved our Racial Justice & Equity Employee Advisory Board into an annual Fellowship program, an experiential learning opportunity designed to immerse employees in the world of philanthropy. We connected Fellows to racial equity grantees working in the voting rights space: Asian Law Caucus, Black Voters Matter Capacity Building Institute, Native American Rights Fund, and TurnUp Activism. We elevated their work among our employees, naming the systemic factors contributing to inequality in voting access, and offered tactics to begin addressing those factors.

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Record-setting employee impact

2022 was a record-setting year for our employee impact program, with 88% of employees volunteering and/or donating and reaching nearly 4,000 nonprofits worldwide. Earlier in the year, and in response to the humanitarian crisis in Ukraine and other areas of the world, we activated a special 2:1 matching campaign deploying more than $360,000 globally. During the holiday season, we hosted our biggest Holiday Giving Campaign to date. In just under two weeks, 82% of our company participated, supporting more than 25,000 causes and providing more than $400,000 to our communities.

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“Okta is a much-valued long-term partner of the Australian Business and Community Network, providing multi-tiered support to help Australian young people from low socio-economic areas get into careers in technology. In addition to financial support, Okta provides high-quality volunteer mentors, working directly with school students to help them explore career pathways and how to get there.”

Phil Gardner

CEO, Australian Business and Community Network (ABCN)

Our work: Climate action

In 2022, Okta expanded our 100% renewable electricity program to include Okta’s cloud services in addition to our global offices and remote workforce. Our science-based targets for absolute emissions reduction were validated by the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi)—an important milestone in Okta’s long-term climate strategy to (1) reduce consumption, (2) electrify, (3) purchase renewable electricity, and (4) engage our vendors.

We also conducted a listening and learning tour with climate justice and environmental organizations to further our work to integrate climate equity into Okta’s evolving strategy. We share some key takeaways here.   

For more details on Okta’s climate efforts, see our ESG energy and climate webpage.

  • Emissions reductions
  • Climate equity grants
  • Climate equity & renewable energy

Emissions reductions

With a goal of reducing emissions across our ecosystem, we 

  • Are right-sizing our global office footprint and building out all new direct leased offices to both the LEED Silver and WELL Silver standard
  • Joined the Sustainable Aviation Buyers Alliance (SABA) to work collaboratively to reduce travel emissions
  • Are engaging our vendors to set their own targets in collaboration with other members of the Business Council on Climate Change (BC3), with whom we created guides for setting and achieving emissions reduction targets
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Climate equity grants

Okta for Good’s climate equity grant portfolio brings a community lens to complement Okta’s internal climate strategy. In 2022, Okta committed new, multi-year grant support to The Solutions Project to support grassroots organizations in the United States and Puerto Rico on the frontlines of the climate crisis. This organization joins existing grantees GRID Alternatives, which builds community-powered solutions to advance economic and environmental justice, and CLIMA Fund, which supports grassroots climate solutions.

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Climate equity & renewable energy

Okta prioritizes purchasing renewable energy certificates (RECs) with a social benefit. We currently support three projects:

  • Solar Stewards provides affordable clean energy and reduced utility bills for low-income residents, creating more equity in renewable energy markets and building “net new” solar energy. We are supporting their community solar project in Salt Lake City, Utah. 
  • California Bright Schools supports the installation of solar photovoltaic systems on schools across the state. The solar installations support a curriculum that aligns with the state’s testing requirements and provides hands-on learning tools for schools. 
  • PosiGen Solar Power For All makes solar affordable and accessible to everyone, particularly low-to-moderate income communities and communities of color in Louisiana. Through the Solar Power for All program, PosiGen is making it possible for families to invest in their homes, save money on their utility bills, and take steps toward a brighter future.
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“Solar Stewards is honored to work with companies like Okta who understand the value of local renewable energy procurement and climate justice. Including Social RECs within their ESG strategy puts them on the leading edge of impact and equity.”

Dana Clare Redden

Founder, Solar Stewards

Our work: Auth0.org philanthropy

As part of Auth0’s integration with Okta, Auth0’s social impact arm, Auth0.org, deployed its remaining charitable funds in 2022. Auth0.org made 28 grants in 2022 worth $3.5M to strategic partners, including TechBridge Girls, Reboot Representation, Goodie Nation, SCWIST (Canada), Community Integrated Care (UK), and Connect Humanity (global), as well as various humanitarian relief organizations. 

In 2022, Auth0.org also made large donations to support scholarships for underserved students seeking technical education at two leading engineering and technical schools in Latin America: ITBA and ORT in Argentina. These scholarship funds target students with economic challenges and help them pursue their technical education. At least 30% of the funds are reserved for women students, to advance gender diversity in the technology field.

Over the two-and-a-half years of the program, Auth0.org made 49 grants worth nearly $4.6M. The grants are intended to advance the following social outcomes: closing the digital divide, creating a more balanced workforce in tech and cybersecurity, and diversifying participation in STEM and computer science education. 

Looking forward

At Okta, we believe in technology’s transformative potential for humanity. Looking forward, Okta For Good strives to

• Recognize value. Impact is a part of everyone’s job. We want to empower everyone to see the potential in their own work and commit real time and energy to social and environmental efforts.

• Set the bar. As Okta grows, so does our impact. We will keep learning alongside our partners so we can keep transforming the way we leverage business and technology as a force for good.

• Influence others. We can’t solve the world’s problems by working alone. We are committed to sharing what we learn on our journey and to collaborating with partners across sectors to drive change.

Our mission is to build a safely connected world where everyone can belong and thrive. We’d like to thank our many partners, communities, employees, and customers for helping us drive long-term value for people and the planet. We’re excited to keep pushing the bounds of what we can achieve together in 2023 and beyond. 

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Methodology

We have worked carefully to standardize our data. Unless otherwise noted, this report presents and analyzes data based on Okta’s fiscal calendar, which begins on February 1 and ends on January 31. We refer to years based on the February start date of a fiscal year. The year that began on February 1, 2022, and ended on January 31, 2023, is therefore referred to in this report as “2022” and “this year.” Similarly, the fiscal year that began on February 1, 2021, is referred to as “2021” or “last year.”

In this report, Okta and Auth0.org present our program metrics separately since we wound down Auth0.org’s philanthropic giving this fiscal year.

The sources of Okta’s philanthropic support include:

• Cash contributions from The Okta for Good Fund

• Cash contributions from Okta, Inc.

• Cash contributions from Okta employees channeled through Okta for Good’s employee giving program

• Donations of Okta’s technology and services

Learn more about Okta’s social and environmental impact