Adam Boone, a Sales Operations Analyst at PagerDuty, received the inaugural Social Impact Quarterly Leadership Award in August 2020. Adam received the award for his commitment to integrating social impact into his day-to-day role. He is the co-lead of Array (PagerDuty’s Black and Latinx Employee Resource Group). In this role, Adam seeks to foster lasting relationships with local community partners and PagerDuty.org grantees, in support of his mission to connect employees to organizations with diverse causes.
Adam views giving back as an ongoing commitment. “My hope,” he says, “is that instead of simply having an hour-long conversation or offering a one-time donation, I can build sustainable connections that have long-term, positive outcomes.”
He further approaches philanthropy with an intersectional lens. “I think in order to identify a cause you truly connect with, you have to assess the personal privileges and opportunities you’ve been granted to understand what kind of opportunities you feel passionate about creating for others. From there, you begin to really shape your own vision for how to approach giving back.”
In 2020, Adam participated in a career panel for Martin Luther King Middle School in San Francisco, in an effort to share his experiences working in the tech space. “With the opportunities, I’ve been granted and doors that have opened for me, I want the next generation of Black kids to understand they, too, can knock on those same doors and they will open for them. I’m committed to ensuring I do my part while I’m here to make sure those doors open for kids who look like me.”
Adam is inspired by the work of Bay Area organizations like The Women’s Building of San Francisco, a women-led organization that provides support services to over 25,000 women and families annually. He also admires national organizations like The Equal Justice Initiative, which aims to end mass incarceration, challenge racial and economic injustice, and to protect basic human rights for the most vulnerable people in American society.
As the work world shifted to a virtual environment at the start of the pandemic, Adam saw a new opportunity to engage with organizations outside of his own backyard, like Covenant House of Georgia, which provides services to unhoused individuals in their local community. “I’ve also been inspired by a fellow Black colleague in our Toronto office who started a fundraiser and ended up raising more than $15,000 for Black Lives Matter’s Canadian Chapter,” Adam says.
Adam continues to serve as an impact leader within the PagerDuty community. In 2021 he will serve as the employee lead for our second annual Day for Change, an opportunity for Dutonians to use their voices to advocate for equity and critical reform for the Black community in honor of Juneteenth.
To those working in tech who are looking to make a difference, he has one final message: “There are opportunities waiting to be created and doors to be opened for those in underrepresented communities. By working in the technology sector in a world that’s becoming increasingly digital, we have the keys to those very doors.”
