At Elastic we have a simple giving and community-focused program named Elastic Cares. It’s built on the philosophy that giving back and supporting the communities in which we live and work can inspire and enrich our lives in unexpected ways, while giving Elasticians agency to be the change they want to see in the world. The foundations of this program are simple: <ul><li>Volunteer Time Off (VTO): Elasticians have 40 VTO hours per year (with pay and benefits) to volunteer at charitable organizations of their choice</li><li>Donation Matching: Elastic matches employees’ donations made to charities, with a match cap equaling roughly 1% of their&nbsp;base salary</li><li>Non-Profit Organization (NPO) Program: We provide up to 16GB Standard <a href="https://www.elastic.co/cloud/elasticsearch-service">Elasticsearch Service</a> clusters free to non-profit organizations for a period of one year (If you or someone you know is part of a &nbsp;non-profit organization, you can apply <a href="https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfzZ6iCfSZSTzlO43U6UK4Fk3ITk_oVZlZYaIFmfrwF6YHJtQ/viewform">here</a>!)</li></ul>The intention is simple too: give our Elasticians the resources to support causes that matter most to them. Of course, the true power in our program is in the varied interests of our Elasticians themselves, working to support causes they love and to create change wherever they are in the world.Two of our most memorable Elastic sponsored giving opportunities and achievements were our Trans Human Rights and Breast Cancer Awareness campaigns. In honor of International Women's Day (#IWD2019), we want to give the two Elasticians who championed these efforts an opportunity to share their stories with you.<h2>Breast Cancer Awareness</h2>Written by Kristina FrostWhen I’ve donated or been part of causes via our Elastic Cares program in the past, I’ve thought about them as ways to exhibit care for strangers who are facing challenges that I’ve largely gotten to evade. Everything is different, though, when the problem is personal, and so today I’m here to write about a single multiplicative effect: my own. Bear with me: we have to travel back in time, to September of last year, to tell this story.I was headed to our Support Summit in Austin – a meeting for all of our support engineers which I usually attend as a representative of our field teams. Like many others, I was working hard to get ready for our IPO. Just before arriving in Austin, I got a phone call from my mother, who lives in Texas. The purpose of the call was more or less to the effect of: you should probably extend your trip. She had a tumor, she said. Together, we went to visit an oncologist, and learned that it wasn’t just the one tumor, but several. My team was nothing but supportive as we went from specialist to specialist to get chemo underway, even as, in the background, Elastic got ready to go public. Navigating a new diagnosis like this is scary; it presents myriad challenges and complexities, and by its very definition it invites uncertainty. Every doctor certainly hopes that every treatment will be life-saving, but that’s not always the case.Again this all happened in mid-September, and as October happened to be Breast Cancer Awareness Month, I worked with Elastic Cares to hand-pick the<a href="https://www.drsusanloveresearch.org/"> Dr. Susan Love Research Foundation</a>, the<a href="https://lynnsage.org/"> Lynn Sage Cancer Research Foundation</a>, and<a href="https://www.metavivor.org/"> Metavivor</a> as organizations to benefit from the giving campaign I was creating. But Elastic went above and beyond, offering a 200% match for any Elastician donating to any breast cancer research organization, not just the ones I had selected.Breast Cancer is a disease that uniquely impacts women; something like <a href="https://www.breastcancer.org/symptoms/understand_bc/risk/understanding">one in eight American women</a> are diagnosed in their lifetimes, and I saw its network effect when folks from all over the company reached out to me to share their own stories: sisters, wives, cousins, friends, and mothers who’d come through breast cancer diagnoses and seen their way to the other side.I’ve shared <a href="https://www.elastic.co/blog/elastics-holiday-spirit-the-search-for-sharing">before</a> about the ways Elastic encourages us to work with non-profit organizations, championing causes that are near and dear to us, but this time, this was personal in a way none of my previous efforts have been.<img src="https://images.contentstack.io/v3/assets/bltf7afce26b89a5b33/blt976be49ae955b3c5/5c82ad203258f49e375109d6/download" data-sys-asset-uid="blt976be49ae955b3c5"/><figcaption>There's no way my mother could have known in the 80s that this pink sweater would be featured in a blog post about breast cancer ... or DID SHE?</figcaption>When you do something like creating a campaign for a cause, pragmatism tells you to make your goals small. If you raise a few hundred dollars or maybe a thousand, it will mean that maybe a couple dozen colleagues dropped twenty bucks into the non-profit tip jar you’ve created.Together we raised nearly $11,000, and that money will make a future without this disease possible.Five days into October, and at the start of our Breast Cancer campaign, I was in Manhattan standing on the floor of the<a href="https://www.elastic.co/blog/ze-bell-has-rung-thank-you-users-customers-and-partners"> NYSE to watch our CEO, Shay, and our leadership team, ring-ze-bell</a>. The markets have been the centerpiece of my mother’s career in financial services for the last twenty years, and so perhaps, more than anyone else in our family, she understood the significance of that moment. While on the floor, I busily texted my parents updates and pictures as our company went public. In those early days of our cancer journey together as a family, this achievement was powerful: it was a wonderful thing amidst a frightening new normal, something that momentarily parted the clouds of fear and worry. As I’m writing this now, my mom is wrapping up her course of treatment, and in a few months, it’s highly likely that she’ll get to experience something that just a couple decades ago was unthinkable: what “life after cancer” is like.<img src="https://images.contentstack.io/v3/assets/bltf7afce26b89a5b33/blt034f31c606f02767/5c82ad5ecfc5dd8137f7941f/download" data-sys-asset-uid="blt034f31c606f02767"/><figcaption>The Frost family: every hockey team has a captain, a forward, and a goalie.</figcaption>I’m not going to say “with luck, so will so many others.” Because advancing a cause like this isn’t about luck. It’s about the incredible talents of doctors who battle these diseases side-by-side with their patients. It’s about the technology innovations being brought within the healthcare industry – disrupting cancer with the right medication, for the right patient.It’s about investments that help these organizations find better and better treatments, tools, and medications that will keep our mothers, sisters, and friends around for even longer — to be the strong women we know, the ones who raise us, and the ones who inspire us.It’s about the dozens of Elasticians who made a decision in October to make this campaign part of their day and not just a day about the work that was in front of them. It’s about a company that not only allows, but encourages us to raise our hands and say “here’s something I care about” and “let’s be generous together.”It’s about intention. It’s about us.<h2>Trans Rights are Human Rights</h2>Written by Kiley DavidsonIt’s a well-documented phenomenon that if you work in technology and you’re a member of a minority group, you have a higher likelihood of going unseen and unheard at your organization. At a distributed company, it’s easy to accidentally make the problem worse: turning your video off in a Zoom meeting and staying on mute is simple when your apartment is a mess, your hair is worse, and it’s all just too much. Hiding is easy, but fuels loneliness – making it easy for anxiety, depression, and Imposter Syndrome burn through your head. It‘s part of why the inclusion part of Diversity &amp; Inclusion is so important: you can feel as alone and unseen in a crowded room as you can in an empty home office.It’s also a lot like being in the closet. <img src="https://images.contentstack.io/v3/assets/bltf7afce26b89a5b33/blt5c680dab7f35959d/5c82adad4f9ad00f434caedc/download" data-sys-asset-uid="blt5c680dab7f35959d" style="display: block;margin: auto;" width="600"/><figcaption>I came out at work, and all I got was a sense of belonging and this mug from HR (...based on my coming out letter).</figcaption>Keeping that in mind, let’s back up to late October 2018. The <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transgender_Day_of_Remembrance">Transgender day of Remembrance</a> was just around the corner, in November. TDoR is often overlooked, but held extra significance that year as I had just started the process of transition three months prior. I was still largely in the closet then: besides my amazing wife and a few close friends, only one or two people in Elastic’s fantastic HR department knew I was transgender myself as we worked to sort out some insurance questions. It felt safer to be go unseen at work, to leave the metaphorical video off. The idea of coming out (or being outed) filled me with dread even as I craved it. Loneliness consumed me, even as I smiled at coworkers in meetings, sat next to them at conferences, or shared a drink when they were in town.It’s a vulnerable, intimidating place familiar to any LGBTQ+ person. As a transwoman, it can be especially poisonous: not only are you uncomfortable with the gender everyone sees you as, but you don’t have access to the traditional support networks available to other women, which just reinforces all the dysphoria and doubt swirling around in your head. You’re doubly invisible – out of balance – and it eats at your soul.In this context, the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/21/us/politics/transgender-trump-administration-sex-definition.html">New York Times’ publication of a leaked Trump Administration memo</a> arguing to "essentially eradicate federal recognition” of transgender Americans was utterly terrifying. All my trans and non-binary siblings were under attack and I had barely come out to myself, much less the world. I felt like I had no one to turn to, and that there was nothing I could do. Even talking about the issue on Elastic’s #dibs (diversity, inclusion, and belonging) Slack channel was scary – what if people put two and two together and figured it out?Still, the success other colleagues had with their Elastic Cares campaigns stirred my hope. Elastic had proven itself to be astoundingly generous and committed to inclusivity. Maybe they’d care about this too?I sent a message to Kristina Paiz, our Elastic Cares Program Manager: “How would we go about doing a matching thing for trans rights causes?” Within the week we had a campaign supporting four amazing transgender advocacy non-profits in the US (the <a href="https://transgenderlawcenter.org/">Transgender Law Center</a>, <a href="https://www.translifeline.org/">Trans Lifeline</a>, <a href="https://www.freedomforallamericans.org/">Freedom for All Americans</a>, and <a href="https://www.lambdalegal.org/">Lambda Legal</a>). Elastic offered 200% matching, and we set a modest goal of $5,000. Our CEO emailed the entire company Friday, October 26, 2018, to launch the campaign, and I crossed my fingers hoping we’d get at least half way.By Monday we’d raised 130% our original goal. By the end of the campaign, three weeks later, we’d raised just over $20,000. I was blown away. I felt seen. I even felt a little safer.<img src="https://images.contentstack.io/v3/assets/bltf7afce26b89a5b33/bltdd18f76508792986/5c82ae24057605bf3b76475c/download" data-sys-asset-uid="bltdd18f76508792986" style="display: block;margin: auto;" width="600"/><figcaption>Disneyland is better with fabulous wives.</figcaption>The essayist Rebecca Solnit has observed that “Hope is not a lottery ticket you can sit on the sofa and clutch... Hope should shove you out the door.” Seeing the urgency of other Elasticians to meet a need, even one that didn’t affect them personally, was the shove I needed. Within two weeks I had done all the work to file for my legal name and gender change, come out to a number of Elasticians so I had support, and began eagerly waiting for my chosen coming out date at work.That whole process and experience is a blog post or two by itself, but it went amazingly well. My coming out email received so many replies it crashed my phone’s email client, twice. It’s an immeasurable, lucky privilege to work at a company like Elastic, where queer identities are welcome, and every woman is supported and taken seriously. Such balance is rare, and we can’t stop until it’s not lucky but common.<hr/>Check out <a href="https://www.elastic.co/about/our-source-code">Our Source Code</a> to learn more about who we at Elastic are.

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International Women's Day 2019: Balancing for Better at Elastic

Last year, <a href="/blog/the-giving-culture-of-elastic">I wrote</a> about the way Elastic employees from all over the globe came together to rally time and resources to celebrate and prop up people whom they might never have a chance to meet. I wrote about how important giving is, how important caring is, amidst an international climate that can feel threatening and hostile.Then 2016 came.I won’t replay the year’s many lows; this is not going to be the blog post for folks who believe that the best way to recap this year is to put the dumpster fire .gif on endless repeat.Instead, we’re going to talk about the audacity of continuing to give. Shay Banon, our Co-Founder and CTO, and Leah Sutton, our VP of Human Resources, have recently written at length about Elastic’s commitment to <a href="/blog/elastic-cause-awards-cause-doing-good-matters">encouraging and empowering people</a> who are using our Stack to <a href="/blog/elastic-heart-the-center-of-the-elastic-cause-awards">do good in the world</a>. We’re doubling down on <a href="/blog/django-girls-review-of-elasticon-tour-munich">our relationship with Django Girls</a>. There’s more goodness to come (spoilers!) as we march towards <a href="/elasticon/conf/2017/sf">Elastic{ON}17</a>, all of it central to the big aspirations of our corporate heart.&nbsp;Today, though, we’ve got a whole crew joining me on the virtual stage to talk about the smaller, more personal ways we’re coming together to do good.&nbsp; <h3>John Black, Sr. Director, Global Sales Development: Moustaches and Men’s Health</h3>For as long as I can remember, my dad has always had a moustache. Except for that one time when I was in 3rd grade, and he decided to shave it off. My sister and I begged him to grow it back because he looked so strange without it.&nbsp;For the better part of my life, I’ve gone without a moustache. Then in October 2012, I learned about Movember.The <a href="https://us.movember.com/">Movember Foundation</a> was launched in 2003 in Australia. And since then, more than 5 million people – Mo Bros and Mo Sistas, as they’re called – have joined the cause, helping to raise $710 million that have supported 1,200 men’s health projects. These projects are focused on three of the biggest health issues faced by men: prostate cancer, testicular cancer and mental health and suicide prevention. <img src="https://api.contentstack.io/v2/uploads/585d35f1982ef95423d277d7/download?uid=blteadbbcc37412ffa3" data-sys-asset-uid="blteadbbcc37412ffa3" alt="john-black-movember-2016.JPG" style="float: left;margin: 0 20px 20px 0;text-align: left;"/>For the past four years, I have been a Mo Bro. Although there are a variety of ways to participate in Movember, I have opted to let the hair on my upper lip grow. And each Movember Eve, I get that mixed feeling of manliness, commitment and discomfort around facing the next 30 days.&nbsp;I believe in this cause. I believe that men’s health issues are important. And not just because I am a man. But because men, too often, don’t want or know how to talk about their physical and mental health issues. That’s a problem and something that needs to change.Two experiences in my life have made Movember especially personal. First, my grandfather (I called him Papa) died from prostate cancer when he was in his early 70s. This cancer ravaged his healthy body and mind, and we lost him too early. It was frustrating to learn that, had the cancer been detected earlier, he would likely have beaten the disease. And second, I suffered a serious depression when I was 21. I am grateful that I had amazing friends and family who helped me talk about my issues and get me through this difficult time.<blockquote>Men experience worse longer-term health than women and die on average&nbsp;six years earlier. Prostate cancer rates will double in the next 15 years.&nbsp;Testicular cancer rates have already doubled in the last 50. Three quarters&nbsp;of suicides are men. Poor mental health leads to half a million men taking&nbsp;their own life every year. That’s one every minute.&nbsp;</blockquote>I’m a son, a brother and a friend. But my roles as husband and father are the biggest catalysts behind my participation in Movember. I want to live a long, healthy life alongside my family. So, I’ll do what I can to boost awareness around men’s health issues. And if growing a Mo will help me raise money to improve, lengthen and save lives, then I’m all in.This Movember, through the generosity of friends, family, and in particular, my Elastic family, I raised $2,236. This money will go toward funding ground-breaking programs across the globe. I am proud and privileged to work at a company whose technology empowers people to make a difference and enact change in their companies, communities and society at large. I love being a part of a company with a heart and soul. We can (and should) do well while doing good.<h3>George Young, Area Vice President, Public Sector: Supporting the Youth of Nicaragua</h3><img src="https://api.contentstack.io/v2/uploads/585d379af1d5ecc64421b808/download?uid=bltd0c3004cec8eea10" data-sys-asset-uid="bltd0c3004cec8eea10" alt="george-young-nicaragua-volunteer-work.jpg" style="float: right;margin: 0 20px 0 20px;text-align: right;"/>My family has been traveling to Nicaragua for over 10 years to help orphans and families living in desperate economic poverty. Projects we have done over the years there include building a feeding center, improvements to local schools, and job training for older kids.&nbsp;This year, we teamed up&nbsp;with <a href="http://www.gmu-efid.org/upcoming-projects.html">George Mason University</a>, who is sending volunteer engineering students to help build a water distribution system for an orphanage with 140 children. I challenged my colleagues to together raise $10,000, which we ended up exceeding with a donation of over $30,000! This is not only enough for the water distribution system, but also to drill a much needed new well.&nbsp;The work will be done in January and May of 2017 by volunteers who are paying their own way, so all proceeds are solely going to the improvements needed. It is extremely exciting to be a part of a company culture that deeply cares about their employees and also for the world at large!<h3>Tyler Hannan, Director of Product Marketing: Stuff the Bus</h3>One of the things that my wife and I have always tried to encourage two our girls – Ella, age 10, and Aoife, age 5 –&nbsp;to understand, is that we are quite lucky. And that there are many who don't have the luxuries that we do. This is, of course, true throughout the year...but it is keenly felt at Christmas.I've been volunteering with a church here in Amsterdam on a program called ‘Stuff the Bus.’ In the past few years they’ve ‘Stuffed the Bakfiets’ but this year we wanted to step it up a bit.<img src="https://api.contentstack.io/v2/uploads/585d3aa6b9bbcf2b6987dcc2/download?uid=blt3a7a9ad5d682eccb" data-sys-asset-uid="blt3a7a9ad5d682eccb" alt="stuff-the-bus-2016.jpg" style="display: block;margin: auto;"/>Photo credit: Hillsong Amsterdam on InstagramWe’ve partnered with The Salvation Army (who is working with underprivileged and refugees) and ACM Women’s Shelter (which helps with women caught in trafficking) for Christmas. We asked the question “What do people need?” and got a list in return – the items desired are somewhat sobering and rather practical: toiletries, deodorant, body lotion, shower gel, shampoo, make-up, underwear, socks, blankets, winter gloves, toys, and travel bags.We've been collecting these items and will continue to do so through the Holidays.<h3>Sandra Boyd, Territory Sales Manager: A Child Should Never Go Hungry</h3>For the second year, the Elastic Mountain View, California office participated in a fundraising drive for <a href="http://www.shfb.org/">Second Harvest Food Bank</a>. Last year we were honored to win a Gold Award for our efforts and this year we upped our goal to $2,500.<img src="https://api.contentstack.io/v2/uploads/585d3d54b9bbcf2b6987dcc7/download?uid=blt912f75c3d3da5ccc" data-sys-asset-uid="blt912f75c3d3da5ccc" alt="Second-Harvest-Food-Bank.jpg" style="float: left;margin: 0 20px 20px 0;text-align: left;"/>Second Harvest is an organization that I have personally supported for many years both with my time and money. They believe that everyone should have access to the nutritious foods they need to live a healthy, productive life. Unfortunately, due to the high cost of living, too many people in our community are not getting enough nutritious food to eat. The Food Bank provides food to people in need where they live, learn, and work. The Bay Area is one of the most expensive areas to live and with rents soaring many families are struggling to put food on the table.Every $1 donated creates 2 meals, and 96% of funds go directly to their programs. Also, 90% of the food they distribute is highly nutritious. I had the opportunity to tour one of their new warehouses recently which was full of fresh fruits and vegetables, which are so important for health but also difficult to afford on a limited budget.&nbsp;Some facts about Second Harvest:<ul><li>1 in 3 kids in San Mateo and Santa Clara Counties do not have enough food to eat every single day</li><li>1 in 10 people in San Mateo and Santa Clara Counties rely on food from Second Harvest Food Bank every single month</li><li>Second Harvest Food Bank provides the equivalent of 1 million meals every week of the year</li><li>Nearly 40% of Second Harvest Food Bank’s clients are children</li><li>95% of Second Harvest Food Bank’s expenses go directly to programs that feed our neighbors in need</li><li>Over half of the food Second Harvest Food Bank distributes is fresh fruits and vegetables</li><li>More than 90% of the food Second Harvest Food Bank distributes is highly nutritious</li></ul>We’ve just passed our fundraising goal for the year; as of time of writing the generosity of our employees has provided 5,300 meals to our local community members here in the South Bay. <h3>Samantha Alberts, User Success Manager: ‘Tis Better to Give Than Receive</h3>The Elastic London office teamed up with the Salvation Army both in December 2015 and December 2016 for their annual Christmas Present Appeal.Growing up, my parents did their best to instill the importance of giving rather than receiving in our family. Through my high school I got involved with the Salvation Army every year around the holidays to donate used clothing and gifts to those in need. I was happy to get involved again with Elastic after moving to London and was pleased to find colleagues who also supported their cause.<img src="https://api.contentstack.io/v2/uploads/585d3f23aeaea59e64cd89b1/download?uid=blt6c42bda095b19653" data-sys-asset-uid="blt6c42bda095b19653" alt="Elastic-London-Salvation-Army-Donation-2016.jpg" style="background-color: initial;float: right;margin: 0 20px 0 20px;text-align: right;"/>Our team donated new, unwrapped toys and gifts for children, families, older people, and people experiencing homelessness around the holidays. In 2015 we collected 13 gifts, and with an even bigger team in 2016 we collected over 50 gifts, including a 1,000 Piece Puzzle, Wiggles Trucks, backpacks, t-shirts, warm sweaters, hats, scarves, blankets, DVDs and CDs, puppets, stuffed animals, costumes, a doctor set, cutlery, Monopoly Junior, Play Mobil sets, a Match and Spell game, British Trivia, body lotions, hygiene products, a DRONE... and so much more! The gifts were then wrapped and distributed to those in need.Elastic has helped transform the lives of the people the Salvation Army helps and we look forward to working with similar organizations in the new year to continue give back to those less fortunate.<h3>Megan Wieling, EMEA Marketing Coordinator: Nail Painting with #Lakaan for Pneumonia</h3>For those that know me, they know my love for music runs deep into my heart and soul – every summer I am attending as many festivals as possible, and while I’m working I always have a soundtrack accompanying each task I perform. This love for music is how I found out about <a href="http://seriousrequest.3fm.nl/">3FM Serious Request</a>, which I have been supporting for several years.&nbsp;Serious Request is a weeklong initiative that occurs every year around the holidays to help raise money and awareness for various initiatives and charities. Three popular DJs from 3FM, a Dutch pop music radio station, lock themselves in a temporary studio made of glass for six days lock that is placed in a main square of a different city each year. During these six days, they don’t eat, and broadcast live radio and television 24 hours a day – playing song requests in return for donations, hosting live performances, auctioning off items from celebrities for donations, etc.Recently, a six-year-old boy named Tijn visited the radio studio. Tijn is terminally ill and suffers from brain cancer. His life expectancy is less than one year, and this will be his last year experiencing Serious Request. Nevertheless, Tijn is very much committed to supporting this fundraiser and to raise awareness and money for children with pneumonia.&nbsp;Tijn’s challenge for the people of The Netherlands was to help raise awareness for the cause by painting their fingernails and sharing pictures of them on social media with #lakaan, which refers to both painting nails as well as not caring. In other words, even though Tijn is terminally ill himself, he doesn’t care – he wants to support Serious Request because there are children out there who don't even make it to five years old due to pneumonia.<div style="text-align: center;"><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/1en-TiGSPfc" allowfullscreen="" width="560" height="315" frameborder="0"></iframe></div>Needless to say, the Amsterdam office couldn’t resist a chance to paint their nails and raise money for such a fantastic cause.<img src="https://api.contentstack.io/v2/uploads/585d4396f1d5ecc64421b815/download?uid=blt31849147fd88bb29" data-sys-asset-uid="blt31849147fd88bb29" alt="Elastic-Amsterdam-Lakaan-3FM Serious Request-2016.jpg" style="display: block;margin: auto;"/><h3>Kristina Frost (that’s me), Manager, Sales Strategy &amp; Operations: Toys for Tots</h3>Like the London office, the Mountain View, California Elasticians also completed our second-annual toy drive, this year with <a href="http://www.toysfortots.org/default.aspx">Toys for Tots</a>. This provided a fresh opportunity for our families to get together and provide for those who are less fortunate at this time of year. We sent two large boxes full of dozens of gifts into the San Jose center.Everything we’ve written about so far reflects our individual drive to bring people together to do good at this and other times throughout the year. I would be remiss, however, to exclude the biggest of all of our holiday efforts: that Elastic, as a company, set aside approximately $40,000 to distribute on behalf of its employees in support of <a href="http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/">Doctors Without Borders</a>, <a href="https://www.rescue.org/">International Rescue Committee</a>, <a href="http://www.conservation.org/act/Pages/Are-you-ready-to-protect-nature.aspx">Conservation International</a>, <a href="http://www.hki.org/">Helen Keller International</a> and <a href="http://www.feedingamerica.org/">Feeding America</a>. These are organizations doing some of the world’s most important work,&nbsp;whether it be protecting&nbsp;people who are&nbsp;vulnerable, or preserving&nbsp;the precious resources of&nbsp;this <a href="http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/view.php?id=57723">beautiful blue marble</a>&nbsp;that we somehow have to find a way to share in peace.Last year, writing on behalf of all of us for the holiday season, I said this:<blockquote>I think these kinds of holidays are a way to celebrate each other perhaps as much as whatever is that our particular family tradition suggests we reflect on at this and other times of the year. And our family and friends are very often the easiest people to celebrate. What I've been reflecting on this holiday season, amidst a world in which tragic events surround us and frighten us, amidst divisive rhetoric that tends to suggest people who aren't from our tribe, whatever that tribe looks like, aren't worth our time or our energy or even our charity is: how much harder it is to celebrate the people we don't know.</blockquote>Perhaps 2016 made this harder; I really couldn’t say. What I will say is this: I’m prouder than ever of our commitment to keep sharing the resources we have with at-risk populations; people of all creeds and all nations, the people we know and the people we don’t.&nbsp;So I say it again, from all of us to all of you:Thank you for believing in us and what we do here. Thank you for being a part of a community that brings this set of people together to strive and to search, in big ways, and in small.Keep searching. Keep giving. Happy holidays.&nbsp;

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Elastic’s Holiday Spirit: The Search for Sharing

At Elastic, our commitment to bettering our community goes beyond our software. Kristina shares how our holidays are about giving and sharing with others.

<html><head></head><body>I&apos;m an only child from a big family. Growing up, my family lived pretty far away from the rest of my relatives, so every holiday season it was off &quot;to Grandmother&apos;s house we go&quot; -- not in a sleigh through a picturesque winter landscape, but in a car, driving anywhere from six to fourteen brutal hours across the American midwest. Both of my parents come from pretty big families, and so Christmas and Thanksgiving have always been the time of year when I&apos;m thrust out of my comfortable, quiet family unit of three and into a circle of countless relatives. I joke with friends of mine that only children are tyrants. There are pros and cons to this: con - if you are an only child you don&apos;t share dishwasher duty with your siblings a few nights a week. You do it every night of the week. But on the flip side, when there&apos;s a child&apos;s birthday in the house, every present is for you. I guess what I&apos;m getting at is that these early Christmases were the first time that I ever really remember watching other people open presents, the first place where I learned about giving and receiving in the context of a community. The first place where the principle of &quot;it is better to give than to receive&quot; ever made itself evident in my life. Of course, now I&apos;m a grown-up, and so I don&apos;t just receive presents, I give them. In fact, I have a lot of fun every year trying to find the funniest gift, or the coolest one, or the one that people will really remember for more than just a month. I think these kinds of holidays are a way to celebrate each other perhaps as much as whatever is that our particular family tradition suggests we reflect on at this and other times of the year. And our family and friends are very often the easiest people to celebrate. What I&apos;ve been reflecting on this holiday season, amidst a world in which tragic events surround us and frighten us, amidst divisive rhetoric that tends to suggest people who aren&apos;t from our tribe, whatever that tribe looks like, aren&apos;t worth our time or our energy or even our charity is: how much harder it is to celebrate the people we don&apos;t know. And I&apos;ve been reflecting on what the world looks like for lots of children who don&apos;t get a share in the kinds of privileges that I grew up with. About a world where none of the presents are ever for them. Where every year the holiday season comes and goes, and it&apos;s never their turn at the table. Which is why, this month, I&apos;m glad to be here at Elastic. Don&apos;t get me wrong: I&apos;ve been glad to be here, because we build a product that an enormous community of folks out there in the world are using to try to solve problems for all kinds of companies, companies that build apps that are used by all kinds of people. I&apos;ve been glad because I work for a <a href="https://www.glassdoor.com/Overview/Working-at-Elastic-EI_IE751551.11,18.htm" target="_blank">super distributed company which celebrates and hires people of many creeds from many different places</a>, and because I finally work somewhere with a crack analytic team that might be able to solve one of life&apos;s biggest mysteries and tell me which White Elephant gift is really the most bang for my buck. More than all that, though, I&apos;m also extremely proud: we&apos;ve capped off a series of tour stops around the world where we raised nearly $150,000 for 9 local charities each with a concentration on boosting STEM (science, technology, engineering &amp; math) programs for underserved&#xA0;youth. I lead a Women of Elastic brunch here in our Mountain View office (another blog post for another day, that), and we ladies challenged ourselves to double down on our own philanthropy efforts this holiday season. &quot;I just don&apos;t believe any child should ever go hungry,&quot; said one of our most tenured Territory Managers. But she doesn&apos;t just say it, she lives it, and she&apos;s the one who set up a donation drive in the office for a local food bank which wound up providing 3,240 meals. Canned food drives are great, don&apos;t get me wrong, but at wholesale rates, most food banks can really stretch the dollars of any donation, and it was fantastic to see just how far we were able to go. Our men of the office, not to go unmatched, led a Movember campaign that raised over a thousand dollars towards this worthy cause. Our User Success Teams around the world regularly engage in organizing everything from charity walks to pet shelter days. And in December, our Mountain View and London&#xA0;offices rallied around getting loads of gifts for underprivileged children locally:<img src="https://api.contentstack.io/v2/assets/575e4d0258208ba076e29436/download?uid=blt653a3319598843e1?uid=blt653a3319598843e1" data-sys-asset-uid="blt375a94081266c0dc" alt="20151211_130957.jpg" width="320" height="181" style="width: 320px; height: 181px;">&#xA0;<img src="https://api.contentstack.io/v2/assets/575e4d030342dfd738264591/download?uid=bltcf0dc8829ae3460e?uid=bltcf0dc8829ae3460e" data-sys-asset-uid="blta5dafb9067d4f21f" alt="20151211_131029.jpg" width="322" height="181" style="width: 322px; height: 181px;" rel="width: 322px; height: 181px;"> &#xA0; &#xA0;<img src="https://api.contentstack.io/v2/assets/575e4d0343e9adc538714e5e/download?uid=blt5ef04bedccae83bd?uid=blt5ef04bedccae83bd" data-sys-asset-uid="blte1001e78e2264607" alt="20151211_131036.jpg" width="213" height="381" style="width: 213px; height: 381px;">It was my job, last week, to pile all these gifts into my vehicle and haul them over to the warehouse where they&apos;d be wrapped and delivered. In addition to each present, the respective&#xA0;organizations we worked with in both Mountain View and London&#xA0;asked that we provide each child with a new toothbrush. Imagine that: a toothbrush. A colleague of mine suggested having his own children shop for the gift, so that they, too, get to participate in this paying it forward to strangers who may never see our faces or even have an opportunity to reciprocate our generosity. So I&apos;m glad, and I&apos;m proud, and I&apos;m also thankful. It&apos;s been a long time since I&apos;ve gotten to be that child I was writing about a few paragraphs before, looking at a pile of presents, wondering who was going to get what, and every time I walked through our lunch room last week, I had the privilege of revisiting some of that community spirit and some of the incredible wonder that children have. And I got to marvel about how for as much as things change (there&apos;s several iPod Minis in that pile), the more they stay the same (there&apos;s also a simple red tricycle). Most of all, though, I get the privilege of spending this month with a bunch of incredibly smart folks who have decided that this year not only will we celebrate each other or even our company: we&apos;re going to celebrate these kids we don&apos;t know and who we may never going to get to meet. We&apos;re going to make sure they, too, get a seat at the table. We&apos;re not very big, and we can&apos;t do it all, but there&apos;s a quote I like that this type of stuff always makes me think of, attributed to Edward Everett Hale: &quot;I am only one; but still I am one. I cannot do everything; but still I can do something; and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do the something that I can do.&quot; Somewhere out there is a family who got one extra meal because we made the effort to make it so. Somewhere out there, a little boy will wake up over the holidays, and perhaps there will be a tree, or perhaps there won&apos;t be one at all, because maybe trees aren&apos;t what his family is into. In either case, there will be a box with his name on it. He will tear into it with the excitement and the anticipation that I so clearly remember, and inside there will be a shiny red tricycle that somebody else got, just for him, for no other reason than the fact that he, too, is deserving of delight. Whatever tradition it is that you celebrate, happy holidays from the folks here at Elastic. May we all keep finding the little somethings that we can do for the communities we know, but also for the ones that we don&apos;t. Enough of those little things, all piled up together, might look like the trunk of my car, overflowing with gifts. It might also look a little bit like Peace on Earth.--- Kristina Frost is a Manager of Strategic Sales Operations at Elastic.</body></html>

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Articles by Kristina Frost

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International Women's Day 2019: Balancing for Better at Elastic

The Giving Culture of Elastic