Announcing the Tableau Foundation

Our mission is to help people see and understand their data. This mission drives our work—but our customers’ and employees’ passion fuel it. This month, we’re excited to let you know about Tableau Foundation, a new way for people to combine data with passion, all in the service of making the world a better place.

Tableau Foundation is dedicated to encouraging the use of facts and analytical reasoning to solve the world’s problems. This fits the values and culture that our founders—Chris, Christian, and Pat—have instilled in the organization from day one: Data is for the people.

And data-driven problem solving is an important way of tackling those hard problems. It’s a big goal but we know our community—you’re up to the job.

We know this, because many of you are already doing it. Our Tableau Zen Masters have mobilized and volunteered their time and expertise to help develop rich visualizations in support of our amazing nonprofit partners.

In keeping with the Tableau Zen value of keeping things simple, the Foundation is starting with just three programs:

• An employee service and giving program that matches employee gifts of money and time with foundation grants.
• A community grant program that listens and responds to community needs and priorities in cities where we have offices.
• A strategic grants program that supports projects and organizations that are using data to do something big, transformative, and scalable.

We have announced support for several organizations that we are really excited about including:

• PATH – PATH is a 40-year-old global health innovator that this year touched more than 290 million lives in more than 70 countries. A grant of financial support, software, training, and services will help PATH visualize health data to help them make more strategic, evidence-based decisions.
• Dimagi – Dimagi is an award-winning global health software company that delivers open and innovative technology to help underserved communities around the world. Tableau Foundation’s software, training, support, and services grant will help Dimagi and Columbia University Earth Institute tackle the Eboloa outbreak in West Africa in new and important ways that will help stop the Ebola outbreak and hopefully change future responses to global disease.

We are also partnering with GiveMeTap a social enterprise creating a more sustainable way for people to get water on the go. Every Tableau employee worldwide will get a GiveMeTap bottle, allowing us to cut our plastic bottle waste and stay hydrated. GiveMeTap works with local cafés to distribute free tap water to people carrying GiveMeTap bottles. And for each bottle purchased, they help provide clean drinking water to a person in Africa.

Finally, we are buying our Tableau Foundation T-shirts from Krochet Kids, a nonprofit that helps women in Uganda and Peru work themselves, and at least six others in their community, out of poverty.

We’ll be sharing more information about the Tableau Foundation in the coming months, including online resources for nonprofits to apply for grants and support.

Thank you for being a part of Tableau’s mission—and our inspiration. We look forward to sharing more about the Foundation and—even more—hearing from you about how you’re using data to solve problems in your community!