TL;DR

🌍 Our annual Force for Good tradition brings Canvanauts together around the world to pause work and focus on giving back.

🎒 From essentials for students to mentoring and skills-sharing with nonprofits and teachers, the impact touched thousands of people and communities worldwide.

✨ This spirit continues all year, with opportunities for Canvanauts to share their time and expertise – using our creativity, skills, and global reach to support others.

From day one, Canva’s Two-Step Plan⁠(opens in a new tab or window) has guided our journey: (1) build one of the world’s most valuable companies, and (2) do the most good we can.

Step Two is about finding meaningful ways to use our product and resources to create positive impact beyond our walls – especially in the communities where we live and work. That commitment came to life once again during this year’s Force for Good Days – a global moment where Canvanauts around the world come together to give back. This year, nearly 1,400 Canvanauts participated in 63 local events – volunteering their time, skills, and heart to support more than 7,700 people in their communities.

With a focus on Unlocking Education for All, our efforts aimed to remove barriers to learning – from packing school essentials and mentoring students, to helping nonprofits and teachers amplify their impact. These moments of generosity, big and small, reminded us what’s possible when creativity meets community – and how Step Two continues to guide us toward meaningful, lasting change.

Meeting students’ essential needs

For many students, having access to the basics – food, school supplies, and a backpack to carry them in – can make all the difference in their ability to learn. This year, our Food & Learning Essentials program was a huge success, with Canvanauts helping to support 5,916 children.

Across Sydney, Manila, San Francisco, and beyond, teams worked side by side to pack essentials that ease the burden on families and help students arrive at school ready to learn.

• “The most rewarding moment for me was writing notes for each child, given that I also come from an underprivileged background.” – Canvanaut, Sydney
• “Knowing that we were able to provide a snack to kids who don’t necessarily have access to stable food sources was really special. I remember what it’s like to be hungry as a kid, and I don’t want anyone else to feel that.” – Canvanaut, US

Simple acts of care, multiplied across hundreds of volunteers, created thousands of moments of support and encouragement for students.

Sharing skills for lasting impact

Alongside large-scale events, Force for Good Days also created space for deeper, skills-based volunteering. Through Canva Community Skills, Canvanauts shared their professional expertise with nonprofits, educators, and students – offering practical support designed to last beyond the two days.

• In Sydney and Melbourne, nonprofits joined Design Days to co-create branding and communication strategies with Canva designers. OzHarvest used the session to strengthen its brand and create tools that help its teams work more efficiently, giving it more capacity to focus on feeding people in need across Australia.
• In Manila, a webinar on using AI in classrooms reached more than 9,000 teachers, introducing curriculum-aligned templates and tools to help bring lessons to life.
• In Auckland, engineers partnered with Take2 – a coding bootcamp supporting people building new futures after time in the justice system – mentoring participants and sharing their own career journeys.
• In Austin, Canva’s marketing team worked with staff at St. Anthony’s, a women's and children’s center for survivors of domestic violence, to explore social media strategies that could grow their reach and strengthen community engagement.

These sessions showed the ripple effect of sharing knowledge: nonprofits and teachers walked away with new skills and strategies, while Canvanauts gained fresh perspectives and deeper connections through the experience.

Inspiring the next generation

Career Spark Days are designed to give students from low socio-economic schools firsthand exposure to careers in tech and design, especially those who may not have access to industry role models or opportunities. Through panels, Q&As, and mentoring sessions, students get a window into the many pathways available to them.

During this year’s events, Canvanauts connected directly with students from diverse backgrounds – many of whom are the first in their families to consider careers in tech. In the Philippines, Europe, and the US, Canvanauts shared their own career journeys, answered questions, and gave students a glimpse into the many paths their futures could take.

“Being on the ground with students in Manila and witnessing their real-time reactions – especially seeing how connected and present Young Focus [the nonprofit] is within their community – made the experience truly rewarding.”– Canvanaut

Looking ahead

Force for Good Days has become a special tradition at Canva, and the incredible impact we saw this year – from supporting students with essentials, to helping nonprofits share their stories, to inspiring the next generation of learners – is just the beginning.

We’re excited to keep finding new ways to use what’s unique to Canva – our product, our people’s skills, and our global reach – to support communities and create lasting change.

We’re deeply grateful to everyone who took part, and to the communities that welcomed us in. Step Two is a lifelong journey, and these moments of connection and generosity are a reminder of what we can achieve together, and the best is still to come.

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