Full STEAM Ahead
Case Study:
RSAC 2025 Conference Supports STEAM Education through Community Donations to RAFT
When inventorying event materials, RSAC 2025 Conference encountered a potential bump in the road around leftover branded merchandise. With great teamwork and a quick pivot, they turned the problem into a values-based solution, creating quick wins for sustainability and the community. Here’s how they partnered with a community organization to support STEAM education while diverting waste from the landfill.
RSAC Conference is the largest and most influential conference in the cybersecurity industry. Hosted annually at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, RSAC Conference’s mission is to create a forum where the global cybersecurity community can learn and innovate. It also aims to support the local San Francisco community by reducing its environmental impact and enhancing the social benefits of the event, nourishing the region where much of the industry is located.
Credit: RSAC Conference
At the RSAC 2025 Conference, planners identified that they would have excess branded items from their merchandising and registration gifts. Items included backpacks and bags, lanyards, foamcore signage, a TV, coffee tumblers, interactive games, and pillows, many of which are not recyclable without specialty disposal. Wanting to avoid sending the overstock to the landfill, planners worked proactively with Honeycomb Strategies, their sustainability consultant, to pivot and create a community donation program to give these materials a second life.
Credit: RSAC Conference
First, the RSAC 2025 Conference team confirmed with sponsors that the branded items were approved to donate; the next step was to identify a community organization that would put the materials to good use! Luckily, an organization called RAFT had already inquired with Moscone Center about receiving event lanyards. The community group specializes in providing materials to kids for STEAM education (science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics). Corey Clark with Honeycomb Strategies saw the potential for the partnership to grow beyond just a lanyard donation.
Material Donations
Community Engagement
Waste Management
Procurement and Supply Chain
Corey had been working hand-in-hand with event organizers on waste management practices, procurement strategies, and community partnerships. At the intersection of these was a material donation program where the unused items from the conference could be repurposed as part of the STEAM kits and as school supplies for the students. To make the program even more robust, Corey and the RSAC 2025 Conference team engaged exhibitors to salvage materials from the expo floor to donate.
“We never know what will come from donation programs and as a first-year program for RSAC Conference we were able to support both material donations from the exhibitors as well as from the conference. It is sad to say that without RSAC Conference’s support to divert waste, most of these usable items would have been sent to the landfill. Instead, they helped a local program for school aged kids.”
-Corey Clark, Director of Events and Experiences, Honeycomb Strategies
RAFT handled many of the logistics, including volunteer help and transportation, ensuring the donation hand-off at the close of the conference went smoothly. Ultimately, RAFT received three pallets of donations from RSAC 2025 Conference.
Lanyards were repurposed into hands-on STEAM kits used by RAFT in Bay Area summer camps. They supported over 1,500 campers, transforming everyday lanyards into creative components aligned with a mountaineering theme.
Other Items (jackets, bags, backpacks, games, foamcore signs, pillows, TV, tumblers): These materials are enhancing classroom, makerspace, and educational environments across the region to support teachers working in STEAM across the Bay Area.
Kids in a mountaineering-themed STEAM summer camp loved using the lanyards in a creative way! They were made into hooks and straps on a clamp-on shoe, and the buckle was used in the pickaxe.
"The RSAC Conference donations allowed RAFT to convert what might have been waste into hands-on learning resources. From lanyards reimagined as part of camp activities to jackets and backpacks supporting teachers across the Bay Area, these resources have found productive new purposes. With support from partners and volunteers like Utkarsh, who helped ensure the logistics of the collection, and continued sustainability focus from [corporate partners], we’re able to continue turning community generosity into classroom creativity."
— David Muilenburg, COO, RAFT
RSAC Conference is planning to continue its journey with sustainability and community involvement next year. They are implementing new procurement guidelines for next year’s conference and will likely stay connected to RAFT for future donations.
Credit: RSAC Conference
”Partnering with RAFT provided RSAC with a valuable sustainable resource to not only help lower our carbon footprint in 2025, but to also give back to the greater Bay Area community,” said Linda Gray Martin, Senior Vice President of RSAC Conference and Chief of Staff at RSAC. “Community is at the heart of everything we do and getting to see these efforts funneled into education and mission-driven work was a full circle moment for us. We look forward to partnering again in 2026.”
Programs like this make a big impact. In addition to increasing the event’s waste diversion rate, RSAC Conference connected with local students and educators in the science and technology fields, fulfilling two elements of the conference’s mission and sustainability goals. Thanks to quick thinking and creative partnerships, this potential setback became both a model for sustainable event planning and an opportunity to strengthen community ties.