Bill Gates is not the only philanthropist to come out of Microsoft. In fact, being the giant multinational corporation that it is, Microsoft takes its corporate social responsibility very seriously, and has a whole organization and several programs to help employees do good. One such program, Microsoft’s Employee Giving Program, has had record-breaking year of giving, which CVP and Head of Microsoft Philanthropies Marry Snapp discusses in a new post on the company’s blog.
Specifically, the philanthropy program has raised $125 million for schools and nonprofits in 2015 worldwide, an $8 million year-over-year increase, biggest ever in the program’s history. The statistics has also taken into consideration company match of employee contributions – basically Microsoft matching contributions and paying partnering nonprofits $25 per hours of employee’s volunteering work – making their effort that much more rewarding and meaningful.
With such generous policies to quantify the impact of volunteering, it should come as no surprise that many Microsoft employees are very dedicated to their philanthropic activities, and a few of whom were highlighted in the post.
There are Vanessa Payne and Heidi Fader, from the Bing and Storefronts Web team respectively, who have contributed 340 volunteering hours and raised more than $104,000 among themselves to Ben Towne Center for Childhood Cancer Research at Seattle Children’s for cancer research. There is Nykeesha Davis, a Microsoft human resources associate, who led a team of volunteers at YWCA of King County to develop computer-literacy programs for career development centers, contributing 112 hours of work herself, while also serving on the board of Communities in Schools of Seattle. Then there’s James Spotanski, an Excel program manager who worked in nine nonprofits in Washington State for more than 300 hours in total. These employees and many others are community heroes who help make the world a better place, and its encouraging to see Microsoft help making their work more impactful.
Microsoft employees Heidi Fader and Vanessa Payne raise money for childhood cancer research. (Scott Eklund/Red Box Pictures). From Microsoft Blog.
The blog post also didn’t miss the opportunity to highlight Microsoft’s contribution as a company through Microsoft Philanthropies, citing the recent $1 billion donation in Microsoft cloud services over the next three years to nonprofits and university researchers. As the company’s efforts and commitment grows, there will be more new projects to give back to the community, befitting its mission of empowering every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.
Further reading: CSR, Microsoft Philanthropies, Philanthropy
