Microsoft’s Citizen Report for the 2014 fiscal year reveals how Microsoft helped communities and the public. In the belief that they are contributing value to society and their business through these commitments, Microsoft releases their Citizen Report alongside their Annual Report yearly.
This year reveals that Microsoft surpassed $1 billion in total annual giving. This money was spent on commitments such as the advance of Microsoft YouthSpark. This three year project has created education, employment and entrepreneurship opportunities for 124 million youths this year, and 227 million youths total so far — the goal remains 300 million youths by 2015.
Microsoft has donated software and hardware to 86,000+ nonprofits. Office 365 Nonprofits itself was donated to 11,500 organizations, in 74 different countries. On an individual level, Microsoft employees – with the help of the company match program – donated $100+ million to nonprofits. On the environment perspective, the Redmond based tech giant purchased 3+ billion kilowatt hours of green energy, which is one hundred percent of their electricity use.
Lastly, they even directly helped their users by expanding encryption, providing transparency on data location, and strengthening legal protections. This, however, may be something expected from a purely business perspective and may be an optimistic perspective on their actions.
You can read the full report here.
