2013 turned out to be a groundbreaking year for Microsoft when it comes to charitable causes and donations. Today, Microsoft announced that company’s employees have donated nearly $113 million to 19,123 nonprofit organizations (NPOs) and charitable causes in 2013, surpassing their last year total of $105 million.
“2013 was a year of record-breaking fundraising and volunteer work by Microsoft employees to support more than 19,000 nonprofit organizations seeking a cure for cancer, feeding and educating children around the world, providing job training, responding to devastating humanitarian and natural disasters, and much more,” a Microsoft spokesperson told WinBeta.
To be exact, nearly 460,000 volunteer hours were completed by the employees resulting in $7.8 million being donated to the NPOs, which almost equals $17 per hour. This has enabled the company to move to the next milestone, that is, reaching the second billion dollar mark. If you don’t remember, the company announced last year that they generated over $1 billion since 1983 in donations, and the addition of $113 million moves them close to their next milestone.
“The $113 million total includes our employees’ cash donations, the company’s matching contributions, and $7.8 million from Microsoft to match volunteer hours logged by our employees. Our volunteer program provides a Microsoft contribution of $17 for every hour spent by our employees. Last year, more than 7,400 employees participated, logging almost 460,000 volunteer hours to help nonprofit groups. This has been growing – enough so that 2014 may well see Microsoft employees contribute half a million hours of volunteer time to help nonprofits thrive,” Brad Smith stated. He is the General Counsel and Executive Vice President of Legal & Corporate Affairs at Microsoft.
For those of you who are wondering, the employees gather funds in a variety of creative ways which is not only limited to cash donations, but also includes bake sales, dunk tanks, online auctions, an award-winning Microsoft Cookbook and more.
Further reading: Microsoft
