Microsoft Employees Give over $70 Million to Charity

Charitable donations, as everything else, took a hit in 2009 because of the worldwide economic downturn. However, Microsoft employees outdid themselves in the past year, managing to give in excess of $70 million to charity. According to information supplied by the Redmond giant, the company, together with its employees, has delivered over $3.9 billion in cash, services and software to nonprofit organizations worldwide since 1983. Of course, the contributions from Microsoft are insufficient to curb the global trend of income decline by 9% for fundraising organizations in 2009.

“Helping nonprofits succeed even in down times is important for everyone,” says Akhtar Badshah, Microsoft’s senior director of Global Community Affairs. “While every organization needs cash flow to survive, individuals may be able to provide even more value by donating their skills, and their time. Our employee Giving Campaign runs every October and has been a tradition at Microsoft for more than 25 years. “We encourage employees to come up with creative ways to donate and volunteer.”

Through Microsoft’s employee giving program, the company is putting money where its mouth is, matching all donations dollar for dollar. At the same time, the software giant is coughing up no less than $17 per hour for volunteer time, and is willing to pay as much as $12,000 per U.S.-based employee per year. When it comes down to matched volunteer hours, Microsoft noted that statistics indicate they increased as much as 8% over 2008. “Our employees are the heart and soul of our company and it was their passion and creativity that made these results possible,” Badshah added.

Each year, Microsoft also holds an internal auction, with all proceedings going to charity. In 2009, with Microsoft CIO Tony Scott now a co-chairman of the company’s annual giving campaign, the website centralizing donations and auctions was overhauled with technologies such as Silverlight and Windows Azure. Microsoft employees were able to grab such auctioned items as a private lunch with Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, a tour of Bill Gates’ house (which reportedly went for $35,000) and the “world’s greatest bologna sandwich,” sold for $505. Approximately 1,000 auctioned items hauled a total of $500,000 this year.

“Besides the auction, it’s also helped provide employees a great way to talk to customers about what’s possible with cloud computing,” says Raj Biyani, general manager of Strategic Initiatives in Microsoft IT. “The technology made for a really beautiful, full-functioning site that was a real leap forward. So that’s the technology side of things.”