Microsoft employees gave $87.7 million to charity last year

One of the things that I love about Microsoft is how it supports charitable giving. Microsoft matches, dollar-for-dollar, any gift that I give to a charitable organisation, up to $12,000 per year. If I give time instead of money, then they also match that: their match is $17 per hour (up to the same $12k per year). For my cash donations, I can (and do) choose to have them take it directly out of my paycheque. That makes my donations automatic and virtually transparent to me. I really do love it.

Yesterday, Microsoft announced that our employees gave $87.7 million to charity last year. About 60% of the company donates through the giving campaign. The average donation is about $1500 per employee (counting the match).

Stuart, one of my colleagues, posted about the results of the annual MacBU giving campaign. in which he noted that over 85% of MacBU participated in some way during our giving campaign. We raised more than $433,000. The average MacBU donation is ~$2000. Which is another reason that I love working in MacBU: I think it's awesome that there's such institutional support for charitable giving and that we don't just talk the talk.

I divide my charitable giving between KQED public radio and RAINN. And, of course, I participated in our annual bake auction (which is where quite a lot of the MacBU donations come from), donating strawberry cupcakes and raspberry tarts to the cause.