$96 Million Raised for Charity by Microsoft Employees in 2010
When they are not toiling away on Windows and other Microsoft products, Microsoft employees are raising money for charity – a lot of money. More than 60% of Microsoft’s employees in the US took part in the 2010 Giving Campaign, and as part of this campaign, they helped raise more than $96 million for more than 16,000 organizations. They helped raise so much money that in a press release Microsoft called 2010 “the largest year of giving in the company’s history.”
According to Microsoft’s corporate Vice President of Global Affairs, this is a big deal, considering the harsh economic times that we re going through. Microsoft employees could have said “pass”, but they decided to help out instead and managed to raise $8.1 million more than they did in 2009.
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Here are some figures to better put things in perspective: - Microsoft employees helped raise $96 million for charity in 2010, $8.1 million more than in 2009, despite economically challenging times. - 62.5% of Microsoft’s US employees took part in the 2010 Giving Campaign. - 34,887 US employees gave either time or money in 2010. Some gave both. - US employees volunteered 353,541 hours in 2010.
Back in November 2010, I was announcing that Yahoo! and Microsoft are giving to money to Schools via DonorChoose.org. Back then Microsoft was announcing that if you, the user, go to bing.com/gives and click a button, Microsoft would donate $1 on your behalf to DonorChoose.org. If you set Bing as your default homepage, you would get a $5 donation code to use for any DonorsChoose.org project you want.
Microsoft has recently announced that the Bing Gives campaign managed to raise $353,583 for Donorschoose.org projects all across the United States.
And keeping with the money theme we’ve got going on here, it should be said that there’s a spam message making the rounds, tricking people into thinking they won €3 million from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Senior Technology Consultant with Sophos, Graham Cluley, has more details.
When they are not toiling away on Windows and other Microsoft products, Microsoft employees are raising money for charity – a lot of money. More than 60% of Microsoft’s employees in the US took part in the 2010 Giving Campaign, and as part of this campaign, they helped raise more than $96 million for more than 16,000 organizations. They helped raise so much money that in a 