Steve Jobs might not be as charitable as Bill Gates but Apple’s trying to improve its image when it comes to charity by instituting a great new employee policy: they’ll now match all of their employees’ charitable contributions up to $10,000 a year.
Here’s Apple CEO Tim Cook’s email to staff announcing the scheme:
Team:
I am very happy to announce that we are kicking off a matching gift program for charitable donations. We are all really inspired by the generosity of our co-workers who give back to the community and this program is going to help that individual giving go even farther.
Starting September 15, when you give money to a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, Apple will match your gift dollar-for-dollar, up to $10,000 annually. This program will be for full-time employees in the US at first, and we’ll expand it to other parts of the world over time.
Thank you all for working so hard to make a difference, both here at Apple and in the lives of others. I am incredibly proud to be part of this team.
If you’d like more information on the program, you can get it on HRWeb, which can be easily accessed through AppleWeb.
Tim
Seems pretty generous to me, and at least one way to use that massive trove of cash in the bank.
[via Macrumors]
John Brownlee is a writer for Fast Company, and a contributing writer here at CoM. He has also written for Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, VentureBeat, and Gizmodo. He lives in Boston with his wife and two parakeets. You can follow him here on Twitter.
22 responses to “Apple Doubles Down On Employees’ Charitable Contributions”
Cook is already making his presence felt at Apple.
Despite all the jibes to Steve Jobs in regards his charity contributions, it’s worth noting that no one actually knows if he donates at all or how much if he does. So assuming he doesn’t donate much is not actually accurate. He could be donating much *more* than Bill Gates for all we know.
Can we say tax write off?
Still cool. Wonder if I could get a job in the cafeteria or something at Apple HQ.
Wow, wish I’d seen this earlier. I just blogged about Apple’s charitable giving a couple of hours ago:
http://www.canadianbusiness.co…
This cleverly side-steps one of the issues with corporate charity, which usually only go to “safe” charities (kids, education, hunger) instead of those which might be controversial (abortion/reproductive rights, gay rights, anything Muslim). Now Apple can support whatever its employees deem to be valuable without marketplace repercussions.
that’s a nice idea.
Exactly. Steve has always struck me as a man who doesn’t want a lot of attention, so he could just be keeping it a secret, which is the best way to do it in my opinion. But of course, I have to congratulate Tim on how generous this is, it should help improve Apple’s reputation for charities.
That doesn’t side step the issue at all. If an employee donated money to let’s say Hamas, and Apple matched, I’m sure that would generate controversy.
My company matches too, but they have to approve the charity first. There is also a pre-approved list of charities. I assume Apple is smart enough to do the same.
It does seem to be Cooks making his mark on Apple by instituting a policy unlikely to have taken place under Jobs. A good move on his part in making his authority present.
My brother-in-law works for Microsoft and they have been doing this for 10+ years.
Apple wasn’t exactly making lots of money ten years ago. Ten years ago they were only 7.755 a share and were still in the middle of the Microsoft bailout years. Sure they could have done this a bit earlier but it’s never too late to start.
Wow. Apple, welcome to the 1990’s!