Community Engagement & Investment

Employee Giving and Volunteer Programs

Over the past 30 years, Microsoft and its employees have donated more than US$2.5 billion to communities around the world. Microsoft encourages employees to get involved in their communities and also makes it easy for employees to volunteer their time. In many locations, Microsoft provides three to five days of paid volunteer leave each year for full-time employees.

In the United States, each employee's charitable matching benefit–which matches employee donations up to US$12,000 every year–applies to gifts of time as well as money, stock, and Microsoft products. When employees volunteer their time in the community, Microsoft donates US$17 per hour to the eligible organizations they serve. It's a double benefit for the nonprofit groups that our U.S. employees support.

Microsoft employee community engagement programs include support for giving and volunteering.

Giving Programs

• The Microsoft Employee Giving Campaign is held each October for employees in the United States. It focuses on community awareness and fundraising.
• The year-round Microsoft matching gifts program matches U.S. employees' direct cash and software donations to thousands of 501(c)(3) and educational institutions.

Volunteering Programs

• Microsoft time-matching programs encourage employee-led volunteerism in a variety of civic, environmental, and health and human services causes.
• Strategic community initiatives focus on mobilizing employees to support Microsoft Unlimited Potential and other programs operated by Microsoft strategic community partners such as NPower, the United Way, and the Boys & Girls Clubs of America.
• Board service programs encourage employees to take on leadership roles with nonprofit agencies and to provide high-value business and technology consulting to their communities.
• Team-based volunteering events expose employees to community needs and inspire a longer-term relationship through community-wide service opportunities, such as the United Way's annual Day of Caring and activities sponsored by the Hands-on Network.
• Disaster relief and humanitarian aid programs provide immediate help in a time of crisis. For example, Microsoft employee expertise and financial resources, combined with corporate financial and software donations, were powerful forces in the aftermath of the tsunami in Southeast Asia in 2004 and Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
• Microsoft Volunteer Connection helps Microsoft employees connect to their local communities, find volunteer opportunities, and register volunteer hours for a cash match. This matching system is accessible worldwide.

If you are part of a nonprofit organization and would like to post volunteer opportunities for Microsoft employees, you can do so on the Web sites for Idealist and United Way of King County.

• Go to the Idealist Web site
• Go to the United Way of King County Web site

United Way Loaned Executive Program

The annual United Way Loaned Executive Program helps businesses in the Puget Sound area of Washington develop and carry out their yearly giving campaigns. Through the program, Microsoft and other companies loan some of their best and brightest executives from August through November to help the United Way work with local businesses. The Microsoft Loaned Executives also contribute their talents internally for the Microsoft campaign.