What with so much money in Silicon Valley, giving back is top of mind and is increasingly part of the overall corporate strategy at companies like Facebook, Google, Twitter, and LinkedIn, which are donating time (and a good chunk of change) to charitable foundations, schools, and programs for low-income people.
Microsoft is among those leading the charge. In 2014, through the company's 32-year-old Employee Giving Program, Microsoft engineers raised $117 million for nearly 20,000 nonprofits and schools around the world. Now, nourished by the experience, Microsoftstaffers who want to do more. Their newest initiative, Tech Talent for Good, is already helping nonprofit programs here in the Bay Area.
The volunteer project aims to match the tech expertise of Microsoft employees with nonprofits and schools that lack technological resources, skills, and training—teaching them how to collect data, create websites, and to develop API systems, for example.
Each year, Tech Talent for Good volunteers will select new causes to address within their communities, ranging from limiting hunger, decreasing youth unemployment, and improving health and human resources.
Currently in the Bay Area, Microsoft is partnering with Boys and Girls Clubs, City Year, Year Up and We Teach Science, as well as sending volunteers to various high schools through the TEALS (Technology, Education and Literacy in Schools) program, which Microsoft helped to found. The program provides trained volunteers to help high schools teach computer science in classrooms. For every hour a Microsoft employee gives to a nonprofit through Tech Talent for Good, the company will donate $25 to their specific organization. The money and time invested in these organizations is much needed, but so is the increased community awareness among young techies.
To learn more about Microsoft's charitable efforts, click here.