Microsoft employee donations reach record $117 million

SEATTLE – Microsoft’s employee philanthropy program dished out a record $117 million to nonprofits and schools last year, the company said on Thursday, topping the 2013 total of $113 million.

Those donations included contributions from two thirds of Microsoft’s 58,990 U.S. employees. About $60 million went to organizations in Washington state.

Microsoft offers to match donations of up to $15,000 per employee each year. Included in that total is the reimbursement Microsoft offers employees who donate their time. The company pays nonprofits $17 for each hour Microsoft employees spend volunteering their time. That figure will rise to $25 an hour for 2015, Microsoft said on Thursday.

The employee giving program dates back to 1983, when 200 employees raised about $17,000 for nonprofits, said Lori Harnick, Microsoft’s general manager of citizenship and public affairs. That year, Mary Gates, the mother of Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and one of the most prominent civic figures in Seattle, had been named the first female chair of the United Way’s national executive committee.

Corporate Responsibility magazine last year ranked Microsoft No. 3 in the philanthropy category of its tally of best corporate citizens, trailing printer maker Lexmark and IBM.

“It started from our founders, and it’s just carried through,” Harnick said. “We feel it’s important to contribute to the communities where we live and work.”

In 2012, the cumulative donations since the program’s inception surpassed $1 billion, with more than half of that spent in Washington, home to 70 percent of the company’s U.S. employees.

The gains in Microsoft’s employee donations came despite a turbulent year for its workforce.

In April, Microsoft welcomed 25,000 new employees globally after its acquisition of Nokia’s mobile phone business. By July, the company was in the process of laying off 12,500 of those new Microsoft employees, along with 7,500 others.