One of Tim Cook's first acts when he became CEO of Apple was to institute a charitable matching program for employees. Under the program, Apple would match employees' personal contributions to 501(c)(3) charitable organizations up to $10,000 per year. However, the program initially only applied to US-based full-time employees.
Now, it seems Apple has expanded the program to include part-time US employees as well, and covering international workers soon, according to a tweet from the Apple Retail Workers Union twitter account.
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As of November 2011, some two months after the program went into effect, Apple had matched $1.3 million in employee contributions, with the $2.6 million dollars donated in total.
Top Rated Comments
Not a bit, a total scrooge.
Well, no. One ten thousandth of one percent of last quarter's profit is about $13,000.
But for a company with 60,000+ FULL TIME employees, that $2.6 million needs to continue to equate to about $15mill a year in donations....as well as donations from Apple itself. 1.3 million divided by 60,000 employees is $21 per employee for the 2 months...or about $120/year per employee if they continue to give.
Sure, nobody HAS to give anything, but it's the right thing to do as a large corporation in the USA...as well as being a super duper over-performing company.
I think Jobs was a bit of a Scrooge...seems Tim's new policies on employee discounts and company matching are a new chapter in Apple's missing "Giving Back" Chapter of the company's history.
Well if only enough folks apply for a match for that much . . .
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Steve Jobs was a student of Buddhism, which believes that announcing your charity is more about your ego than actual charity. He may have given billions and we would never know because his name isn't on it.
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