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Apple has shared a new feature on its Newsroom that highlights its workforce's charitable and volunteer efforts.

apple-employees-trio-800x361.jpg

Apple says that its internal Giving program has raised more than $365 million for non-profit organizations around the world since its inception eight years ago. Under the program, Apple matches every dollar that its employees donate up to $10,000 each, with combined donations totaling more than $125 million in 2018.

The feature highlights thousands of locations where Apple employees volunteer their time, including the Terence MacSwiney School in Cork, Ireland, where more than a dozen employees from Apple's nearby campus volunteer at the school each week to teach coding, drawing, photography, music, and video.

apple-volunteer-cork-ireland-800x529.jpg
Terence MacSwiney School student Ericka Lingwood

Apple employees also spent nearly 3,000 hours sorting and distributing food at Second Harvest last year, according to Apple, making the food bank one of the largest recipients of Apple volunteer hours in the United States.

apple-volunteers-second-harvest-800x529.jpg
Apple volunteers at Second Harvest Food Bank in San Jose, California

Last, the feature highlights Apple employee Liz Byrne, who sits on the board of the transgender support non-profit Point of Pride.

Article Link: Apple's Giving Program Has Raised More Than $365 Million for Non-Profits Around the World
 
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harriska2

macrumors 68000
Mar 16, 2011
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The thing is that most companies, especially big ones, do that. I see signs at Home Depot showing how many hours their employees volunteer in the community to do things like build playgrounds. Or our local Fred Meyer and how much they donate to local charities. Or Costco and how much they’ve raised for Miracle Network.
 

ipponrg

macrumors 68020
Oct 15, 2008
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Very noble of Apple and it’s employees. But this behavior shouldn’t be used as an advertisement or exploit that way. It should be done in silence with no beneficiary in mind.

Apple is exploiting everything these days :(

Every company does this to varying degrees.

Even my company does this and uses it as a selling point to attract talent. A lot of people want to not only work for the company for benefits but also for their philanthropy. It’s not a bad thing to do even if it was for their own narrative.
 

mtneer

macrumors 68040
Sep 15, 2012
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Do employees get to choose their charity or are they forced to only work with a set of pre-ordained charities?
 

Baymowe335

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While this is laudable, it's a fraction of what they would pay in taxes, if not for their tax avoidance schemes.
See what I mean?

You don't like the tax law, write your congressman. The tax laws are followed to the letter by Apple. Apple has a fiduciary responsible to its shareholders to maximize any tax benefits allowed by law, just as you would do on your own taxes, if you're smart.

Apple also pays more income tax than any entity in the world.
 

Suttree

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Jul 21, 2018
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What Apple needs to focus on is building great computers for people to use. That means fast CPUs, fast GPUs, Blu-Ray drives on ALL Macs, lots of I/O ports, 24-hour batteries.

Oh, and let's be honest here. Apple does not care about charity. This is about money. End of story. This is Apple's underhanded way of getting people familiarized with Apple's software and hardware and manipulating people into their ecosystem and to associate feel-good nonsense with a gazillion dollar corporation. This is evil, pure and simple.
 
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PickUrPoison

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Sep 12, 2017
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Very noble of Apple and it’s employees. But this behavior shouldn’t be used as an advertisement or exploit that way. It should be done in silence with no beneficiary in mind.

Apple is exploiting everything these days :(
Wow, Apple can’t even manage to donate 365 million dollars correctly.

Jobs never had a matching program; I guess this proves Apple has truly lost its way. Tim Cook should surely be fired :rolleyes:

/s (for the sarcasm impaired)
 

ChrisCW11

macrumors 65816
Jul 21, 2011
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That's nice, but it is still based on employees taking action rather then the company directly contributing to charity. It would be nice if the company itself could provide charity without attaching it to another action, such as how they match Red Cross contributions, project Red profit or employee effort. Something always has to happen "first" before Apple donates a dime to anything.

But its good to see Apple is at least involved in some charity work these days opposed to the Job's years.
 

Carnegie

macrumors 6502a
May 24, 2012
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Do employees get to choose their charity or are they forced to only work with a set of pre-ordained charities?

The donations, of course, have to be to qualifying organizations in order to be matched. Apple isn't, e.g., going to effectively give an employee an extra $20,000 because that employee donated money to the 'Daddy's Awesome Entertainment Room Fund.' The last time I looked, a qualifying organization had to have 501(c)(3) status or something comparable.
 

jerryk

macrumors 604
Nov 3, 2011
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That's nice, but it is still based on employees taking action rather then the company directly contributing to charity. It would be nice if the company itself could provide charity without attaching it to another action, such as how they match Red Cross contributions, project Red profit or employee effort. Something always has to happen "first" before Apple donates a dime to anything.

But its good to see Apple is at least involved in some charity work these days opposed to the Job's years.

Apple makes a lot of charitable donations directly and through matching. There in the top 10 of all US companies for direct (non-matching) contributions. And their matching program is large, up to $10,000/year.

Tim Cook has given $100M in his personal stock to charity.
 
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Carnegie

macrumors 6502a
May 24, 2012
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I'd note that, in 2018, Apple matched qualifying donations two-for-one. So it would donate up to $20,000 per employee.

It will also donate money if employees donate their time to qualifying organizations, and it doubled the normal per-hour amount (which I think was $25) for 2018.
 

tylersdad

macrumors regular
Jul 26, 2010
199
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See what I mean?

You don't like the tax law, write your congressman. The tax laws are followed to the letter by Apple. Apple has a fiduciary responsible to its shareholders to maximize any tax benefits allowed by law, just as you would do on your own taxes, if you're smart.

Apple also pays more income tax than any entity in the world.

Nothing forces Apple to hide their profits overseas. Nothing. Nothing prevents them from paying taxes here in the States. Nothing. Yet Apple pretends to be proponents of the very causes (which are incredibly expensive, btw) that they won't fund with tax dollars.

So you'll have to forgive the fact that I am underwhelmed by their giving.
 
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The Clark

macrumors 6502a
Dec 11, 2013
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Was he? He didn’t ask if employees must choose from an approved list. He asked if employees were “forced” to choose from “pre-ordained” charities.

Words have meaning. His agenda was clear based on how he phrased his question.

It's all about how you interpret it I suppose. "Forced" would be the correct word to use if the employees had no choice. And who's to say Apple wouldn't have a list of pre-ordained charities? It's not a cynical, nor unreasonable question IMO.
 
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Rogifan

macrumors Penryn
Nov 14, 2011
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That's nice, but it is still based on employees taking action rather then the company directly contributing to charity. It would be nice if the company itself could provide charity without attaching it to another action, such as how they match Red Cross contributions, project Red profit or employee effort. Something always has to happen "first" before Apple donates a dime to anything.

But its good to see Apple is at least involved in some charity work these days opposed to the Job's years.
Yeah god forbid a company provide incentives for employees to be charitable and do community service. Newsflash: corporations are not charitable institutions. The purpose of a corporation isn’t to give money to charity its to provide a product or service someone is willing to pay for. Most large corporations give lots of money to charity which is great but that’s not the purpose of their existence.
 

Baymowe335

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Nothing forces Apple to hide their profits overseas. Nothing. Nothing prevents them from paying taxes here in the States. Nothing. Yet Apple pretends to be proponents of the very causes (which are incredibly expensive, btw) that they won't fund with tax dollars.

So you'll have to forgive the fact that I am underwhelmed by their giving.
Apple is a global company. Welcome to business.

They just brought back their overseas profit because of a change in the tax laws. Apple would not have happy shareholders if they just paid more than they had to as some "do good" move.

I told you, Apple pays more income tax to the US government than any company in America.
 
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Rogifan

macrumors Penryn
Nov 14, 2011
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What Apple needs to focus on is building great computers for people to use. That means fast CPUs, fast GPUs, Blu-Ray drives on ALL Macs, lots of I/O ports, 24-hour batteries.

Oh, and let's be honest here. Apple does not care about charity. This is about money. End of story. This is Apple's underhanded way of getting people familiarized with Apple's software and hardware and manipulating people into their ecosystem and to associate feel-good nonsense with a gazillion dollar corporation. This is evil, pure and simple.
So now Apple highlighting charitable giving is evil and just exists to manipulate people into buying their products. Good lord. Perhaps the mods should think about not allowing comments to stories like this.
 

pika2000

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Jun 22, 2007
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Very noble of Apple and it’s employees. But this behavior shouldn’t be used as an advertisement or exploit that way. It should be done in silence with no beneficiary in mind.

Apple is exploiting everything these days :(
How is this an exploit?
As a publicly traded company, Apple has to be transparent in their activities. Shareholders will question Apple if there are cost associated with these activities yet the activities themselves are not announced. Besides, this is put in the newsroom part of the site, which is usually aimed at shareholders. When was the last time you actively visit the Newsroom section of Apple.com? It's Macrumors that is exploiting this to garner clicks and ads.
 

dannyyankou

macrumors G5
Mar 2, 2012
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Very noble of Apple and it’s employees. But this behavior shouldn’t be used as an advertisement or exploit that way. It should be done in silence with no beneficiary in mind.

Apple is exploiting everything these days :(
When Apple's quiet about charity work, people complain, and when they say something about it people complain. There's no winning.
 
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