Part-Time Apple Employees Now Eligible to Participate in Charitable Matching Program

[MacRumors]

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.

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.

Article Link: Part-Time Apple Employees Now Eligible to Participate in Charitable Matching Program

 

[HarryKeogh]

1.3 million? Wow! That's almost one ten thousandth of one percent of their last quarter's profits!

 

[sparks05]

Impressed

Though there are tax write-offs for charitable donations, I'm still impressed with Tim Cook's fast implementation and focus on creating one of the best charitable donation programs of any company in the world.

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1.3 million? Wow! That's almost one ten thousandth of one percent of their last quarter's profits!

Very true, but money is money. In absolute terms this is a generous program. If only Steve Jobs had implemented it earlier.

But I'm more excited about employees receiving $250 off an iPad purchase and $500 off a mac purchase, haha. I guess my "heart is on the wrong place"

 

[gnasher729]

1.3 million? Wow! That's almost one ten thousandth of one percent of their last quarter's profits!

If I worked at Apple, I'd donate to improve maths education.

Very true, ...

Well, no. One ten thousandth of one percent of last quarter's profit is about $13,000.

 

[HarryKeogh]

If I worked at Apple, I'd donate to improve maths education.

Me no understand good.

damn. forgot to move decimals.

 

[scott911]

burndesignlab.org would appreciate some APPL loving!

I'm not employed by BURN - just think they're awesome.

 

[ericinboston]

very nice total for 2+ months of a program.

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.

 

[Shrink]

I could gripe about 2.6 mil being a small number compared to....but I won't. It's something, and better than nothing.

More would be nice...but I think any move in the right direction (tax deductible or not) is commendable.

 

[imageWIS]

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.

Not a bit, a total scrooge.

 

[Avatar74]

The number is what it is because it's a match program, dependent upon how much EMPLOYEES contribute. Apple may make other charitable contributions on their own (as does my employer) but how can this number be any higher unless employees *elect* to contribute more?

How much does any one of us elect to give to charity in proportion to our disposable income?

Companies don't have to do a match program. The ones that do are being brand smart and charitable at the same time.

Never look a gift horse in the mouth.

 

[wilfried]

Modest as this is, why did it have to wait for Steve to die to happen? While I admire him for the many things he did achieve, the (apparent) lack of concern for the wider world in which he lived was not among his admirable traits.

 

[Rodimus Prime]

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.

Apple still has a long way to go before they even make it to piss poor on Giving back. They are WAY WAY behind the rest of the industry in the matching program much less everything else.

 

[iTattoo]

Modest as this is, why did it have to wait for Steve to die to happen? While I admire him for the many things he did achieve, the (apparent) lack of concern for the wider world in which he lived was not among his admirable traits.

Steve Jobs was a very private person. We don't know how much he gave to charity. We do know that Tim Cook is a smart guy, and realizes that Apple, even if it gave a way a ton of money, would get negative PR unless people find out about it.

 

[ericinboston]

Apple still has a long way to go before they even make it to piss poor on Giving back. They are WAY WAY behind the rest of the industry in the matching program much less everything else.

I've worked for about 6 companies since 1994...ranging from public to private and 60 employees to over 300,000 employees...all have had some kind of matching gift program.

It's very sad that Apple, for decades, never had such a program...especially since the past 10+ years Apple has had nothing but huge success, huge earnings, huge success, and huge profits. Pretty disgusting that Apple has tens of billions of dollars in the bank but can't match (until now) a few million dollars every year (which is also very likely tax deductible or some kind of write-off). THE EMPLOYEES are giving (as we now see) but Apple refused to give. Great job, Apple. Way to set an example.

 

[anonApple]

The Apple Retail Workers tweeter sounds a little bitter.

 

[charlituna]

Though there are tax write-offs for charitable donations, I'm still impressed with Tim Cook's fast implementation and focus on creating one of the best charitable donation programs of any company in the world.

I wouldn't jump too fast to give Tim all the credit. Such programs have too many legal issues to sort through to happen in just a couple of weeks

 

[charlituna]

1.3 million? Wow! That's almost one ten thousandth of one percent of their last quarter's profits!

Well if only enough folks apply for a match for that much . . .

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Modest as this is, why did it have to wait for Steve to die to happen? While I admire him for the many things he did achieve, the (apparent) lack of concern for the wider world in which he lived was not among his admirable traits.

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.
.

 

[isoMorpheus]

There is an official Retail Union now, what?

 

[jacob11]

Participate in Charitable Matching Program is always good.

 

[FloatingBones]

There is an official Retail Union now, what?

There's an official certified 100% real twitter ID -- backed by a webpage with zero information on it. Apparently, somebody wants one.

 

[dbo789]

I wouldn't jump too fast to give Tim all the credit. Such programs have too many legal issues to sort through to happen in just a couple of weeks

There's a number of third party companies that help facilitate these types of programs, and in fact often have turnkey solutions. I doubt Apple had to set it up from the ground floor by itself.

The Apple Retail Workers tweeter sounds a little bitter.

The posts in this thread sound a little bitter.

 

[charlituna]

There's a number of third party companies that help facilitate these types of programs, and in fact often have turnkey solutions. I doubt Apple had to set it up from the ground floor by itself.

Even then it can't be done in a couple of weeks, making the implication that Jobs retired and the next day Tim had this brilliant idea and blam it's on false

 

[Aussieiphone]

Why?

Are people earning $8/hr donating money?

Shouldn't they be the ones being donated to?

Shouldn't the taxation system be used to fund social programs rather than relaying on the kindness of rich people/corporations?

(fyi these are all rhetorical questions)

 

[Ncognito125]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8J2 Safari/6533.18.5)

I'm surprised any apple retail employee can afford to donate...they pay peanuts.

 

[Cubytus]

I guess non-retail employees are more honestly paid than their counterparts.

Shouldn't they be the ones being donated to?

Aha so true. Most retail employees here are heavily indebted students.