CUPERTINO — Three years after Apple began matching employee donations, the program has yielded more than $50 million for charity.
And on Thursday, Apple told employees it will begin expanding the program to all the countries in which it has a presence, up from just the U.S. and a handful of other nations, the company told this newspaper. The Cupertino-based company will also begin donating money to the charities where its employees volunteer at a rate of $25 per hour.
“Apple believes deeply in leaving the world better than we found it. … We’re inspired by our employees’ generosity and take great pride in supporting the causes they’re passionate about,” Denise Young Smith, Apple’s vice president of worldwide human resources, said in a statement to this newspaper. “Much of that money goes to important causes making a difference right here in the Bay Area. We’re proud to continue expanding our employees’ contributions by matching the time they give around the world.”
Matching employee donations was one of Tim Cook’s first acts when he took the reins as Apple CEO in fall 2011, and it has matched more than $25 million in employee donations to charity so far. Local charities say they felt the policy’s impact right away.
The San Francisco AIDS Foundation, for example, has stepped up the free programs and services it offers in the community with donations from Apple employees, said James Loduca, the group’s vice president for philanthropy and public affairs.
“It’s been very significant for us,” he said. “Without that money, we wouldn’t be able to do what we do.”
Local charities say Apple’s move has not only doubled the value of gifts coming in but also inspired more employees to open their wallets.
“There’s been an uptick of gifts, period,” said Emily O’Brien, executive director of the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s Northern California chapter.
For companies like Apple, matching employee donations is a way to build goodwill locally and instill loyalty among employees, said Peter Frumkin, faculty director of the Center for High Impact Philanthropy at the University of Pennsylvania.
“The big trend is finding ways to see corporate philanthropy not as a cost center but as a value add,” he said.
Though they have at times been criticized for a disinterest in philanthropy, Silicon Valley companies are now tinkering with different approaches to corporate giving, experts say. Like Apple, Google matches employee donations to charity. And from flagging electric-car charging stations on its maps to fighting aging, Google has also pursued social causes through its business moves, said Leslie Lenkowsky, a professor of public affairs and philanthropy at Indiana University.
“The social purpose aids their business,” he said. “Companies do well by doing good.”
Facebook’s greatest philanthropic impact has most likely come from CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who pledged with his wife $120 million to help local schools earlier this year. He fits the model of a CEO who keeps his interests in business and philanthropy separate, Lenkowsky said.
“Some Silicon Valley folks are operating off a different model, not necessarily using their companies for philanthropy but rather using their own wealth,” he said.
Apple’s program was limited to just the U.S. when it began, and by the end of 2011 had grown to include the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Singapore and Ireland. The program will expand Thursday to all but a few countries in which Apple operates, reaching the rest early next year.
For each employee, Apple matches up to $10,000 a year in donations to nonprofits and charities that carry a 501(c)(3) tax status or the equivalent.
Local charities say Apple employees have been generous with both their cash and their time.
In recent years, about 40 Apple employees have participated in AIDS/LifeCycle, a seven-day ride from San Francisco to Los Angeles to raise money for the fight against AIDS, Loduca said.
“It’s a great example of someone doing something more than just writing a check,” he said.
Apple employees are also regulars at the National Center for Equine Facilitated Therapy, which uses horses as a tool in administering physical, occupational and speech therapy. The Woodside-based group has a staff of only about a dozen, but their efforts are supplemented by Apple employees, who visit the center about half a dozen times a year.
Gari Merendino, the center’s executive director, said Apple workers have helped out with everything from weeding to technical support. On one afternoon, they painted all of the center’s fences, a task Merendino figures would have taken him two months.
“They are so consistent. We rely on them,” he said.
Contact Julia Love at 408-920-5536; follow her at Twitter.com/byJuliaLove.
