Microsoft's Corporate Social Responsibility: Blog Post 2

An innovator in the industry and a model company of corporate social responsibility, Microsoft stands as one of the industry’s most generous and socially active corporations. Founder and CEO Bill Gates, having already donated over 50% of his immense wealth to socially active causes, has made sure Microsoft profits do the same. Instead of large executive bonuses, Microsoft stands as one of the nations most generous corporations, donating hundreds of millions to the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation; a Non Profit organization that among many other things, struggles to end the millions of deaths a year that are caused by curable diseases. 

As a global corporation, Microsoft is taking a stand, announcing the world is its home, and struggling to make it a better place through intermediary means. Microsoft’s large profits, and immense internal weal place the company total estimated value to be the equal to that of a small nation. This corporate social responsibility is fitting for a company of that magnitude. However, Microsoft’s monetary donations are not the only action the company is taking to end the deaths of millions, Microsoft has recently launched an initiative to attract large corporations to do the same, their most recent attraction is the famous Mark Zuckerberg and his company Facebook.

This social action is stated in the company’s mission statement, which states, “At Microsoft, our mission and values are to help people and businesses around the world realize their full potential.”  Unlike other companies in the IT industry, Microsoft built corporate social responsibility into their mission statement. “Help[ing] people…around the world realize their full potential.” In the case of their immense global charity, helping people realize their full potential is also helping them live by vaccinating people around the world. Microsoft’s values are potentially industry changing, by stating openly their commitment to charity and complementing it with social action, hopefully other companies in the industry will be willing to change their values to reflect the same.

http://www.microsoft.com/about/en/us/default.aspx

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703493504576007982500939482.html?KEYWORDS=microsoft+charitable+donations