Tim Cook Rolls Out Charitable Matching Program For Employees

When Steve Jobs came into power in Apple during its floundering years, one of the programs cut was a charitable match where Apple would meet its employees’ contributions to a recognized. While Apple didn’t have the funds to run the program then, it certainly does now, and Tim Cook has just instated a new program to that effect. An email was sent out to Apple employees, saying:

Team:

I am very happy to announce that we are kicking off a matching gift program for charitable donations. We are all really inspired by the generosity of our co-workers who give back to the community and this program is going to help that individual giving go even farther.

Starting September 15, when you give money to a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, Apple will match your gift dollar-for-dollar, up to $10,000 annually. This program will be for full-time employees in the US at first, and we’ll expand it to other parts of the world over time.

Thank you all for working so hard to make a difference, both here at Apple and in the lives of others. I am incredibly proud to be part of this team.

If you’d like more information on the program, you can get it on HRWeb, which can be easily accessed through AppleWeb.

Tim

MacRumors has confirmed through Apple href="http://www.macrumors.com/2011/09/08/apple-institutes-new-charitable-matching-program-for-employees/">that this email is legitimate. During Jobs’ tenure, donations were very much a private thing, but it looks like Apple is now planning to take a more directly charitable tack. Also interesting is that href="http://9to5mac.com/2011/09/08/tim-cooks-first-anti-jobsian-move/">Seth Wientraub characterizes this as Cook’s first “anti-Jobsian” move, in that it’s quite different to how his predecessor handled things like this.