Microsoft donates $1B worth of cloud services to charity

The company will also be expanding grants to university researchers

On Tuesday Microsoft became the latest in a long line of Silicon Valley companies to make a big, splashy donation to charity.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella announced that the company will be donating $1 billion worth of Microsoft Cloud services to nonprofits over the course of the next three years. In all, 70,000 organizations will be given access to Microsoft Cloud Services that include Microsoft Azure, Power BI, CRM Online and the Enterprise Mobility Suite.

In addition the plan also includes expanding access to university researchers by expanding the grants to give them free Azure storage and computing resources by 50 percent. Right now over 600 research projects on six continents are currently in this program. 

Finally, the third leg of this plan includes donating access to Microsoft Cloud services with investments in "new, low-cost last-mile Internet access technologies and community training." Microsoft Philanthropies intends to support 20 of these projects in at least 15 countries around the world by the middle of 2017.

Why do this? Well, first of all, it's good PR. Secondly, it gets more organizations, and people, using Microsoft's cloud services. And, third, it really will help people. 

“Microsoft is empowering mission-driven organizations around the planet with a donation of cloud computing services — the most transformative technologies of our generation,” Nadella said at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

“Now more than 70,000 organizations will have access to technology that will help them solve our greatest societal challenges and ultimately improve the human condition and drive new growth equally.” 

Silicon Valley charity

A lot of press about Silicon Valley seems to be pretty gossipy and negative, but many companies, and their founders, have given a lot of money to charity. 

In 2014, Twitter announced a homeless learning shelter called The NeighborNest, which will be located directly across the street from Twitter's headquarters at the Essex Fox Plaza, and then revealed that it was going to pledge at least $3 million to nonprofits in San Francisco over the next four years.

The company had donated a combined $360,000 over the last two years. By 2018, it will be donating nearly a $1 million alone.

Uber also launched a new non-profit ridesharing program in Beijing called "People's Uber," where riders only cover the driver’s costs. The company expanded the feature to more parts of China.

Messaging startup Wickr announced that it was splitting into two companies, keeping its encrypted messaging platform, while also launching a new non-profit organization called Wickr Foundation, which it said will be "dedicated to supporting a strong free society by championing private communications and freedom of information through the Private Web."

Most recently PayPal found its way into Guinness Book of World Records, by managing to raise the most money for charity in a 24 hour period, with more than $45.8 million to charities in, more than doubling the previous record. 

When it comes to charitable giving, though, Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan are pretty much the gold standard in the tech world.

In 2012, he donated 18 million shares of Facebook stock to the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, a non-profit organization based in Mountain View, California that says on the About Us section of its website that it provides investment management and guidance “on the art and science of giving.” At the time those shares were worth a total of $500,000. 

Zuckerberg and Chan were named the most charitable people in 2013, having donated 18 million shares of Facebook stock, which amounted to a total of $992.2 million.

That same year Zuckerberg founded the Startup: Education foundation, and donated $100 million to the public school system of Newark, New Jersey. He has also held fundraisers for two New Jersey politicians: Senator Cory Booker and Governor Chris Christie.

Zuckerberg and Chan topped the list of most charitable people in 2013. Together, the two donated 18 million shares of Facebook stock, which amounted to a whopping $992.2 million. The money was given to the Silicon Valley Community Foundation. At only 29 years old, Zuckerberg was  the youngest person to ever top this list. 

Around $4 million of that money went gone to a Boston education start-up that gathers data to assess progress at public schools. Another $5 million went to a community health clinic for low-income families in East Palo Alto.

The couple continued their philanthropic efforts this year, donating $75 million to San Francisco General Hospital in February, then giving $20 million to EducationSuperHighway in November.

(Image source: sdtimes.com)