Seattle-area Employee Donation Matching

In the past I have been terrible when comparing job opportunities in how the different companies match employee donations to charitable organizations. As someone who believes strongly in charitable giving and donates 10% of his income to charities every year, there’s a big difference in an employer who will match $15k of that or one who won’t match anything.

So while I’m not looking for a job right now, I was curious how major Seattle-area tech employers compared with regard to their employee charity matching programs. The results were enlightening.

It’s clear which of those stand out:

• Microsoft for their very generous $15k matching program. Way to go Microsoft!
• Amazon, one of the biggest tech employers in the region, for matching absolutely nothing. Ditto Facebook.
• Oracle for their almost-embarassing $300 match. Yes, Tableau is only $500 but I expect more from a company with a $200b market cap than one with $7b market cap.

It’s interesting to compare these to other major Seattle-area employers, all of which are rather generous:

Clearly there are a lot of factors in play when you choose where to work, but next time I’m looking for a job I need to factor in employer matching to ensure I’m not leaving thousands of dollars of Doing Good sitting on the table.