Microsoft: open donations
By Bala Shah

There are many who feel that tech giant Microsoft, like any business, should not be allowed to dominate any market.  There is much merit in this argument.  Consumers are best served by healthy competition between businesses.  Having said that, Microsoft founder Bill Gates has won millions of admirers by giving away billions.  Bill Gates in on record as saying he would donate the bulk of his personal fortune to social and charitable causes.

Footnoted.org is reporting about how Microsoft is setting new high standards for the technology world by voluntarily revealing how it much it had donated to the two dominant political parties in USA.  Microsoft told the American SEC last week that it had given $15K each to the Republican and Democratic Campaign Committees.  The official Microsoft website even reveals the names of every political candidate it had donated to.  Some have only received $500, others $1000 and some even $5000.  But the hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations are documented on its website.

While Microsoft has to be admired for such transparency, it seems that there are limits on what it will make public.

Techgoss had a look at the Microsoft document filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and found a shareholder proposal that Microsoft should even name every charity it gives more than $5000. This proposal was to be considered at this year’s annual shareholder meeting.

But the Microsoft Board of Directors have recommended against this shareholder proposal. Even though Microsoft donated $113 million in cash as well as $403 million in software in financial 2009 to nonprofits worldwide, the Board of Directors felt that “reducing our citizenship practices to a list of donations would distort and oversimplify our efforts, and could in fact be counterproductive by providing opportunities for distraction by groups pursuing narrow agendas.”

Basically this is because gay rights and abortion are divisive issues in many countries.  And so even if Microsoft is doing the right thing, like any business it wants to avoid getting entangled in bitter debate about social issues.