by Michael S. Kaplan, published on 2013/10/03 07:01 -04:00, original URI: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/michkap/archive/2013/10/03/10453584.aspx
I have been on a mission for the last four years of my life.
A mission to increase the matching amount of funds to come from people who max out the matching amount
I spent a lot of money that year at the giving campaign auction, bidding on and winning "hang out with a VP" prize, hoping to get face time with the higher ups at Microsoft to plead my case.
It is where my Better Know an Exec topic came from!
Some were unaware of the issue, even if they routinely gave more than $12,000 anyway. They agreed with the idea though. B
And I have talked with many Vice Presidents, finding several who agreed with the assessment, like VP of customer and partner advocacy Rich Kaplan (who had been asking the question for years already!).
I have talked to Lisa Brummel who admitted that fewer than 2% of the people at Microsoft maxed out their matching bonus. So the cost to Microsoft would not be too high. But she was quite candid about her concern about the timing. She assured me it would happen eventually, but couldn't commit to when since it wasn't solely her decision to make.
But she too agreed with the idea. Why not help generous givers be able to give more?
This last year I didn't even go to the company meeting, since they had pulled out the giving campaign announcement out of the meeting itself.
But finally, they did it!
They officially raised the matching amount from $12,000 to $15,000!
There wasn't ever any reason to,not do it, so it was great when they finally did it! 😏;-)
So it was kind of a victory that day.After all that time, a victory.
And victory it was. We did it! 😏;-)
Marypat Meuli on 3 Oct 2013 11:25 PM:
Every little bit helps our communities and this is great to see. I hadn't heard about the increase, so thanks for sharing the good news.
Michael S. Kaplan on 4 Oct 2013 11:40 AM:
My pleasure!
And thanks for commenting here instead of on Facebook or Twitter. My Blog is gonna get a complex!
T on 4 Oct 2013 10:46 PM:
CONGRULATIONS!!! Kudo, and indeed this was a major victory!
By increasing the matched amount, you may see (hopefully) an immediate increase from EVERYONE who mazed their contributions as well as have a burst of energy for encouraging others to stretch to set new personal records.
CONGRATS!!
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