Microsoft CEO Stands With Black Community With $1.5 Million Donation

Microsoft boss Satya Nadella, like many other large entrepreneurs, has responded to the protests after the violent death of Georg Floyd in the United States and is now calling on society to make an urgent call for change.

The open letter to CEO Satya Nadella’s Microsoft employees was also published on the Group’s corporate blog. Nadella represents his hope that “change in ourselves helps to drive change in the world”. He writes:

Seeing injustice in the world calls us all to act, individually and as a company. Sometimes this action is personal – what can I do to change something? Sometimes it’s organizational – what changes do I have to make around me? And sometimes it is reflected in the world – what can we as a company do to accelerate the change we want? When we see the everyday racism, the bias and violence that the black and African American community is experiencing, the tragic and terrible murders of so many people, the violence in cities across the US, then it is time that we all Act arenas. 

As I said at our Town Hall meeting last week, each of us – starting with me and the company executives – has a role to play. We cannot wake up episodically when a new tragedy occurs. A systemic problem requires a holistic answer.

Microsoft To Fire Journalists And Replace Them With Robots

I am heartbroken at the deep pain our communities feel. The consequences of systemic racism, which have affected the chances of black and African American communities and aggravated injustices for them, urge me to rethink my own role as a leader. I need to continue on my path of understanding and empathy and review measures that I take or do not take every day. 

Listening to and learning from my black and African American colleagues helps me develop a better understanding of their experiences. And I take responsibility for my own continuous learning about the realities of privilege, injustice, and race and the modeling of the behavior I want to see in the world.

Fight inequalities

At the same time, Nadella believes that Microsoft, as a company, has a responsibility to make every effort to address systematic inequalities in communities and in society. Microsoft would therefore also step up its engagement with six organizations that work for social justice, support community organizers in combating racial inequality and offer solidarity with the black community.

$ 1.5 million donation

These are Black Lives Matter Foundation, Equal Justice Initiative, Innocence Project, The Leadership Conference, Minnesota Freedom Fund and NAACP Legal Defense & Education Fund. The group is now donating $ 250,000 to each organization, for a total of $ 1.5 million. There will also be employee donations.