What does your company's foundation do?

[yesthattom]

At the last big company I worked for, we had a foundation that did things like giving scholarships and taking credit for everyone else’s donations to United Way.

My current employer, Google, has a philanthropic arm (aptly named Google.Org) which spent $ to design rechargable electric cars and is going to spend a million bucks trying to get manufacturers interested in adopting the technology.

Some notes:

• 100 MPG is the goal (74 is the current achievement, about +30 MPG over hybrids).
• Solar Power on the office roofs provides energy (view the current output of the solar panels)
• More info here

If by 2025, all U.S. cars on the road were hybrids and half were plug-in hybrids, oil imports would drop by 8 million barrels per day (mbd). Today, the US imports 10 mbd.

Watch on YouTube

Comments

[kathdem.livejournal.com]

Technically, I'm no longer an employee, but this is somewhere MS doesn't suck. http://www.microsoft.com/about/corporatecitizenship/citizenship/giving/default.mspx.

Also, the company's founder has given a few bucks to charity. Or so I've heard. ;-).

The company I contract through, on the other hand, doesn't seem to do anything, sadly.

[etler.livejournal.com]

The whole matching up to $12k in charitable donations per employee per year is pretty cool too if you ask me.

[yesthattom.livejournal.com]

Plus, the B&M Gates foundation totally rocks.

[cpj.livejournal.com]

Good luck trying to get a US automaker interested in increasing fuel efficiency.

http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/journalgazette/business/17388889.htm

Nobody in the US auto industry even pretends that they innovate anymore.

[lisaclarke.livejournal.com]

I didn't realize you worked for Google. Very cool. I've been reading their blog (http://googleblog.blogspot.com/) lately - they're up to some pretty neat stuff. Sounds like an interesting place to work!

[yesthattom.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm having more fun (and having more of an impact) than at any other company I've been at.

(I didn't know you had an LJ until yesterday!)

P.S. The commute into the NY office has given me a lot of time to read, something I never had time for previously. Did I mention we're hiring? :)

[lisaclarke.livejournal.com]

Tempting as that sounds, I've got plenty to keep me busy these days without an actual JOB ;-)

I don't use LJ much these days - I decided I was too much of a control freak and needed to install wordpress on my own server (http://www.polkadotcreations.com/blog). I'm much happier now and I've started crossposting to LJ so the die hard LJ fans wouldn't be left out of my very important ramblings ;-)

Congrats on the new book!

[yesthattom.livejournal.com]

Since WordPress generates RSS feeds, and since LJ lets you import an RSS feed, I'm now reading you as user polkadotcreatio.

No need to cross-post :-)

[lisaclarke.livejournal.com]

I am actually using a WP plugin to automatically cross-post anything I write, but reading the feed through LJ is a nifty thing, too. I knew that could be done, but I'd never seen it until now.