Giving Through Football, Karaoke and a 24 Hour Marathon

We’re into the last week of the Microsoft 2011 employee giving campaign. It has been a very busy month so far, and this week is turning into pure madness, in a good way.

Earlier today Pete Carroll, the head coach of the Seattle Seahawks came to our Redmond campus to talk about A Better Seattle.

The initiative, which was launched in September, aims to raise awareness and funds for programs designed to prevent gang violence. It builds on the success of Pete’s A Better LA initiative with the support of the Seattle Seahawks and local community leaders, government, nonprofit and business organizations. In Washington, the YMCA of Greater Seattle is a key community partner and the program was one of the beneficiaries of the recent Microsoft employee 5K run. 

Elsewhere the 2011 Giving campaign continues apace.

Last night in Seattle, the 24 hour global give and go event finished after 24 teams around the world ran, biked, swam, walked, played cricket, sailed and used Kinect across 24 different time zones from New Zealand to the United States. You can find out more here.

Finally, for today at least, the Windows Phone team managed to convince their executives to perform sponsored karaoke in front of a very enthusiastic employee audience.

Attendees not only had the opportunity to vote for their favorite contestant but they could also bid for the opportunity to choose a song for their executive of choice. The event raised nearly $10,000 for a range of nonprofit and community organizations. Unfortunately we don’t have any video, but we’re assured there were some amazing performances and a lot of ‘honest’ feedback on the performances. We’ll have to take their word for it.

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