Apple’s Irish employees raise €2m for charities

Employees of Apple’s Irish operations have raised more than €2 million for Irish charities in the past year, with 200 charities benefitting from the programme.

Apple’s Employee Giving programme continued during the Covid-19 lockdown measures that saw staff shift to remote work for much of the year and traditional fundraising activities cancelled. Among the fundraising was walking, running and cycling as part of the Darkness into Light and FeelGood campaigns during the year.

As part of the programme, Apple employees in Ireland have volunteered more than 115,000 hours to support charitable causes, Between March 2020 and March 2021, volunteering hours increased almost 450 per cent from the previous year.

Every hour completed is matched by funding from Apple, donated directly to the charity. Among the beneficiaries were Cork ARC Cancer Support House, the LauraLynn Foundation, BUMBLEance and Pieta House, which saw unprecedented demand for its services in the past year.

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Before the pandemic, Apple employees supported fundraising efforts for the charity in addition to volunteering as stewards in the annual Darkness into Light events .

"We rely on public donations and the generosity of individuals, like the staff at Apple, to ensure we can provide our free service to those in need across the country," said Sinead Price, Co-director of Fundraising at Pieta. " In 2020, Pieta delivered over 52,000 hours of in-person suicide intervention and suicide bereavement counselling. We are so grateful to everyone at Apple for their commitment to our cause in 2020 and we are excited about what's to come."

The past year was the largest on record for Apple’s Giving programme globally. The initiative has raised a total of $600 million , including 1.6 million hours donated, since it was established in 2011. More than 34,000 organisations have benefitted from the programme. Apple also has a corporate donations programme through its community investment team.