Our Donation Policy
Giving back to our communities is a big part of our culture, from day one.
We started with giving away our software, but in 2011 we decided to do more. These were our goals at the time:
- Make donations in an amount that should have a significant impact on an organization.
- Make the donations personal, so that the choices represent the unique make up of the cares and concerns of our little Balsamiq family.
Balsamiq's current policy
Every year each full-time employee can make up to 2 contributions to non-profit charitable organization(s) of their choice for Balsamiq. If the donation isn't made during the calendar year it cannot be saved for the next year.
The amount each year will be 3% percent of the prior year profits divided by the number of applicable staffers and rounded to an even amount. The amount donated does not impact the profit sharing bonuses (it is excluded as an expense from bonus profit calculations).
Guidelines
- To reduce the administrative burden on our admin team, you can either make 1 donation of the full amount, or split the amount between 2 organizations.
- Amounts for the year will be announced in June or July.
- In the US, the recipient must be a recognized charity that can issue us a tax-donation letter. In other countries, the recipient must be included in the local official list of accredited non-profits. It can be any charity chosen by the individual, but should not be a hate-based/violent group. The donation will be in the name of Balsamiq. If, for any reason, there are concerns about the donation being in Balsamiq's name, we will let the employee know.
- Send us a few lines with your request about why you picked the group(s) you did, and we'll get a summary out to the team so we can all feel more connected to each other!
- To make a donation, submit a request to your local admin with name and address of the non-profit and the contact person's name, email and phone number, and in the case you are donating to 2 organizations, the amount you want to give to each. We will process the donation and ask the organization for a letter that officially acknowledges the donation (for tax purposes).
That's it! Pretty simple, and other than upping the amount from 2% to 3% in 2014, this policy has withstood the test of time even as our company has grown. Let us know if you have a similar policy!
Natalie for the Balsamiq Team
Comments (2)
An update. We have just upped our donations to be 3% of profits instead of 2%. Yay!
Incubators/ angels/ mentors are an important part of a new startup.
Like you have this donation program, it might be an idea to donate your own software to such startups and use the concept of “give forward” of their own product to some one who is needy at a later date.
This way, your own program of giving away software free ( as much as possible) gets multiplier effect.
Give forward is a new initiative, where one pays for another like in a restaurant, i pay for another person’s meal and move on, not knowing who that beneficiary is going to be !