A day after announcing the Apple Watch pricing and availability as well as an all-new 12-inch MacBook, Apple has revealed in an interview with Fortune that it will partner with a number of non-profit organizations and donate more than $50 million toward the effort of recruiting women, minorities, and veterans to Apple.
In an exclusive interview with Fortune, Apple’s human resources chief Denise Young Smith said the company is partnering with several non-profit organizations on a multi-year, multi-million-dollar effort to increase the pipeline of women, minorities, and veterans in the technology industry—and, of course, at Apple.
The new effort follows the company’s diversity data report released last August. At the time, Tim Cook sharply expressed that he was “not satisfied with the numbers.”
What the data revealed is that in the United States, 70% of its workforce consisted of males at the time with 55% of employees being white.
As it works to change that data and promote diversity, Apple will commit $40 million to the Thurgood Marshall College Fund, a non-profit that supports the 47 public Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), so the organization can “create a database of computer science majors at HBCUs, train both students and faculty and offer scholarships,” and establish a paid internship program for students that perform well.
Apple will also partner with the National Center for Women and Information Technology. The company is donating an estimated $10 million to the non-profit over the next four years to increase the number of women working in the technology industry. The effort will support scholarships and internships and aim to double the number of graduates supported by the organization.
Apple’s VP, HR Denise Young Smith
Fortune also described Apple’s effort to recruit veterans to work in the tech industry.
In addition to the over $50 million that will be poured into the organizations mentioned above, Young Smith says Apple is talking to military leaders to come up with a way to provide technology training and specialized on boarding programs for veterans. No word on how much money Apple will devote to this effort.
Apple has supported a number of diversity-focused efforts in the past including a $10k scholarship for minorities in tech, but the newly announced multi-year partnerships and donations marks a new high on funding the goal.
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Women, diversities, and veterans? Can that be right? Perhaps minorities?
Veterans? Why the heck would they want to specifically hire veterans?
That’s weird to the point of being offensive.
Maybe because those veterans fought to protect the freedoms of companies like Apple as well as consumers so they can continue on with their work and lives, respectively. Then companies seek to return the favor by showing their gratitude in ensuring veterans who come home have job security.
Tax breaks?
The issue is the shit head managers they have been bringing on board the last few years. Pretty much the main reason why I quit there. It went from a diverse culture to a shitty retail model in what seems like no time. My genius bar had 5 female techs including myself. We all started to leave when they brought in retail minded managers that were just concerned with numbers and not the experience. Apple took any decision making away from the Genii. All this happened SHORTLY after Steve Jobs passed away. Id often have to work overtime because we are not “staffed” and had to “earn” a new genius. Our metrics were one of the top performing Genius bars in the company, why are we over worked. Taking 2 people within a 15 min period, diagnosing and have an answer is NOT a good experience to me. Stop being cheap we are all aware what the company has in the bank. I loathe walking into an Apple store now, everyone looks so miserable and overworked. Donating this amount of money isn’t going to fix this issue. They need to pull their heads out of their asses and look where the real issue is, starts with them..
Danielle is absolutely correct — Apple’s executive and management team could not manage themselves out of a paper bag, if it were not for the insulated, all white males who hired them, even during Steve Jobs’ time. HE started it, and Tim Cook has simply continued it. THAT is why there is no diversity at Apple; and just throwing $50 Million at the situation does nothing more than satisfy the incompetent, “politically correct” minions in the Obama administration talking their crap about a “color blind” America. “Color blind” indeed — and BROKE, morally and actually!