$25K … No, $100K… No, One Million Dollars to Charity by Atlassian

Two years ago I reported on Atlassian’s initiative to to raise funds for the benefit of Room to Read, an organization that builds schools, libraries in rural communities in Nepal, Cambodia, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Laos, Zambia …etc. Giving away $1,200 worth of software licences for $5 in a 5-day drive, they first planned to raise $25K, then increased the target to $100,000.

@Krishnan and I thought we should put our money where our mouth (pen? keyboard?) is, and both purchased a bunch of licences just to help push Atlassian towards the finish line.  The last minutes were dramatic:

$640 short of $100k… with 20 minutes to go, my maths says we’re just going to miss!
$590 short. Need $30/minute now… at least we did $35 last minute!
Just tipped $99,510… I wonder if we should just leave it up for 10 minutes extra, or does that seem dodgy?
Well… computer says it’s…over $100k!!
Woo! Woo!!! Dancin’ around the room. Atlassian Stimulus Package 400% of $25k goal. What a week. Simply staggering. THANK YOU EVERYBODY!
Atlassian Stimulus Package (preliminary) final total – $100,350 for Room To Readin 120 hours from 7284 _awesome_ startups and teams!!

A few month later Atlassian decided charity should not be ad-hoc campaigns but an ongoing commitment: they extended the Starter Licence program forever, doubling the price from $5 to $10 – still a steal – with all proceeds going to Room to Read.  Less then a year and a half later they’ve achieved a major milestone: One Million Dollars to charity. Co-Founder Mike Cannon-Brookes reports:

By the end of 2010, Atlassian impacted over 45,500 children across 4 different countries. Together with the local communities, we’ve built 4 complete schools, established 99 libraries, written & published 2 local language titles (including printing 10,000 copies each), and provided scholarships to 430 girls who would otherwise not have gone to school.

Well done, Atlassian!

Update: This must be million-dollar-charity-day:-)  While I was typing this about, Salesfoce.com CEO Marc Benioff took the stage at CloudForce and announced a $1 Million donation to City College of New York.   Wow!