Today at Microsoft Corp.’s annual company meeting, Microsoft announced that the company has surpassed a mark that will not show up on a stock ticker or retail shelves. Since 1983, Microsoft and its employees have given more than $2.5 billion in cash, services and software to nonprofits around the world through localized, company-sponsored giving and volunteer campaigns. At the meeting, Business Division President Jeff Raikes, along with his wife, Tricia Raikes, who are co-chairs of the 2006 community campaign for The United Way of King County, presented a check from Microsoft for $150,000 to Plymouth Housing Group, bringing the company’s overall giving beyond the $2.5 billion milestone.

Paul Lambros, executive director of Plymouth Housing Group, was joined onstage by dozens of representatives from other nonprofits, who saluted the company and its employees for their generosity. “On behalf of everyone at Plymouth and all of the organizations you support so generously, I’d like to thank each and every one of you at Microsoft for your dedication to giving back to your communities,” Lambros said. “The $2.5 billion milestone, and the fact that I’m surrounded by dozens of my colleagues, is testimony to the scope and breadth of your giving over the past two decades.”