Mike Grogan, Managing Director of Microsoft UK’s consumer industries business, is an executive sponsor of Give Month. He explains to UK Stories why giving is central to Microsoft’s culture, and why Great Ormond Street Hospital and the Sutton Trust are this year’s main UK charity partners.
Q. What is Give Month?
A. Give Month is when Microsoft colleagues around the world support causes they care about. It happens every October, but reflects a culture of giving throughout the year.
People can donate money or volunteer their time. Microsoft supports this by matching employee donations and volunteering hours. If a colleague gives £50 and Microsoft matches it, their impact can be doubled.
October gives us a shared moment to focus that energy and build lasting connections with our communities.
Q. Why is giving important to Microsoft?
A. Having a sense of purpose is fundamental to being an organisation that contributes positively to society.
In our day jobs, we often define impact as helping customers. But it should go further. We need to ask how we can make a positive difference in the communities where we live and work.
Giving brings colleagues together and reminds us our skills and resources can be useful beyond the workplace. We call this going “beyond the badge”: what colleagues do outside their jobs to support others.
Q. Why focus on just two charities this year?
A. Colleagues can still support causes closest to them, but two principal charities give Microsoft UK and Ireland a shared mission.
This year they are Great Ormond Street Hospital Charity, known as GOSH, and the Sutton Trust. One supports seriously ill children and their families. The other works to ensure a young person’s background does not determine their opportunities.
Q. Why Great Ormond Street Hospital Charity?
A. GOSH treats some of the most seriously ill children from across the UK. People may not know they will need a hospital like it until the moment they do.
I’ve visited the hospital and, since becoming an executive sponsor, discovered how many Microsoft colleagues have themselves been supported by GOSH. Some have had children treated there. Hearing those experiences really brings home the impact GOSH has for both the children being cared for and also for their families and loved ones at such a critical time.
Our fundraising supports the GOSH ‘Build it, Beat it’ projects connected with the building of a new children’s cancer centre. These new hospital facilities, which are due to open in 2028, include places for parents to stay or rest nearby and facilities for children’s schooling. When a child is seriously ill, the whole family is affected.
As a parent, I feel incredibly fortunate my children have never needed that care. It makes me think about families who do, and how we can help GOSH reach more of them.
Q. Why the Sutton Trust?
A. The Sutton Trust works to break down barriers that can prevent talented young people progressing because of their background.
That connects directly with Microsoft’s mission to empower every person and every organisation to achieve more. Digital tools, artificial intelligence, and technical skills can create enormous opportunities, but only if people can access them.
Our support is about more than fundraising. Microsoft colleagues have mentored Sutton Trust students, volunteered with young people, and introduced them to careers and ideas they might not otherwise have encountered.
Last year, Sutton Trust students attended a CEO session at Microsoft’s AI Tour, hearing from technology and business leaders about how AI is changing work and society.
And this year, at our Frontier Tour London, they met Darren Hardman, CEO, Microsoft UK & Ireland and heard about his own social mobility story.
Q. What does Microsoft giving look like in practice?
A. People find all sorts of creative ways to raise money and bring others along. My team rowed more than 20 miles along the Thames for GOSH. Colleagues have collected donations at the Formula One British Grand Prix; one team held a 12-hour Padel festival that more than 100 colleagues attended; we have teams bucket collecting at various tube stations, and a range of other organised challenges.
My wife, our two children and I recently ran the family 2K at ‘Race for the Kids’ in Hyde Park. They’re eight and six, so they’ve only got little legs, but it is something we could do together as a family for a great cause! The kids got to stand up in assembly and share the story with their peers, just another great way to share the message.
Q. What impact does Microsoft philanthropy have more widely?
A. Together, we can have a much bigger impact.
Microsoft employees support charities and non-profit organisations through donations, volunteering and skills training. The company’s matching programme means individual efforts can add up to significant support.
In 2025, Microsoft employees and the company contributed $256m (£192m) to 36,500 nonprofits across 110 countries.
But impact is not only financial. Volunteering connects people with organisations in their communities, while skills-based support can help charities use technology or operate more effectively. In 2025, Microsoft employees also contributed more than 1.2 million hours of volunteering.
Giving works best when it empowers every colleague to find a cause and get involved.
Q. Why did you become an executive sponsor?
A. I’ve always tried to raise money for causes that mattered personally to me, including before I joined Microsoft, and through this I learned what it means to contribute to something outside yourself.
With GOSH, the motivation is simple: how can we help more children and families? With the Sutton Trust, it is about opening doors and ensuring talent is not overlooked.
October gives us momentum, but the work cannot stop when the month ends. The goal is to create habits, relationships, and opportunities that last throughout the year.