Founded by Bobby Kotick, the Call of Duty Endowment, a
non-profit organization, seeks to raise awareness for
the issue of veterans' unemployment, and provides grants
and resources to organizations that provide job
placement assistance and career training to returning
veterans. As such, the software donated by the
Microsoft® Store will be distributed to several
organizations that the Endowment works with, including:
AMVETS; National Veterans Transition Services, Inc.;
Still Serving Veterans; Wounded Warrior Project; Hire
Heroes USA; and Veterans Green Jobs, among others. The
Endowment identified the groups based on their work in
providing career training and educational services to
veterans from across the country.
On behalf of the Call of Duty Endowment, Bobby Kotick
expressed his gratitude for the gift, "I am thrilled to
accept this gift on behalf of the Endowment and those
veterans who proudly served in our military. As
business leaders, we have a responsibility to ensure
that every veteran who leaves the military is honored
with a good paying job in the 21st Century. I hope that
more companies will step forward to help us in this
fight, just as Microsoft has done today."
According to
a recent report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics,
male veterans between the ages of 18-24 struggle with an
unemployment rate of nearly 22 percent, and women
veterans in the same age range experience an
unemployment rate of over 15 percent.
Since Activision Blizzard, Inc., the worldwide online
and console video game publisher and producer of the
Call of Duty® video game established the Call of Duty
Endowment in November of 2009, it has delivered more
than $1,000,000 in grants and scholarships to assist
returning veterans with post military career help. This
past November, Activision committed another $1 million
to the Endowment and pledged to find 1,000 jobs for
veterans.