First Digital Personalisation Pack Available in UK on September 8th
with Proceeds Received by Activision Going to Endowment Programmes
SANTA MONICA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--
The Call of Duty™ Endowment, a US charitable fund that provides grants
to help veterans find high-quality employment, is expanding its support
to the UK.
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Call of Duty Endowment Double Duty Pack Image (Photo: Business Wire)
The Call of Duty Endowment ("The Endowment") is a non-profit, private
foundation founded in 2009 by Bobby Kotick, the CEO of Activision
Blizzard. It is co-chaired by General James L. Jones, former NATO
Commander and National Security Advisor to President Barack Obama and is
led by Dan Goldenberg, a veteran and captain in the US Navy Reserve.
The Endowment was initially established in the US to identify and fund
best-in-class organisations to place 25,000 veterans in jobs by the end
of 2018. That goal was met two years early, and has subsequently and
ambitiously been revised to placing 50,000 veterans into high-quality
jobs by 2019.
Providing more than £19 million pounds in funding and other support to
best-in-class non-profit organisations, the programme has placed more
than 37,000 US veterans into full-time jobs with an average 2016
starting salary of £42,000. As a result, the Endowment has helped
veterans capture over £1.3 billion in first year salaries and
demonstrated the value of veterans in the civilian workplace to
companies across the US.
The expansion of its activities to the UK will seek to identify and
forge partnerships with a select group of UK charities, to be announced
in the coming months.
To fund UK Endowment programmes, Activision today announced The Call of
Duty Endowment Double Duty Calling Card for Call of Duty®: Black Ops III
is available in the UK. Designed by Treyarch, the animated Calling Card
allows players to view a service member transform before their eyes from
a uniformed warrior to a civilian on their way to work, showing their
donation's meaningful impact on the veteran community. In addition to
the animated Calling Card, the pack includes three rare supply drops.
All proceeds received by Activision, as a result of sales of these
digital items to UK consumers, will go towards Endowment programmes
dedicated to finding veterans high quality work.
"Our expansion to the UK was a natural move-with a long-standing ally
whose armed forces have served so closely with those of the US," said
Dan Goldenberg, Executive Director of the Endowment.
Through its Seal of Distinction program, enabled via a pro bono
relationship with Deloitte, the Endowment identifies and evaluates
veteran-serving non-profit organizations that effectively connect recent
military veterans with real career opportunities. UK application
criteria include:
-
Organisation must undergo a review and evaluation process, as well as
have a mission that includes directly assisting unemployed and
underemployed veterans to find high quality jobs;
-
Group must complete an application, provide requested documentation
and be prepared to submit to verification procedures by Deloitte; and
-
Applicants will be assessed by metrics including, the number of
veterans placed in jobs, the quality of those placements, average
cost-per-placement, average starting salary, six-month retention rate,
and a variety of organisational, financial and other health
indicators and requirements.
Winners receive a £23,000 unrestricted grant that supports their
organisation's efforts to place veterans in meaningful jobs followed by
the opportunity to earn restricted grants that have historically
averaged more than £450,000.
About Activision Blizzard:
Activision Blizzard, Inc., a member of the Fortune 500 and S&P 500, is
the world's most successful standalone interactive entertainment
company. We delight hundreds of millions of monthly active users around
the world through franchises including Activision's Call of Duty®,
Destiny and Skylanders®, Blizzard Entertainment's World of Warcraft®,
Overwatch®, Hearthstone®, Diablo®, StarCraft®, and Heroes of the Storm®,
and King's Candy Crush™, Pet Rescue™, Bubble Witch™ and Farm Heroes™.
The company is one of the Fortune "100 Best Companies To Work For®."
Headquartered in Santa Monica, California, Activision Blizzard has
operations throughout the world, and its games are played in 196
countries. More information about Activision Blizzard and its products
can be found on the company's website, www.activisionblizzard.com.
About the Call of Duty Endowment:
The Call of Duty Endowment is a non-profit foundation co-founded by
Bobby Kotick, CEO of Activision Blizzard. The Endowment helps veterans
find high-quality careers by supporting groups that prepare them for the
job market and by raising awareness of the value vets bring to the
workplace. For more information about the Call of Duty Endowment, please
visit www.callofdutyendowment.org.
ACTIVISION and CALL OF DUTY are trademarks of Activision Publishing,
Inc. All other trademarks and trade names are the properties of their
respective owners.
Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-looking Statements: Information in
this press release that involves Activision Blizzard's expectations,
plans, intentions or strategies regarding the future, including
statements about the availability and features of the The Call of Duty
Endowment Double Duty Calling Card, are forward-looking statements that
are not facts and involve a number of risks and uncertainties. Factors
that could cause Activision Publishing's actual future results to differ
materially from those expressed in the forward-looking statements set
forth in this release include unanticipated product delays and other
factors identified in the risk factors sections of Activision Blizzard's
most recent annual report on Form 10-K and any subsequent quarterly
reports on Form 10-Q. The forward-looking statements in this release are
based upon information available to Activision Publishing and Activision
Blizzard as of the date of this release, and neither Activision
Publishing nor Activision Blizzard assumes any obligation to update any
such forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements believed to
be true when made may ultimately prove to be incorrect. These statements
are not guarantees of the future performance of Activision Publishing or
Activision Blizzard and are subject to risks, uncertainties and other
factors, some of which are beyond its control and may cause actual
results to differ materially from current expectations.
View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170908005152/en/
Rubenstein Communications
Joy Phillips, 212-843-8096
jphillips@rubenstein.com
Source: Activision Blizzard, Inc.
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