Apple will be accepting donations for the City of Hope charity during the month of October, which is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, the company revealed today. The organization is a research and treatment center created to combat not only breast cancer, but also diabetes and other life-threatening diseases including lymphoma and brain cancer.
The organization aims to make it easier to detect life-threatening diseases, as well as prevent them before they start and treat them once they’ve affected a patient. The organization has a long list of successes under its belt, including funding research that identified the link between women getting a at least three to four hours a week and a lessened risk for breast cancer.
Apple using iTunes as a donation platform for charitable causes is not a new thing – the company has previously collected relief funds for the Japanese tsunami in 2011, for the typhoon that devastated the Philippines in 2013, and for Superstorm Sandy in 2011. This marks a move into more open philanthropy not tied to a specific event or disaster, and is probably indicative of CEO Tim Cook’s greater mission of doing more public good with Apple’s considerable influence.
Cook’s track record includes announcing a new charitable matching program for employees in 2011, and detailing $150 million in charitable contributions made by the company at a town hall meeting in 2012. Cook has also ushered in an era of greater transparency at Apple when it comes to its supplier and environmental sustainability record.