For our first few years, Ipswitch didn’t lose money, but we didn’t make much either, so philanthropy was always something to think about in the future. Then, in the mid-90′s, profits started to grow and I started to think about corporate community involvement. For the next few years I continued a practice I had started to make annual personal donations separate from Ipswitch. By 1999, though, I had concluded that philanthropy could be something more than me or any individual making their own personal decisions about what non-profits to support. I realized that Ipswitch was beginning to have a voice that we could use to bring attention to the agencies that were doing good work to address important causes. I realized that we could involve Ipswitch employees in deciding where to focus our philanthropy, and encourage employees to volunteer and support their non-profit involvement. I realized we could introduce employees to giving and community involvement in ways that would enrich their lives. I realized that by building a community program we could attract employees who share our values. This all made it an easy decision to create iCare.