The Call of Duty Endowment is a nonprofit organization co-founded by Activision CEO Bobby Kotick. It’s committed to finding innovative ways to assist in placing veterans in the United States and the United Kingdom in high-quality jobs following their service to their country.

This year, the nonprofit has already placed 100,000 vets in good jobs. “These are excellent jobs, not low-paying jobs,” explained Bobby Kotick.

Retired Marine Corps Gen. James L. Jones is the co-chair of the endowment. He said, “To put 100,000 placements in perspective, the entire active duty Marine Corps is more than 178,000 people. [However,] there is much more we can do and should be doing, supporting our veterans as they transition to civilian employment.”

On Sept. 5, 2022, the organization tweeted, “The Call of Duty Endowment is proud to be America’s largest funder of veteran employment and is committed to finding new ways to help veterans land high-quality jobs while applying the skills they have acquired through service.”

The organization is named after one of Activision’s bestselling games of all time. Since the original Call of Duty was released nearly 20 years ago, it’s sold over 400 million copies. “On a game like Call of Duty, there are 1,600 people in six studios around the world creating content on a regular basis,” Bobby Kotick mentioned on Leadership Live With David Rubenstein.

The Inspiration for the Call of Duty Endowment

A discussion between the Activision CEO and former Veterans Affairs Secretary Jim Nicholson in 2009 ignited the idea for the Call of Duty Endowment. “I didn’t know that veterans in the United States [were] almost three times less likely [to find] a job than an ordinary citizen. You’re going and serving your country, making these huge sacrifices, you come back, and you are three times less likely to find a job. There was a stigma that was associated with serving in Iraq or Afghanistan,” Kotick said on CNBC’s Mad Money With Jim Cramer. “And since the game is a military simulation and is rooted in a lot of the history of the military, we felt that one of the ways that we could really make a difference would be to actually use the profits from the game to help fund the identification of opportunities for veterans for employment.”

In 2012, the Call of Duty Endowment added more military officials to its board and expanded its efforts to the U.K. in 2017.

Mike Lavigne, Activision Blizzard’s communications and marketing manager, said, “Every veteran matters, and the endowment is proud to support traditionally underrepresented populations as part of our work. Last year, 20% of the veterans we placed in meaningful employment were Black, compared to the 12% of the veteran population. Women also saw success — 19% of our placements were women, as compared to 10% of the total veteran population.”

Bobby Kotick’s History at Activision Blizzard

Robert Kotick started making software during his first year at the University of Michigan because he had access to his college roommate’s cousin’s Apple II computer at night. So he took a chance on trying to sell his suite of apps to Trip Hawkins, the CEO of Electronic Arts at that time. While Hawkins passed on the apps, the encounter changed the course of Kotick’s career.

“That was really how I got started,” he said. “I always felt like I was in control of my destiny if I was the publisher and the developer. But had I not had the experience of working with Electronic Arts in the 1980s, I don’t know that I would have been as motivated to go off and start my own publishing company.”

Bobby Kotick became the CEO of Activision Blizzard in July 2008 after Activision merged with Vivendi Games. He’s helped lead the company to become one of the largest video game publishers in the world. “We are a very performance-based culture,” Kotick shared.

He also stated, “If I didn’t love what I was doing, I would go do something else.” Kotick explained that the most exciting aspect of his job as the head of the company is working to create a more diverse and inspiring corporate culture in order to inspire people to make great games. “If I’ve learned anything, you have to constantly be working and making sure that you have an environment where people feel excited to be there and do their best work.”

In addition to Call of Duty, the company circulates many iconic game franchises, including World of Warcraft, Candy Crush Saga, Crash Bandicoot, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, Guitar Hero, Diablo, and Skylanders. However, according to Bobby Kotick, “Over the years, we’ve pared down the number of titles that we make to allow for focus.”