With Deep SQL Knowledge, These MVPs Do Extensive Good

The MVP community is well known for its generosity—freely sharing technical knowledge and expert advice, and often helping to make the world a better place through philanthropic initiatives. We checked back in with a project that got its start almost a decade ago and has brought together scores of MVPs to help children around the world.

Inspired by Bill Gates at the 2007 MVP Global Summit to make giving back to others a part of their lives, 53 MVPs came together afterwards to write SQL Server MVP Deep Dives. It was described by its publisher in 2009 as “no ordinary SQL Server book. In SQL Server MVP Deep Dives, the world's leading experts and practitioners offer a masterful collection of techniques and best practices for SQL Server development and administration.”

What also set the book apart was that its authors contributed 100% of their royalties to support War Child International, a network of independent organizations working across the world to help children affected by war.

Two years later, 64 MVPs came together to reprise those efforts, combining about 1,000 years of experience in SQL Server administration, development, training, and design to author SQL Server MVP Deep Dives, Volume 2. Those MVPs generously pledged the proceeds from their book to Operation Smile, an international children’s medical charity that heals children’s smiles through a mobilized force of medical professionals who provide safe, effective reconstructive surgery for children born with facial deformities such as cleft lip and cleft palate.

Congratulations to all the MVPs involved in this initiative, which so far has contributed more than $60,000 to children in need!