Climate Change and Poverty Top Google's Giving Priorities

Good to see Google.org is listening to someone - maybe even Tall Economist [!]. Google will be focusing on Climate change and poverty - let's hope it will marry these two rather than discretely focus and report on each ...

Source: The Chronicle of Philanthropy
Tackling climate change, emerging health threats, and poverty in developing countries will top Google.org’s philanthropic agenda
After more than a year of research and planning, the charitable arm of the Mountain View, Calif., search-engine company announced today the focus for its efforts over the next five to 10 years:
To support efforts that make plug-in hybrid electric vehicles commercially available. Such cars are essentially hybrids with larger batteries that can be recharged from a standard outlet, which further reduces the amount of gas needed to run them.
To support the development of renewable energy sources that can be produced on a large scale and at a lower cost than conventional energy sources, such as coal.
To support efforts to make it easier for small and medium-size businesses in developing countries to gain access to the capital and expertise they need to grow and create more jobs.
To support projects that improve the flow of information related to public services, such as education, health, water, and sanitation, in developing countries. This program, known as the Inform and Empower Initiative, will focus on India and East Africa at the start.
To support efforts to identify emerging health and environmental threats, such as infectious diseases or drought, and take steps to mitigate their impact and prevent them from becoming local, regional, or global crises.
‘Best Solutions’
Google’s decision to operate its philanthropic arm largely as a for-profit entity gives it the ability to make both grants to nonprofit organizations and investments in for-profit companies involved in solving social problems. To date, Google.org’s giving and investments total $75.4-million.
In the program to promote plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, for example, Google.org has awarded $1-million in grants to nonprofit organizations, such as CalCars and Plug-In America, that raise public awareness about the cars. But it also has issued a call for proposals for $10-million in investments.
“We want to be open if the best solution is in the private sector or if the best solution to a given problem is to invest in a for-profit company,” says Jacquelline Fuller, head of advocacy and communications at Google.org.
Google.org has already made investments of $10-million each in eSolar, a company in Pasadena, Calif., that builds solar power plants, and Makani Power, an Alameda, Calif., wind-energy company.
Operating as part of the company, rather than as a corporate foundation, also gives Google.org greater latitude in lobbying and advocacy, something Ms. Fuller expects the organization will take greater advantage of now that it has decided its top priorities.
“Advocacy really is a tool that can be used to advance an agenda, but you first have to get very clear about what you’re trying to do,” she says.
Early ‘Flag’
Google didn’t always plan to take a hybrid approach to its philanthropy. Early on, the company set up the Google Foundation, which still exists today, with an endowment of $90-million.
One of the first grants that the foundation wanted to make was to the One Laptop Per Child Foundation, in Cambridge, Mass. The organization’s mission was close enough to Google’s business that foundation officials worried the grant could be construed as aiding the company.
“That was a flag early on” for the Google executives leading the company’s philanthropic efforts, says Ms. Fuller.
“They began asking questions like, ‘What really are the pros and cons of doing this so separate as a 501c(3)?’ and realized that it was preferable for Google — not for everyone, but for Google — to hold the majority of its resources outside of a foundation structure,” she says.
In 2004, before Google went public, the company’s founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, wrote a letter that said they wanted to use 1 percent of the company’s equity and 1 percent of profits to support philanthropic work, a total that Ms. Fuller says currently comes to almost $2-billion.
But while Google.org relishes the freedom its largely for-profit status affords, the organization does also make grants to charities. In fact, one of its first projects was to create a new nonprofit organization: Innovative Support to Emergencies, Diseases and Disasters, or Instedd.
The new organization will seek to improve the early detection of global health threats and humanitarian crises, as well as the process of preparing for and responding to them, by working with governments, health and relief organizations, and scientists to develop software and other technology tools to improve the sharing of information and collaboration. In addition to a $5-million grant from Google.org, the organization has also received financial support from the Rockefeller Foundation and contributions from several philanthropists.
Instedd’s first project will be to work with 20 partners on efforts to identify emerging infectious diseases and improve the ability to respond to them in Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam, and Yunnan Province in southern China.
“We are so connected as a global population now with travel and trade,” says Eric Rasmussen, the new organization’s chief executive officer. Before joining Instedd in October, Dr. Rasmussen served as chairman of the department of medicine at the Naval Hospital Bremerton, near Seattle. “If we do not spot [health] events transpiring early enough, it doesn’t take much for them to escape.”
Instedd’s software engineers will first look at existing technologies to see how they can be adapted for disease tracking and humanitarian response, only developing new software when other options can’t be found. Engineers have already built several tools using technologies from Microsoft, Google, Facebook, and Twitter.
Other large grants include a $3-million award to TechnoServe for its efforts to support businesses, spur job creation, and strengthen antipoverty programs in Africa; $2.5-million to the Global Health and Security Initiative, which tracks international biological threats; and $2-million to Prath am, in Mumbai, to study India’s educational system.
Staff of 40
Google.org currently has 40 employees, and plans to add a few more staff members now that its giving and investment priorities have been established.
Employees have come from various backgrounds, and include an epidemiologist, a former vice president at Goldman Sachs, and a former assistant secretary of energy.
Google.org has already seen the value of building a team comprising people with different training and backgrounds, says Ms. Fuller.
“There was a lot of tears and angst to go from a white sheet of paper down to five initiatives,” she says. “It was really good as we were in the room trying to narrow it down to have people with these different perspectives talking about how they thought we could best contribute.”
Google.org hopes that it will be able to encourage other corporations to both increase their giving and to think about it more creatively.
But Ms. Fuller says that the organization is uncomfortable with the excitement Google’s entry into philanthropy has caused.
“We don’t feel like we are sprinting on the scene with the answers,” she says. “We’ve got a lot to learn from others. So we really disagree with the slant that some people are trying to take, that this is new or different or better. It’s just that this is Google’s way of doing things.”