SES Chicago - December 7-11, 2009

October 4, 2006

The Google Literacy Project

Reuters reports that Google, in conjunction with LitCam and UNESCO's Institute for Lifelong Learning, has formed The Literacy Project. The site, hosted at Google.com, brings together Google Book Search, Google Scholar, Google Video, Google Maps, Blogger, and Groups into one landing page. The site was launched at the Frankfurt Book Fair with hopes to combat global illiteracy. Nikesh Arora, vice president of Google's European operations said, "Google's business was born out of a desire to help people find information."

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 8:31 AM | Permalink

September 14, 2006

Google.org Creating For Profit Hybrid Cars

In a New York Times article named Philanthropy Google's Way: Not the Usual, describes how Google.org is actually a for-profit company, unlike the "Google Foundation" which is part of Google.org. Google.org is actually "consulting with hybrid-engine scientists and automakers" to design a new "an ultra-fuel-efficient plug-in hybrid car engine that runs on ethanol, electricity and gasoline." I guess we can call it the Google Car? The goal of this Google car is to have these cars exceeds 100 miles per gallon. I wonder what colors these cars will come in?

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 11:44 AM | Permalink

February 22, 2006

Google Hires Google.org's Executive Director, Larry Brilliant

From the Google newswire; "Google Names Larry Brilliant as Executive Director of Google.org". Larry Brilliant, as described by USA Today is a "a tech-savvy doctor who fought smallpox." Google.org, "the philanthropic arm of Google" hired Brilliant to work with "Larry Page and Sergey Brin to define the mission and strategic goals of Google's philanthropy." Google.org ranks in the top 50 of all philanthropic groups. This just adds to the number of well-known and respected Google hires in the past few years.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 11:15 AM | Permalink

February 1, 2006

No More Google Foundation Funding For "Foreseeable Future," Says Google

Google Foundation no more? from Garett Rogers at ZDNet notes that as part of its earnings announcement, Google has said that it doesn't plan to make further donations to the Google Foundation for the "foreseeable future." The foundation just received an initial funding donation of $90 million back in October. Google announced the Google Foundation as part of its IPO process and pledged to donate 1 percent of Google equity and profits:

We intend to contribute significant resources to the foundation, including employee time and approximately 1% of Google?s equity and profits in some form. We hope someday this institution may eclipse Google itself in terms of overall world impact by ambitiously applying innovation and significant resources to the largest of the world?s problems.

Postscript: Steve Langdon over at Google sent me this to help clarify the statement:

The quote...is from the Founder's Letter submitted as part of our IPO filings. In the first annual report that followed, we explained that we are going to expand our philanthropic efforts beyond a foundation and use the one percent equity and profit commitment to fund not just the foundation but additional work we put under the umbrella name of Google.org. We have since described in more detail what we plan to do with Google.org and announced as part of that our $90 million commitment to the Google Foundation. We expect the $90 million contribution to the Google Foundation to fund the foundation's work for many years and don't have current plans to contribute more to the foundation. However, we will continue to make philanthropic commitments that are not from the Google Foundation, as described in the blog post. Hope this helps clear up any confusion.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 10:01 AM | Permalink

December 26, 2005

Google.org Site Updated With Info About Google's Latest Grant

Those of you who track Google's philanthropic activities might be interested to know that the Google.org page has been updated with information about PlanetRead.org, an organization in India that Google just announced awarded a grant to. The award was officially announced about two weeks ago.

Posted by Gary Price at 3:40 PM | Permalink

October 12, 2005

Google.org (aka Google Foundation) Web Site Has Now Been Updated

Earlier, Danny blogged details about plans for the new Google Foundation. He mentioned in his post that the official Google.org site had not been updated. Well, the Google.org site, it has now been updated to better reflect today's news.

The Google.org the page now contains background about several organizations that Google has made some "initial commitments" to.

Highlights include:

We have made some initial commitments, which include:

* Acumen Fund: Google is partnering with the Acumen Fund, a non-profit venture fund that invests in market-based solutions to global poverty. The Fund supports entrepreneurial approaches to developing affordable goods and services for the 4 billion people in the world who live on less than $4 a day.

* TechnoServe: Google is also working with TechnoServe to help budding entrepreneurs in Ghana turn good business ideas into thriving enterprises with the launch of a Business Plan Competition and an Entrepreneurship Development Program.

* Water Research: Google plans to support research in western Kenya to identify ways to prevent child deaths caused by poor water quality and to better understand what works in rural water supply. The research is being conducted by Alix Zwane and Edward Miguel of UC Berkeley and Michael Kremer of Harvard University.

The page also has info about the Google Grants program that offers free ads on Google to non-profits.

Btw, the site also notes that the Google Foundation "is not accepting funding requests and unsolicited proposals at this time."

Posted by Gary Price at 3:34 PM | Permalink

Google Gives Google Foundation Update, Though Official Site Remains Mum

Google has given an update on what its Google Foundation is doing. The charitable group, promised as part of its IPO, has been funded initially with $90 million and has already made donations to a fund to fight global poverty, another to help small businesses in developing countries and research to prevent child deaths by poor water quality, among others.

Unfortunately, the Google Foundation site at Google.org site still says it will be the "future site" as it has since April and lacks any helpful information, not even a link at least to the Google Grants program that Google itself (as opposed to the Google Foundation) manages. So Google gets some nice buzz and headlines on how it is giving, but anyone heading over to the foundation site itself finds nothing about applying for help. Heck, the foundation site doesn't even link over to the Google Blog post that has current news about the foundation.

Google Starts Up Philanthropy Campaign from the Washington Post covers how another $900 million in stock is being set aside for the foundation and how using the foundation to give will allow Google greater flexibility on what it wants to fund.

A representative of a Google shareholders group asks if Google should be doing this at all. Since Google said they would create and give to the foundation as part of the IPO, you'd think the shareholders would have known this before buying. The representative acknowledges this fact but still worries about confusion between personal and corporate assets.

The rep also questions whether company founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page should be making donations similar to how Microsoft's Bill Gates does through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Yeah, I think anyone would expect multi-billionaires to be doing some charitable giving of their own. Then again, a little perspective is in order. Since the two have been multi-billionaires for only about a year, I'm sure we'll see them doing such giving over time. The Gates Foundation was started in 2000, though it had predecessors -- but I don't know that either of those predecessors came immediately after Gates made it big. Overall, we'll see.

Further coverage also from the San Jose Mercury News here and the New York times here. Want to comment or discuss? Visit our forum thread, Google Foundation News.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 8:30 AM | Permalink

April 20, 2005

Google.org For Google Foundation's Philanthropic Activities

Nathan Weinberg at InsideGoogle spots that a new Google.org site is up. At the moment, it has nothing much other than a promise of more to come:

This will be the future site of Google.org – the philanthropic arm of Google. We are currently working on staffing as well as defining the goals, priorities, and principles of Google.org. We hope to have a lot more to share with you on this front in the coming year. Check back here for updates.

Sounds like this will be the new home for the Google Foundation that's been in the works since last year. An executive director is still being sought for that, and some background on the foundation is here from News.com: Google readies charitable foundation.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 10:50 AM | Permalink

January 4, 2005

The Google Charity

News.com's Paul Festa reports that the Google charitable foundation as described in the Google's "owners manual" (aka the first portion of Google's IPO filing) is getting ready to launch. The foundation will give 1 percent of Google's equity and profits to charity. "This is going to be a key area of focus for the company in 2005," said Cindy McCaffrey, who ended her position as Google's vice president of marketing with the new year and will stay on to work part time on the foundation. "We're working now to get all the pieces in place."

More in the News.com article: Google readies charitable foundation.

Posted by Gary Price at 9:20 AM | Permalink

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