Active Stocks
Thu Mar 28 2024 15:59:33
  1. Tata Steel share price
  2. 155.90 2.00%
  1. ICICI Bank share price
  2. 1,095.75 1.08%
  1. HDFC Bank share price
  2. 1,448.20 0.52%
  1. ITC share price
  2. 428.55 0.13%
  1. Power Grid Corporation Of India share price
  2. 277.05 2.21%
Business News/ Industry / Google maps philanthropy plan, to spend $175 mn in first round
BackBack

Google maps philanthropy plan, to spend $175 mn in first round

Google maps philanthropy plan, to spend $175 mn in first round

Premium

The Mountain View, California-based company, Google Inc., announced a plan on Thursday that begins to fulfil the pledge it made to investors when it went public nearly four years ago to reserve 1% of its profit and equity to “make the world a better place." The beneficiaries of Google’s money range from groups that are fighting disease to those developing a commercial plug-in car.

The company’s philanthropy—Google.org, or DotOrg as Googlers call it—will spend up to $175 million (Rs688 crore) in its first round of grants and investments over the next three years, Google officials said.

While it is like other companies’ foundations in making grants, it will also be untraditional in making for-profit investments, encouraging employees to participate directly and lobbying public officials for changes in policies, company officials said.

Google may be one of US’ 10 richest corporations as measured by market value, but its budget for philanthropy is minuscule compared with the $70 billion of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Still, Google’s founders, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, expressed a hope back in 2004 that “someday this institution may eclipse Google itself in terms of overall world impact." What it lacks in size, though, Google.org may make up in ­cachet.

Larry Brilliant, a medical doctor who took on the role of director of Google.org 18 months ago, said he could not even begin to count how many spending proposals he had seen. “There are 6.5 billion people in the world," Brilliant had said in a recent interview, “and in the last 18 months, I’ve met 6.4 billion, all of whom want, if not some of our money, then some of the Google pixie dust."

Brilliant, who moved to an ashram in northern India in the 1970s and went on to play a major role in eradicating smallpox in the country, likened his moral quandary in figuring out how to spend Google.org’s money to that faced by a saint wandering the streets of Varanasi.

“There are 500 steps between the road and the Ganges," he said. “On every step are beggars, lepers, people who have no arms or legs, people literally starving. The saint has a couple of rupees; how does a good and honourable person make a resource allocation decision? Do you weigh a hand that’s missing more than a leg? Someone who’s starving versus a sick child? In a much less dramatic way, that’s what the last 18 months have been for us."

DotOrg has focused on what it can do “uniquely," said Sheryl Sandberg, vice-president for global online sales and operations at Google, who, like all employees, is permitted to spend 20% of her time at the foundation or in other charitable ventures. “If you do things other people could do, you’re not adding value."

In contrast to DotOrg’s close tie to DotCom, employees of Microsoft Corp. have made Gates wealthy but have no official influence in how the Gates Foundation money is spent.

The only urgency imposed on the foundation is how soon it can live up to the expectations. “Building a new ecosystem is not an overnight phenomenon," Brilliant said.

“Here at Google if you have a project, you press Send. We won’t work that quickly."

But for all the enthusiasm for the new organization, there are critics. “It’s wonderful that this company is devoting massive resources to fixing big world problems, but they are taking an engineer’s perspective to them," said Siva Vaidhyanathan, a cultural historian and media scholar at the University of Virginia. “Machines and software are not always the answer. Global problems arise from how humans have undervalued each other and miscommunicated with each other."

He pointed to Google.org’s decision not to take a step like financing scholarships for girls in India who have not had access to education. “That’s what is so naive about Google.org’s approach," he said. “If you can educate a thousand girls in one state in India, you’ve already made a bigger difference than 99% of the human beings on earth because every one of those of girls can make a difference."

The process of determining what to finance was not easy, said Jacquelline Fuller, the head of advocacy at Google.org. Beginning in the spring of 2007, “the 20 team members had 20 ideas." Team members, she said, “debated, cried and held hands as we tried to determine what kind of difference we could make." It took them almost a year to winnow down the list. Although it was just announcing its initiatives on Thursday, Google.org has already begun to give away some of its money.

©2008/THE NEW YORK TIMES

Unlock a world of Benefits! From insightful newsletters to real-time stock tracking, breaking news and a personalized newsfeed – it's all here, just a click away! Login Now!

Catch all the Industry News, Banking News and Updates on Live Mint. Download The Mint News App to get Daily Market Updates.
More Less
Published: 19 Jan 2008, 12:01 AM IST
Next Story footLogo
Recommended For You
Switch to the Mint app for fast and personalized news - Get App