Author Archives: Jacquelline Fuller

A Matter of Impact: August updates from Google.org

Jacquelline’s Corner

It’s back to school season again, and the pandemic continues to affect teachers, families and students — especially those already lacking educational resources. Despite the challenges and unknowns, nonprofits working in education continue to push forward and innovate to support learning. It’s clear that the ability to pivot is a common strength necessary for these times, and as funders and supporters we must ensure organizations have the space to adapt priorities and meet learners where they are.

Over the course of the pandemic, through our Distance Learning Fund, we’ve supported organizations — like INCO and TalkingPoints which you’ll read more about below — that pivoted to provide training and support to teachers learning how to educate remotely, delivered high-quality digital learning opportunities for students, and also created the resources needed to keep learning happening in an equitable way.

In the face of ongoing and overlapping challenges — the pandemic, climate change, racial injustices — I’m continually inspired by the new approaches that our grantees like these, and others, take to help the world’s young learners as they enter another year of education.

In case you missed it

Our hearts go out to all those affected by the crisis in Afghanistan. To help, Google and Googlers are providing more than $4M in support to organizations on the front lines aiding those who are particularly impacted — women, refugees and journalists.

Hear from one of our grantees: INCO

Hei-Yue Pang is the APAC Lead at INCO, a global organization working to build a more inclusive and sustainable economy through forward-looking education and support to entrepreneurs.

With millions of children across the world kept out of school due to the COVID-19 pandemic, INCO launched the INCO Education Accelerator in April 2020 — with the support of a $2.5M grant from Google.org and our Distance Learning Fund. The accelerator supports education nonprofits across Europe and Asia and creates equitable access to education for children, especially those from under-resourced families. With technical assistance from distance learning experts and Google volunteers, the nonprofits multiplied their impact and collectively provided uninterrupted access to education for over 360,000 students — nearly 28 times more students than before their accelerator program.

Photo of woman in black clothes and a necklace sitting against a bright yellow back drop.

Hei-Yue Pang is the APAC Lead at INCO.

“Implementing this intensive program across 9 different countries reinforced our belief that the benefits of distance learning extend beyond a stop-gap solution during the pandemic. When it comes to uncovering distance learning opportunities, understanding the needs of students, families and educators is crucial. For example, one of our partners in Indonesia learned through research that parent engagement was key to successfully onboarding learners in remote areas. They tweaked their e-learning platform features to be more parent-oriented, which resulted in higher learner engagement rates. Ultimately, not only did we provide an emergency response program, but we also empowered grantees to become more resilient for the future of education.”

A few words with a Google.org Fellow: TalkingPoints

Fiona Yeung is UX Designer at Google who is participating in a Google.org Fellowship with TalkingPoints, an AI-powered multilingual platform that helps teachers and families stay connected via text message and an easy-to-use-mobile app.

Woman with long hair smiling in front of a gallery wall.

Fiona Yeung, a Google UX Designer and Google.org Fellow.

"As a first-generation Canadian with Asian parents, I grew up speaking Chinese at home and English in school. And although I’ve become somewhat of a language fanatic — learning Japanese and French in addition to Cantonese, Mandarin and English — I strongly empathize with families who regularly face challenges due to language and cultural barriers. That’s why I found TalkingPoints’ mission to connect teachers and families across languages and socioeconomic divides so compelling.

Working with TalkingPoints full time reminded me that giving back even a relatively small time can create enormous impact when your team is driving toward a shared mission that is empowering and rewarding. Last spring, at the height of the pandemic, the volume of communication on TalkingPoints multiplied by 20 — ballooning to more than 100M messages exchanged, approximately half of which were in languages other than English."

Source: The Official Google Blog

A Matter of Impact: July updates from Google.org

Unlike other forms of funding, philanthropy is in a position to take risky, long-term bets on solutions to society’s biggest challenges. Government funding generally needs to show taxpayers that money is going to proven solutions, and private investors tend to operate on short timelines and have to make financial returns. That’s why some call philanthropy “society’s risk capital’; it can put impact first and be patient about the results.

Google has a big appetite for risky bets, or, as we call them, “moonshots.” This approach has led to some of our biggest successes — from search to self-driving cars to translation. And, of course, some failures along the way. We’ve tried to take the same approach at Google.org, looking for places where we can direct risk capital toward big problems, often by helping organizations capture the potential of new technologies like artificial intelligence.

Through our Google.org Impact Challenges, for example, we invite social innovators of any size to give us their best ideas for transformative impact and we make sizable contributions of time and money to help them grow. Some of these bets have gone on to become the largest and fastest-growing nonprofit organizations in the world, like Give Directly, Khan Academy, and Equal Justice Initiative. And some have even failed. But through the success and failures, we’ve learned a lot:

There’s a place for risk and a place for sure bets: In our early days nearly everything we funded was in this category of risk capital, which made it tough to have steady, reliable impact or manage multi-year programs. We’ve shifted to a portfolio approach, carving out space for true risk capital and supporting immediate needs such as housing, food, and clean water.
Bet on the team and roll with the punches:Even good ideas fail, but a strong team will roll with the punches and continue iterating to find success. By establishing shared outcome goals in partnership with amazing people, we’ve been able to achieve great results — even when the initial idea foundered.
Invest in what you know:For us, that expertise often involves technology, which is why so many of our best examples have technology at their core.
Give adequate and flexible resources:Too often projects fail because they’re under-funded or funders too constrained in their use of money to make changes when a project takes an unexpected turn. Multi-year, general operating support is generally the right move with risky bets, and we aim to be generous in our support of both time and resources.

For a perspective from the other side, read on for how some of our Google Impact Challenge grantees were able to have outsized impact after we bet on them at ‘risky’ stages of their development.

In case you missed it

Speaking of Impact Challenges, we recently unveiled the 13 grantee organizations for the Google.org Impact Challenge Central and Eastern Europe. Funding recipients include a group working to create opportunities for people who are Deaf or hearing impaired, an organization running science, technology, engineering, the arts and mathematics (STEAM) courses for children in foster care, and a team creating coding courses for LGBTQ+ people in Lithuania.

Hear from one of our grantees: TalkingPoints

Heejae Lim, Founder and CEO of TalkingPoints.

Heejae Lim is the Founder and CEO of TalkingPoints, an AI-powered multilingual platform that helps teachers and families stay connected via text message and an easy-to-use-mobile app. TalkingPoints received a $1.5 million Google AI Impact Challenge grant and support from Google.org Fellows in 2019 to help grow. The support came at just the right time. Due to COVID-19, school closures and distance learning rapidly accelerated demand for TalkingPoints. They went from serving 500,000 teachers, families and students to the more than three million people they reach today.

“As an edtech nonprofit, TalkingPoints draws on research-based practices and invests in high-impact initiatives that may require a lot of resources and time. For example, maintaining high-quality, two-way translation in 100+ languages requires a significant and sustained level of investment. With support from the Google.org Impact Challenge and a team of Google.org Fellows, TalkingPoints has made strides in our ability to leverage AI technologies to support effective communication and stronger family-school partnerships among multilingual communities across the country. Just last year, we achieved 100 million messages exchanged on TalkingPoints, and the messages translated represented 99.8% of languages other than English spoken in the U.S. Now, we’re growing to help tens of millions of teachers and families successfully eliminate common barriers to supporting children's learning including language, time and more. We would not be able to achieve this level of reach and success without partners like Google.org taking the risk to invest.”

A few words with a Google.org Fellow: Open Food Facts

Mélanie Gancel, a Google.org Fellow with Open Food Facts.. — Mélanie Gancel, a Google.org Fellow with Open Food Facts.

Mélanie Gancel is a product marketing manager at Google who participated in a Google.org Fellowship with Open Food Facts, a food product database that lists ingredients, allergens, nutritional composition, and all of the information on food labels.

“I was born and raised in Paris in an urban environment, but have always felt a deep attachment to nature and desire to protect the environment. I’m always on the lookout for ways to align my job as a Product Marketing Manager on the Search team to work that will help people make more sustainable choices. So when I heard about the Google.org Fellowship with Open Food Facts, a recent grantee from the Google.org Impact Challenge on Climate, I was immediately on board. During my time with Open Food Facts, I’ve learned uncertainty around food choices is one of the main barriers to living more sustainably and that food accounts for more than a quarter of global greenhouse gas emissions. We’re helping them build an app that will give consumers a simple food eco-score to understand the environmental footprint of grocery store goods and make informed choices about how purchases affect the sustainability of the world around us.”

Source: The Official Google Blog

A Matter of Impact: June updates from Google.org

This week we wrapped up Pride Month, and while events looked a little different than usual, I was happy to still take part in virtual celebrations at Google and in my community. For me, Pride represents a time to celebrate progress, and also reflect on how much work is left to be done.

Like it has for so many marginalized groups, the COVID-19 pandemic has had a distinct impact on LGBTQ+ people. Research from The Trevor Project and BeLonG To, both Google.org grantees, shows that LGBTQ+ youth are experiencing more isolation, anxiety and loneliness than their straight and cisgender peers. A March 2021 poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation adds that LGBTQ+ adults have lost jobs and experienced mental health impacts at higher rates. And OutRight Action International found that these communities have been excluded from humanitarian interventions because of narrow definitions of family, binary gender classifications, biased staff and more.

That’s why, for Pride this year, our support was focused on inclusive recovery from COVID-19. In this month’s digest, we highlight these efforts that range from a new fund to help LGBTQ+ people in over 60 countries access basic resources to ongoing support for the Trevor Project’s use of AI to help with crisis intervention.

Of course, work for LGBTQ+ equality and inclusion doesn’t start and end with Pride month, and we will continue to support those who advocate for LGBTQ+ rights year round and across the world.

In case you missed it

As part of our cross-company celebration of Pride Month, Google.org granted $2 million to OutRight Action International’s “Covid-19 Global LGBTIQ Emergency Fund,” to help provide resources like food, shelter and job training to those in need. To further support advocacy for LGBTQ+ human rights globally and share critical community resources, we also provided $1 million each in Ad Grants to OutRight Action and the Transgender Law Center and the Transgender Legal Defense & Education Fund.

Hear from one of our grantees: Marsha P. Johnson Institute

Elle Moxley is the founder and executive director of the Marsha P. Johnson Institute (MPJI), an organization inspired by the famous activist, self-identified drag queen, performer and survivor. MPJI protects and defends the human rights of Black transgender people by organizing, advocating and creating an intentional community to heal, develop transformative leadership and promote their collective power.

“Last year, we created a Marsha P. Johnson Institute COVID-19 Relief Fund that received strong support from Google.org in the form of a $500,000 grant. The funding helped us provide one-time direct relief payments of $500 to BLACK transgender or non-binary identified people, furthering The Institute’s mission to support those most beyond the margins. Thousands of BLACK LGBTQ+ people from across the U.S. applied for the grant program and recipients spanned 40 U.S. states and also included Columbia, Puerto Rico and Mali.We’re so proud to be able to offer our own stimulus check, if you will, to BLACK transgender people from around the country. By the end of last year, we were able to donate over $250,000 to more than 500 individuals.”

A few words with a Google.org Fellow: The Trevor Project

Riley Wong is a machine learning engineer at Google. They recently completed their Google.org Fellowship with The Trevor Project.

"As a mental health advocate and community organizer for queer and trans people of color, working with The Trevor Project was an excellent opportunity to apply my background in machine learning, natural language processing, and language generation to benefit a community I care deeply about. Many queer and trans youth, especially those who are Black and/or trans-feminine, face unique challenges with accessing mental healthcare and support. Especially in the face of COVID-19, a lack of safe and stable home environments can exacerbate the need for crisis intervention and suicide prevention services for our communities. Collaborating with The Trevor Project and other Google.org Fellows was an extremely rewarding experience."

Read more about the project in this article from MIT Technology Review.

Source: Google for Nonprofits

A Matter of Impact: May updates from Google.org

While many countries appear to be rounding the corner on COVID-19, our global humanitarian crisis is far from over. India, Brazil, and other regions of Latin America are experiencing high levels of COVID-19 infections and deaths, propelled in part by inequities in vaccine distribution and healthcare infrastructure. In this month’s digest we share updates on our relief efforts in India and Latin America, as well as other projects happening around the world.

Lately, friends and family have asked me how they can most effectively contribute to global COVID-19 relief. In the short run, all generosity is needed and quickly getting resources to those who are affected should be the top priority. That’s why we’ve made it easyto donate vaccines and critical supplies through vetted charities. But recovery is a long process, so at Google.org we think about crisis response in three phases:

Responding to the immediate need. In this case, providing critical supplies — like rapid testing, protective equipment, and oxygen — to bend the COVID-19 curve.
Addressing the inevitable knock-on effects to family incomes that come from loss of life and work. Through our grantees, we’re directing support to cash assistance organizations, food relief, and other resources that help families stay afloat.
Supporting recovery and resilience. Crisis relief doesn’t stop when the headlines quiet down. When attention turns away, local organizations are often left struggling to rebuild and prepare for the next crisis. We’re focused on investing in technologies, like data monitoring about the disease spread, that will help organizations to react to this crisis and improve readiness for the next one.

We’ve still got a ways to go, but the global outpouring of support makes me optimistic that recovery and renewal lies near ahead.

In case you missed it

On May 26, Google.org and the Satcher Health Leadership Institute at the Morehouse School of Medicine announced the launch of the Health Equity Tracker (HET), a public facing data dashboard that displays and contextualizes health disparities facing communities of color throughout the U.S. Google.org also joined celebrations for Teacher’s Appreciation week. We continued our support for the DonorsChoose #ISeeMe campaign and matched donations up to $500,000 for projects created by teachers of color and projects from all teachers requesting culturally responsive and antiracist resources.

Hear from one of our grantees: DonorsChoose

Kristina Joy Lyles, Head of Equity & Impact at DonorsChoose

Kristina “Steen” Joye Lyles is the Head of Equity & Impact at DonorsChoose, an organization committed to a future where students across the country, particularly students of color from low-income households, have access to the resources they need to learn.

“This year, Teacher Appreciation Week sat at the crux of compounding crises: a heightened racial climate, the global COVID-19 pandemic, and exacerbated inequities in students’ access to continue learning amid school closures. Through teacher surveys, we learned that educators at schools in low-income communities or where a majority of students identify as Black, Latino or Indigenous were more likely to have been teaching fully remote all year, and that their students were having a harder time finding reliable internet access. With continued support from Google.org, we rallied funding around educators on the front lines, including teachers of color, to fund their most immediate classroom needs — from classroom basics to identity-affirming resources such as books and art supplies.

This Teacher Appreciation Week alone, Google.org’s support activated matching donations from the public to classroom projects for 1,500 teachers across 1,300 schools over the course of just three days, evidence of the necessary attention being given to address the equity gap during and beyond this pandemic.”

A few words with a Google.org Fellow: Gabriel Doss

Gabriel Doss, a Google.org Fellow with the City of Detroit

Gabriel Doss is a software engineer at Google who is participating in a Google.org Fellowship with the City of Detroit.

"As a native Detroiter, the pursuit of making my hometown a world-class city for its citizens is a mission that has been a consistent north star for me. When I heard that the Google.org Fellowship would endeavor to make affordable housing more accessible for Detroiters who need it the most, I knew that the Fellowship was something I wanted to be a part of. The most surprising thing I’ve learned is that our cohort of Google.org Fellows are working to solve a problem for Detroit that has never been approached in this way before. We consider it to be a huge responsibility and have set our expectations accordingly. We aren’t just delivering on an OKR, we’re working to deliver a product solution that will have sustainable impact."

Hear more about the project in Gabriel’s interview with Fox 2 Detroit.

Source: The Official Google Blog

A Matter of Impact: April updates from Google.org

Last week we celebrated Earth Day — the second one that’s taken place during the pandemic. It’s becoming clear that these two challenges aren’t mutually exclusive. We know, for example, that climate change impacts the same determinants of health that worsen the effects of COVID-19. And, as reports have noted, we can’t afford to relax when it comes to the uneven progress we’re making toward a greener future.

At Google, we’re taking stock of where we’ve been and how we can continue building a more sustainable future. We’ve been deeply committed to sustainability ever since our founding two decades ago: we were the first major company to become carbon neutral and the first to match our electricity use with 100 percent renewable energy.

While we lead with our own actions, we can only fully realize the potential of a green and sustainable world through strong partnerships with businesses, governments, and nonprofits. At Google.org, we’re particularly excited about the potential for technology-based solutions from nonprofits and social innovators. Time and again we hear from social entrepreneurs who have game-changing ideas but need a little boost to bring them to life.

Through programs like our AI for Social Good Initiative and our most recent Google.org Impact Challenge on Climate, we are helping find, fund, and build these ideas. Already they’re having significant impact on critical issues from air quality to emissions analysis. In this month’s digest, you can read more about some of these ideas and the mark they’re making on the world.

In case you missed it

Earlier this month, Google sharedour latest series of commitments to support vaccine equity efforts across the globe. As part of this, Google.org is supporting Gavi, The Vaccine Alliance, in their latest fundraising push with initial funding to help fully vaccinate 250,000 people in low and middle income countries, technical assistance to improve their vaccine delivery systems and accelerate global distribution and Ad Grants to amplify fundraising efforts. We’ve since kicked off an internal giving campaign to increase our impact, bringing the total vaccinations funded to 880,000 to date, which includes matching funds from Gavi. And in the U.S., we’ve provided $2.5 million in overall grants to Partners in Health, Stop the Spread and Team Rubicon who are working directly with 500 community-based organizations to boost vaccine confidence and increase access to vaccines in Black, Latino and rural communities.

Gavin McCormick, Executive Director of WattTime

Hear from one of our grantees: WattTime

Gavin McCormick is the Executive Director of WattTime, a nonprofit that offers technology solutions that make it easy for anyone to achieve emissions reductions. WattTime is an AI Impact Challenge grantee and received both funding and a cohort of Google.org Fellows to help support their work, particularly a project that helps individuals and corporations understand how to use energy when it’s most sustainable and allows regulators to understand the state of global emissions.

“Data insights powered by AI help drive innovative solutions — from streaming services’ content suggestions to navigation on maps. But they’re still not often applied to some of the biggest challenges of our time like the climate crisis. My organization harnesses AI to empower people and companies alike to choose cleaner energy and slash emissions. Like enabling smart devices such as thermostats and electric vehicles to use electricity when power is clean and avoid using electricity when it’s dirty. Now with support from Google.org, we’re working with members of Climate TRACE — a global coalition we co-founded in 2019 of nonprofits, tech companies and climate leaders — to apply satellite imagery and other remote sensing technology to estimate nearly all types of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions in close to real time. We can’t solve the climate crisis if we don’t have an up-to-date understanding of where the emissions are coming from.”

Alok Talekar, a Google.org Fellow with WattTime

A few words with a Google.org Fellow: Alok Talekar

Alok Talekar is a software engineer at Google who participated in a Google.org Fellowship with WattTime.

“I am a software engineer at Google and work on AI for social good with a focus on the agricultural sector in India. The Climate TRACE Google.org Fellowship with WattTime gave me the opportunity to change my career trajectory and work on climate crisis solutions full time. The mission that Gavin McCormick and team are pursuing is ambitious, and technology can help make it a reality. Over the course of the Fellowship, the team was able to use machine learning to process satellite imagery data of power plants around the world and determine when a particular plant was operational based on the imagery provided. I then helped the team to model and validate the bounds of accuracy of this approach in order to predict the cumulative annual emissions of a given power plant. I was proud to be able to contribute to the project in its early days and to be part of the core team that helped build this massive coalition for monitoring global emissions.”

Source: Google for Nonprofits

A Matter of Impact: March updates from Google.org

Despite decades of work to achieve gender equality, the disparities between men and women across education, income and economic opportunities persist. Not only that, but they are growing at an alarming rate due to COVID-19. Women have been almost 2x more likely to lose their jobs as a result of the pandemic, and girls are far less likely to return to schools once they reopen in person.

There are solutions that can help, but they’re underfunded. Data shows that only 1.6% of philanthropic funding goes to causes that focus on women and girls. Which is exactly why we need to direct more money toward solutions that put women and girls at the center.

We launched theGoogle.org Impact Challenge for Women and Girls earlier this month, which will provide $25 million in funding and Googler expertise to organizations that are creating pathways to prosperity for women and girls.

When women and girls have the resources and opportunities to turn their economic potential into power, it not only changes their lives, but also strengthens the well-being of entire communities. As we continue down the road to recovery and rebuild our global economy, we need bold ideas that will encourage, support and propel women forward—that’s what this Impact Challenge is all about.

Collage of women and girls from around the word — Check out g.co/womenandgirlschallenge learn more about the Google.org Impact Challenge for Women & Girls. Organizations have until Friday, April 9 to submit ideas. Grant recipients will be announced later this year.

In this update, we highlight initiatives we’re supporting to empower women and girls around the world. We can’t afford to stand on the sidelines when it comes to addressing these disparities; we have a collective responsibility to take action now.

In case you missed it

We recently announced a $300,000 grant to the Michal Sela Forum, an Israeli nonprofit using technology to put a stop to domestic violence against women. This funding will help establish a program called “Nothing about us without us,” which pairs survivors of abuse with technology experts to build products that promote safety and security, like apps that identify signals of abusive behavior or help victims document their experiences.

Mariana Costa Checa, CEO of Laboratoria, a Google.org grantee.

Hear from one of our grantees: Laboratoria

Mariana Costa Checa is the CEO of Laboratoria, an organization that helps women who haven't been able to start a professional career access quality jobs in Latin America's growing digital economy. Since its launch in 2014, Laboratoria has trained over 1,800 women and placed 79% of them in technology jobs in Latin America and abroad. Last year, Laboratoria received a $1 million Google.org grant to help more women start and grow careers in technology.

“2020 was a year of transformation. A year where instead of hopelessly waiting for things to go back to normal, we decided to make the most out of the changes brought to our operations and community. We set a north star for ourselves to become the best remote bootcamp out there, and have worked tirelessly to accomplish this vision. We have seen the power of building true connections amongst women from the south of Chile to the north of Mexico, despite the thousands of kilometers between them. We have managed to sustain +80% placement rates despite the unprecedented levels of unemployment around us, seeing our graduates become an economic backbone for their families and communities. At Laboratoria we dream of a Latin America where women are no longer the hardest hit by every crisis due to the underlying inequalities that persist. We want economies where the benefits of thriving sectors, such as tech, are equally shared by women.”

Ali Stanfield, a Google.org Fellow with the National Domestic Workers Alliance.

A few words with a Google.org Fellow: Ali Stanfield

Ali Stanfield is a software engineer who recently completed a Google.org Fellowship with the National Domestic Workers Alliance.

“I come from a family of healthcare workers. Watching my loved ones fight COVID-19 on the frontlines early in the pandemic fueled my desire to find a way to put my skills to use. Working alongside National Domestic Workers Alliance (NDWA), I learned about the severity of the economic crisis affecting domestic workers — over 2.5 million nannies, house cleaners, and care workers in the U.S.—many of whom had been laid off without notice. I was surprised and saddened to discover that technology was often a barrier to workers accessing desperately needed emergency relief funds. Our team of Fellows worked closely with NDWA and domestic workers to help NDWA build a platform that made it easy for people to receive direct cash assistance during this critical time of need. We were proud to help distribute over $30 million in funding to domestic workers across the U.S.”

Source: Google for Nonprofits

Google.org’s call for a better future for women and girls

When women and girls have the resources and opportunities to turn their potential into power, it changes the trajectory of their lives and strengthens entire communities. I’ve seen this play out first hand while living in India, where public health programs that put resources and decision-making in the hands of women drove much stronger outcomes for their families and villages. I’ve seen this in my own life, when bosses — both male and female — gave me stretch opportunities and bet on my leadership.

This is why I was excited to join our CEO Sundar Pichai to launch our globalGoogle.org Impact Challenge for Women and Girls at a Google for India Women Will event earlier this morning. We’re calling on ideas from nonprofits and social organizations around the world that are working to advance the economic empowerment of women and girls and create pathways to prosperity. Google.org will provide $25 million in overall funding and Impact Challenge grantees will receive mentoring from Googlers, Ad Grants and additional support to bring their ideas to life.

Since I started working in philanthropy over 20 years ago, I’ve seen women and girls around the world reach new heights and was thrilled when the United Nations made “gender equality and empowerment of all women and girls” one of its Sustainable Development Goals back in 2015. Still, women and men remain on unequal footing — and these inequalities have worsened in the wake of COVID-19. Globally, women are almost two times more likely to lose their jobs as a result of COVID-19, and in the U.S. alone women have lost over 5.4 million jobs, accounting for 55% of all 2020 net job losses. Women are also shouldering a disproportionate amount of unpaid domestic work, and an estimated 20 million girls around the world are at risk of not returning to school. Job cuts, income loss and lack of access to education will prevent the economic advancement of women and girls, particularly those from underserved communities, for generations to come.

These alarming realities require swift and powerful action. We have a collective responsibility to make sure that generations of women and girls from all walks of life can live in a world where they are treated equally and reach their full potential. Over the last five years, Google.org has given more than $55 million to nonprofit organizations that support gender equity and access to opportunity for women and girls around the world. We’ve also worked with grantees, such as the National Domestic Workers Alliance, Laboratoria and GiveDirectly, that are dedicated to the same cause. This new Impact Challenge will build on that work.

I’m honored to stand alongside our partners fromVital Voices andProject Everyone, as well as our phenomenal panel of experts, to elevate the critical work that is happening around the world. Our panel is composed of women leaders from more than 15 countries with a deep expertise in global public policy, advocacy, research, business, technology and more. They will help guide us as we select the ideas with the greatest potential for impact.

Google.org Impact Challenge for Women & Girls expert panel includes: Ai-Jen Poo: Director, National Domestic Workers Alliance, Caring Across Generations; Alyse Nelson: Co-Founder, President & CEO of Vital Voices Global Partnership; Amanda Gorman: Poet, Activist, & Author; Amika Geroge,: Student, Activist & Founder of Free Periods
2021 Google.org Impact Challenge for Women & Girls Expert Panel
Google.org Impact Challenge for Women & Girls expert panel includes: Carolyn Tastad: Group President – North America & Executive Sponsor Gender Equality, P&G; Dr. Fabiola Gianotti: Director-General of CERN; Dr. Rigoberta Menchú Tum: Nobel Peace Prize 1992; Prajakta Koli, YouTuber & Actor
2021 Google.org Impact Challenge for Women & Girls Expert Panel
Google.org Impact Challenge for Women & Girls expert panel includes: Graça Fonseca: Minister of Culture for Portugal; Graça Machel: Founder, Graça Machel Trust; Her Excellency, (DR) Adejoke Orelope-Adefulire: Senior Special Assistant to the President on SDGs; Hon Rona Ambrose: Deputy Chairwoman, TD Securities
2021 Google.org Impact Challenge for Women & Girls Expert Panel
Google.org Impact Challenge for Women & Girls expert panel includes: Jacquelline Fuller: VP and President, Google.org; Julia Kata: Vice President of Trans-Fuzja Foundation; Juliana Rotich: VP Strategic Partnerships, Boya Ltd Co-Founder, Ushahidi, BRCK; Kate Garvey: Co-found, Project Everyone
2021 Google.org Impact Challenge for Women & Girls Expert Panel
Google.org Impact Challenge for Women & Girls expert panel includes: Laura Berry: Chief Executive Officer, Supply Nation; Lisa Mensah: President & Chief Executive Officer Opportunity Finance Network; Lorraine Twohill: Senior Vice President, Global Marketing, Google; Mary Robinson: Former President of Ireland and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights
2021 Google.org Impact Challenge for Women & Girls Expert Panel
Google.org Impact Challenge for Women & Girls expert panel includes: Melonie Parker: Chief Diversity Officer, Google; Naomi Osaka: Athlete and Activist; Natalia Vodianova: Supermodel, Philanthropist, Impact investor and UNFPA Goodwill Ambassador; Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka: United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director of UN Women
2021 Google.org Impact Challenge for Women & Girls Expert Panel
Google.org Impact Challenge for Women & Girls expert panel includes: Saskia Niño de Rivera- Co-founder & Spokeperson of Reinserta A.C.; Shakira: Global Artist and Philanthropist; Susan Wojcicki: CEO YouTube; Taís Araújo: Actress, TV Host and Champion of Black Women's Rights for UNWomen Brazil
2021 Google.org Impact Challenge for Women & Girls Expert Panel

If you’re working on an innovative project that supports women and girls, or have a bold idea that will transform economic opportunities for women and girls, then check out g.co/womenandgirlschallenge to apply and learn more about the Challenge. Organizations have until Friday, April 9 to submit ideas, and grant recipients will be announced later this year.

Source: The Official Google Blog

Google.org’s call for a better future for women and girls

Google.org Impact Challenge for Women & Girls expert panel includes: Ai-Jen Poo: Director, National Domestic Workers Alliance, Caring Across Generations; Alyse Nelson: Co-Founder, President & CEO of Vital Voices Global Partnership; Amanda Gorman: Poet, Activist, & Author; Amika Geroge,: Student, Activist & Founder of Free Periods
2021 Google.org Impact Challenge for Women & Girls Expert Panel
Google.org Impact Challenge for Women & Girls expert panel includes: Carolyn Tastad: Group President – North America & Executive Sponsor Gender Equality, P&G; Dr. Fabiola Gianotti: Director-General of CERN; Dr. Rigoberta Menchú Tum: Nobel Peace Prize 1992; Prajakta Koli, YouTuber & Actor
2021 Google.org Impact Challenge for Women & Girls Expert Panel
Google.org Impact Challenge for Women & Girls expert panel includes: Graça Fonseca: Minister of Culture for Portugal; Graça Machel: Founder, Graça Machel Trust; Her Excellency, (DR) Adejoke Orelope-Adefulire: Senior Special Assistant to the President on SDGs; Hon Rona Ambrose: Deputy Chairwoman, TD Securities
2021 Google.org Impact Challenge for Women & Girls Expert Panel
Google.org Impact Challenge for Women & Girls expert panel includes: Jacquelline Fuller: VP and President, Google.org; Julia Kata: Vice President of Trans-Fuzja Foundation; Juliana Rotich: VP Strategic Partnerships, Boya Ltd Co-Founder, Ushahidi, BRCK; Kate Garvey: Co-found, Project Everyone
2021 Google.org Impact Challenge for Women & Girls Expert Panel
Google.org Impact Challenge for Women & Girls expert panel includes: Laura Berry: Chief Executive Officer, Supply Nation; Lisa Mensah: President & Chief Executive Officer Opportunity Finance Network; Lorraine Twohill: Senior Vice President, Global Marketing, Google; Mary Robinson: Former President of Ireland and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights
2021 Google.org Impact Challenge for Women & Girls Expert Panel
Google.org Impact Challenge for Women & Girls expert panel includes: Melonie Parker: Chief Diversity Officer, Google; Naomi Osaka: Athlete and Activist; Natalia Vodianova: Supermodel, Philanthropist, Impact investor and UNFPA Goodwill Ambassador; Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka: United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director of UN Women
2021 Google.org Impact Challenge for Women & Girls Expert Panel
Google.org Impact Challenge for Women & Girls expert panel includes: Saskia Niño de Rivera- Co-founder & Spokeperson of Reinserta A.C.; Shakira: Global Artist and Philanthropist; Susan Wojcicki: CEO YouTube; Taís Araújo: Actress, TV Host and Champion of Black Women's Rights for UNWomen Brazil
2021 Google.org Impact Challenge for Women & Girls Expert Panel

Source: The Official Google Blog

A Matter of Impact: February updates from Google.org

Editor’s note: Welcome to A Matter of Impact, Google.org’s monthly digest, where we highlight what the team’s been up to and spotlight some of the incredible nonprofits and Google.org Fellows helping solve some of society’s biggest challenges through technology and innovation.

It didn’t take long for the effects of COVID-19 to reveal a devastating, but predictable, truth: the pandemic has had an outsized impact on marginalized groups, especially people of color. At Google.org, we aim to bring the best of Google to support underserved communities. So when we made a $100 million grant and 50,000 pro bono hour commitment to support COVID-19 relief, we focused our efforts on addressing the compounding racial and social inequities of this crisis.

As we join forces to fight this pandemic, we must put equity at the center of our response and lift up our most vulnerable communities. Here you’ll find updates about our work that’s at the intersection of COVID-19 relief and equity and two themes that remain top priorities for us.

Equitable distribution of vaccines and health information

Data shows that COVID-19 affects people of color at much higher rates: about 71% percent of Black Americans and 61% of Hispanic Americans know someone who has died or been hospitalized from the virus compared to 48% of white Americans. Yet data also shows that Black Americans are getting vaccinated at lower rates than their peers. That’s why we have a team of Google.org Fellows working full-time with the Satcher Health Leadership Institute at Morehouse School of Medicine to help create a Health Equity Tracker to map and contextualize COVID-19 health disparities in communities of color throughout the U.S. We’re also committing $5 million in grants to organizations addressing racial and geographic disparities in COVID-19 vaccinations.

Support for minority-owned small businesses

Turning to the economy, reports have shown that 41% of Black-owned businesses — about 440,000 businesses — have shuttered due to COVID-19 compared to 17% of businesses owned by white people. To support minority business owners through the pandemic, we’ve supported Common Future with grant funding to provide capital and technical assistance to 2,000 women and minority small-business entrepreneurs in the U.S. We’ll also provide opportunities for Google volunteers to assist them with skill-based coaching and mentoring.

Read the rest of our Google.org updates below.

In case you missed it

Yesterday, leading academic organizations with support from a team of Google.org Fellows, shared the launch of Global.health, a data platform that helps model the trajectory of COVID-19 and future disease. Last month, we launched a Google.org Impact Challenge to help bridge the digital divide in Central and Eastern Europe, and announced $3 million in grants to help underserved communities in Kenya during a virtual summit with Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google and Alphabet, and H.E. Uhuru Kenyatta, President of the Republic of Kenya.

Watch this video on YouTube to learn more about the Global.health platform.

Hear from one of our grantees: Common Future

Rodney Foxworth is the CEO of Common Future, a network of leaders helping to build an economy that includes everyone. Last spring, Common Future received a $5 million Google.org grant to provide capital and technical assistance to women and minority small business entrepreneurs in the U.S.

Rodney Foxworth is the CEO of Common Future, a Google.org grantee.

“As we think about long-term COVID-19 recovery, we need to stabilize and uplift small businesses. Common Future, with support from Google.org, has been able to give grants to over 30 organizations that do just that. These entrepreneurial-support organizations (ESOs) that we supported serve roughly 2,000 small businesses across the U.S. — 76% of these organizations are run by people of color and 62% are run by women — and center on inclusive lending models. For example, a few organizations that we work with are pioneering character-based lending models, as many business-owners of color are excluded from the traditional banking sector due to traditional credit and collateral requirements.”

A few words with a Google.org Fellow: Colin Jackson

Colin Jackson is a product manager who recently completed a Google.org Fellowship with Satcher Health Leadership Institute (SHLI) at Morehouse School of Medicine.

Colin Jackson is a Google.org Fellow with Satcher Health Leadership Institute at Morehouse School of Medicine.

“I grew up Black in America, but I was raised by a white family. This gave me a unique perspective on health inequity. I spent a lot of time in hospitals as a child since my little sister was diagnosed with cancer when she was two years old. In the midst of that pain I very quickly became aware of the different ways I was treated in medical spaces when I was alone compared to when I was with my family. Helping develop SHLI’s Health Equity Tracker was such a natural fit for me, and the experience was deeply rewarding. I felt like I was returning to those hospitals I spent so much time in as a child, but this time with the power to make a difference.”

Source: The Official Google Blog

Our Housing First approach to homelessness in the Bay Area

In the California Bay Area, it’s estimated that there are more than 35,000 people who are homeless, making it the third largest region for homelessness in the country. The pandemic has only exacerbated this crisis.

Last year, we made a $1 billion commitment to accelerate the production of affordable housing in the Bay Area, and Google.org made a pledge to grant $50 million to community organizations working on the front lines. Google.org has since granted $7.75 million to nonprofits, to support more than 33,000 people with services like mental health care, food distribution and job training, and to house 9,000 of those individuals over the span of four years.

We know nonprofits need more support to keep fighting this growing crisis. So today we’re announcing $4 million in new grants to local organizations that are helping and solving homelessness for families, youth and vulnerable communities: Larkin Street Youth Services, Abode Services and Sunnyvale Community Services (SCS).

A Housing First approach

Going back to 2009, Google.org has given more than $24 million in grants to nonprofits that provide homeless services. During this time we've learned that the best way to help the homeless community is with a “Housing First” approach.

Historically, in order to access housing, people have been required to meet a certain criteria, including participating in programs like job training or drug rehab, before they were able to qualify for housing. This can be difficult for an individual living on the street, which can mean that they forgo programs that could help them. With a Housing First approach, people are provided with a stable place to live first—whether it’s emergency, short-term and long-term housing. Then, they receive other support such as mental health care, drug rehab, food assistance, or job training programs. Hamilton Families, a Google.org grantee that uses this support model, has seen 87 percent of program participants stay housed once their program support ends.

Two of today’s grantees, Larkin Street and Abode Services, have had particular success with this approach. This has been especially important during the COVID-19 pandemic, given the added risk of contracting the virus among people who are on the streets or in homelessness encampments. For example, Larkin Street and their partners secured a hotel in San Francisco to house homeless youth who have been deprioritized from housing waitlists.

With Google’s broader commitment to increasing the stock of affordable housing in the Bay Area, and more funding for nonprofits who follow the Housing First model, we’re hopeful we can be part of the solution.