"It was as if someone had thrown an atomic bomb. Everything was destroyed." Fisherman Luciano Morales says this was the damage that Hurricane Maria brought his small Puerto Rican village of Punta Santiago. One of three residents who decided to stay back to protect his household and belongings, Luciano soon realized that a generator and gasoline weren’t enough to weather the storm, or “Mrs. Maria” as he called it. His home and belongings, along with most of the village’s infrastructure, turned to rubble.

Following the hurricane, GiveDirectly, a nonprofit that gives money to the poor, no strings attached, applied it’s model in response to Maria, and gave cash to Luciano and over 4,700 families, empowering them to solve their most pressing needs. 

Historically, following major disasters, charitable organizations and aid agencies supply bottles of water, sheets of drywall or any number of other goods and services that those affected may need. While this support can at times be critical, it’s impossible for a pre-set bundle of goods and services to meet the diverse needs of those affected by a disaster. Some people need life preserving pharmaceuticals that require refrigeration. Some have medical conditions that call for a very specific kind of diet. And some have jobs for which they’re paid only when they show up. It’s impossible to forecast every person or family's most pressing needs. 

Research on direct cash transfers has shown wide-ranging positive outcomes and immediate improvement on recipients’ lives. Affected individuals largely prefer it over traditional forms of aid—yet cash giving makes up a very small share of disaster response spending. 

Ahead of this year’s storm season, Google.org is contributing $3 million to GiveDirectly to support large-scale cash transfers when a natural disaster hits the U.S. The grant will allow GiveDirectly to support more than 2,400 low-income families and help them better understand how people like Luciano want to be helped during different points of the recovery process. A team of four Google.org Fellows is working full-time to combine government data on socioeconomic indicators and storm damage data into a single tool that will help GiveDirectly better identify and support the people most in need.

In a study published by GiveDirectly, the organization found cash transfers had a significant impact on the poorest populations following the 2017 hurricanes in Texas and Puerto Rico. Cash allowed families to expand their children’s nutritional intake, improve the quality of their homes, avoid debt, reduce stress and improve living conditions.

There are still important questions remaining about direct cash giving after natural disasters. Our collaboration with GiveDirectly on this work will be guided by some of these outstanding questions: How does the impact change if you give the cash several weeks after a disaster, as opposed to several months later, as was the case in the pilot study? Does giving money at different intervals have different impacts? Do large cash transfer programs impact the economy beyond individual recipients?

Crisis response has always been a key focus area of Google.org. We’ve supported communities and nonprofits on the front lines through immediate and long-term recovery via our products, technical volunteers and over $60 million in funding since 2005. With GiveDirectly, we look forward to evolving the way we respond to ensure that we’re providing support to those who need it most in times of crisis in the most effective, data-driven and efficient way possible.  

Editor’s note: Every June, Google.org hosts—a month-long campaign called GoogleServe to empower Googlers to volunteer in their communities around the world. This year more than 27,000 Googlers participated in GoogleServe, and Googlers have volunteered a total of X hours since the event first began in 2007. Today we hear from Brian Evans, a past attendee at one of our GoogleServe & Goodwill resume and interview prep events. 

In June 2018, I was just out of prison. I was looking for a job, but I had a criminal record hanging over my head. I did my time in the eyes of the state and had served my sentence, but others don’t always see it that way. Employers often have a bias against people like me. I needed work, but wasn’t getting it.  

I found Goodwill NOW, a program that works with people who have criminal histories to help them find full-time employment. People with the program suggested I sign up for a GoogleServe event, where Googlers were going to help with resume building and interview practice. 

I remember walking into the event. I was really nervous. I didn’t think it was a group I could fit in with—a bunch of highly educated people who had tech jobs with Google. But my perspective changed soon after I arrived. They started the event with an “ice breaker” where we were invited to simply get to know each other. I asked things like where they were from, what they do in their free time, what they care about. It made them human and relatable. After the ice breaker it didn’t feel as intimidating. It just felt like a bunch of people in a room, with more commonalities than we all knew at the start. 

Then we got to work. We sat down with Googlers and learned about what they were looking for in a resume. Many of us didn’t have a college education and feel that it really sets us back, but the volunteers were able to help us break down our experience and highlight what things stood out to them. Your resume is your first impression, so it really helped to have someone coach us on how to make it stronger and highlight what they found interesting about us. 

Next, we did mock interviews. We pretended as if we were going in to interview at Google. We learned about the handshake, how to make eye contact and how to make a good first impression. We learned about the kinds of questions we should be prepared to answer and what kinds of questions we should be prepared to ask. Before the clinic I didn’t know how important it was to ask the interviewer questions, too. 

After the clinic, I felt inspired. So I signed up for school and studied peer mentorship and criminal justice. Goodwill was impressed by my education pursuit and they invited me to apply to be a resource room coordinator. Before getting the job I had to interview with the VP of Goodwill. Never in my life have I been put in front of someone with so much power. Then I remembered what a Google volunteer said: “Just find a way to relate to your interviewer; find something in common.” 

They hired me. Since then, I’ve been promoted twice in one year and I’m now the lead peer mentor. This year, I helped to organize the same GoogleServe event that helped me when I was looking for a job. 

We can all succeed if we have ambition. I didn’t have schooling and lots of Googlers do, but the most inspiring thing a Google volunteer told me is that I had a chance. I believed them and put one foot in front of the other, made it through school and went into the interview with confidence. And here I am.

Editor’s note: Every June, Google.org hosts a month-long campaign called GoogleServe to empower Googlers to volunteer in their communities around the world. This year, more than 27,000 Googlers participated in GoogleServe, and Googlers have volunteered over 350,00 hours since the campaign first began in 2007. Today we hear from Brian Evans, a past attendee at one of our GoogleServe & Goodwill resume and interview prep events. 

In June 2018, I was just out of prison. I was looking for a job, but I had a criminal record hanging over my head. I did my time in the eyes of the state and had served my sentence, but others don’t always see it that way. Employers often have a bias against people like me. I needed work, but wasn’t getting it.  

I found Goodwill NOW, a program that works with people who have criminal histories to help them find full-time employment. People with the program suggested I sign up for a GoogleServe event, where Googlers were going to help with resume building and interview practice. 

I remember walking into the event. I was really nervous. I didn’t think it was a group I could fit in with—a bunch of highly educated people who had tech jobs with Google. But my perspective changed soon after I arrived. They started the event with an “ice breaker” where we were invited to simply get to know each other. I asked things like where they were from, what they do in their free time, what they care about. It made them human and relatable. After the ice breaker it didn’t feel as intimidating. It just felt like a bunch of people in a room, with more commonalities than we all knew at the start. 

Then we got to work. We sat down with Googlers and learned about what they were looking for in a resume. Many of us didn’t have a college education and feel that it really sets us back, but the volunteers were able to help us break down our experience and highlight what things stood out to them. Your resume is your first impression, so it really helped to have someone coach us on how to make it stronger and highlight what they found interesting about us. 

Next, we did mock interviews. We pretended as if we were going in to interview at Google. We learned about the handshake, how to make eye contact and how to make a good first impression. We learned about the kinds of questions we should be prepared to answer and what kinds of questions we should be prepared to ask. Before the clinic I didn’t know how important it was to ask the interviewer questions, too. 

After the clinic, I felt inspired. So I signed up for school and studied peer mentorship and criminal justice. Goodwill was impressed by my education pursuit and they invited me to apply to be a resource room coordinator. Before getting the job I had to interview with the VP of Goodwill. Never in my life have I been put in front of someone with so much power. Then I remembered what a Google volunteer said: “Just find a way to relate to your interviewer; find something in common.” 

They hired me. Since then, I’ve been promoted twice in one year and I’m now the lead peer mentor. This year, I helped to organize the same GoogleServe event that helped me when I was looking for a job. 

We can all succeed if we have ambition. I didn’t have schooling and lots of Googlers do, but the most inspiring thing a Google volunteer told me is that I had a chance. I believed them and put one foot in front of the other, made it through school and went into the interview with confidence. And here I am.