See how Google.org’s Ad Grants have helped nonprofits around the world over the past 20 years.
See how Google.org’s Ad Grants have helped nonprofits around the world over the past 20 years.
Google Registry celebrates the first anniversary of .day and announces collaboration with United Nation organizations using this domain.
Lauriane Giuranna is a Google Ads specialist, working with advertisers to make the best out of Google’s digital marketing tools. When she had the chance to use her skills to help gender equity nonprofits boost their visibility online, she immediately raised her hand. As part of a Google’s rotation program (an opportunity for employees to take a temporary role within a different team), Lauriane worked full-time for three months providing digital marketing support to select nonprofits. We chatted with her to hear more about the experience.
Tell us a little bit more about yourself.
In September 2019 — just after college — I joined Google in Dublin, Ireland as a Google Ads Specialist for the French Market. Outside of work, social impact has always been close to my heart. Before moving to Ireland I was volunteering to provide services to homeless and underserved communities in my hometown, Paris.
How have you used your role at Google to continue focusing on social impact?
One of the reasons I joined Google was its intrinsic commitment to social impact. Still, it surprised me to see the amount of opportunities I had to get involved in side projects that mattered to me and to have managers encouraging me to take them on. When the pandemic hit and domestic abuse reached new heights, I started supporting a French nonprofit that assists gender-based violence victims with their Google Ad Grants account, a program that donates ads on Google Search to eligible nonprofits.
Lauriane at the Google office in Dublin
Tell us more about the 3-month rotation and why it was focused on gender equity.
Gender equity is a matter of human rights and global prosperity and over time, we’ve seen a growing interest in the topic on Google Search. Last year, Google.org announced the 34 recipients of the $25 million Google.org Impact Challenge for Women and Girls. Google realized the need to help gender equality organizations promote online content and boost their visibility to help people in need find trusted information. Google.org worked with a few select Impact Challenge recipients to provide additional support on Google Ad Grants.
What was your day-to-day work like during the rotation?
I focused on 10 women and girls organizations. I set up campaigns and looked into metrics to improve and optimize performances. I also hosted office hours and delivered more than 15 hours of product training for 20 nonprofits professionals to use Google Ad Grants. I wanted to make sure the nonprofits could continue to use the product successfully.
Can you share an example?
I worked with Girls Inc. of NYC, an Impact Challenge recipient on a mission to deliver life transforming programs so that girls and women can thrive. When I first met with Lily Chang, chief development officer, we defined the marketing plan and set some measurable goals, like increasing newsletter sign-ups. Girls Inc. of NYC had never used Ad Grants before and leveraged our Google technical team to implement conversion tracking. We then built and tested several campaigns to reach more supporters across the U.S. The impact is tangible — the website traffic has doubled and almost 20% of newsletter sign-ups and 9% of donations now come after a click on an ad.
You accomplished a lot in three months! What was the personal impact on you?
I developed skills that gave me a good steer on my career growth. I would love to continue working with nonprofits and I now feel much more prepared.
To learn more about Google’s product giving and Google.org, visit google.com/nonprofits and google.org.
Digital skills are a key part of many jobs and are crucial for helping small businesses grow. But with the hustle of daily life, many of us struggle to find the time to learn valuable new skills that could help with landing a new job, earning more money or growing a business.
That’s why we’ve asked for advice from four people who’ve done this before: presenter and former footballer Ian Wright, entrepreneur and Dragon’s Den investor Steven Bartlett, finance professional turned YouTuber Patricia Bright, and founder of notonthehighstreet.co.uk Holly Tucker. Based on their experiences with switching careers or starting a business by learning a new skill, they’ve helped us create Skills to Go, a free, bitesize digital skills training programme.
You can complete the short training sessions, which range from five to 20 minutes, as and when you have time — while commuting, over a coffee break or in between appointments. Our Skills to Go site suggests relevant topics — including CV writing, changing careers and growing a business online — based on how much time you have to spare.
We’ve built this programme in response to new data from YouGov that reveals that lack of time is the number one barrier stopping people from learning skills that could take their careers and businesses to the next level. And it’s a very real need: in the UK, more than 90% of people are online, yet fewer than half of businesses have a website. Businesses struggle to recruit people with digital skills; the digital skills gap accounts for 30% of unfilled vacancies, and costs the UK economy £63 billion per year.
Our new Skills to Go campaign is just one of the ways that we’re working to help address the nation’s skills shortage. Since launching our first digital skills training programme in Leeds in 2015, we’ve visited more than 500 locations up and down the country, and have provided digital skills training to more than 800,000 people in the UK. We offer individuals and business owners opportunities to, for example, take part in one-to-one mentoring sessions or learn about digital marketing to help them advance their careers or boost their businesses. This year, we’re visiting more than 30 locations, such as Newport and Cambridgeshire, to help people learn new skills and get Britain growing.
Of course, we can’t do this alone. Earlier this year, alongside a number of top UK employers including the BBC, BT Group, Deloitte, John Lewis Partnership and NatWest, we announced our Employer Consortium, which recognises Google Career Certificates when recruiting for much-needed tech roles, providing an accessible path for Brits into high-growth, well-paid tech jobs.
Everyone should have the opportunity to gain digital skills regardless of their location, race, age, gender or education level. That's why we’re supporting Good Things Foundation’s work with 1,500 community organisations across the UK, which supports up to 25,000 people from underrepresented communities to get online and learn essential digital skills.
These are all part of our efforts to make it easier than ever for you to gain new skills, wherever you’re at in your career. So the next time you have a spare five minutes, search ‘Google Skills Training’ to learn from business experts like Stephen, Holly and Patricia and boost your business or career.
Editor’s note:Today’s post is authored by Brandon Nicholson, PhD, an Oakland, California native and the founding Executive Director of The Hidden Genius Project, a Google.org grantee. Brandon has dedicated his life to promoting equity in the public realm, particularly in the education space.
The mission of The Hidden Genius Project is to train and mentor Black male youth in technology creation, entrepreneurship and leadership skills to transform their lives and communities. Our vision is to be a global leader in this work and an incubator of dynamic young technologists (who we call Geniuses). Through our comprehensive support model, starting with our 15-month Intensive Immersion Program, The Hidden Genius Project works to bolster both workforce development as well as youth-driven leadership, resulting in stronger economies and more equitable communities.
Today, The Hidden Genius Project received a $3 million Google.org grant to expand our program to two additional cities and reveal hundreds of more Geniuses. This will afford us the resources to join arms with a broader array of communities to support and elevate the potential of our Black boys and young men.
We first connected with Google.org in 2015, when we were a finalist for the Google.org Bay Area Impact Challenge. I thought it was a long shot, but taking the risk of applying has opened up many pathways for us. After we found out we received funding, we partnered with TEAM Inc. to create the Tech Slam series, a program that introduces youth to the intersection of sports and technology. We have since hosted a dozen Tech Slam events across three continents.
Fast forward seven years and nearly 8,500 young people served globally, the impact of our work became clear when some of our Genius alumni recently visited Google’s Bay Area campus. These young men first visited Google as high school students, where they were closely coached through the experience. This time, they were confident, rising entrepreneurs capable of commanding a room.
Alumni and staff from The Hidden Genius Project met with Googlers during a recent event.
Young men like Sir McMillan (from our inaugural Los Angeles cohort) pitched their business ideas to Google CEO Sundar Pichai. Sir bounced marketing ideas for his business off Google CMO Lorraine Twohill, and he and his Genius brothers shared their thoughts on Android OS with Hiroshi Lockheimer, Senior Vice President of Platforms & Ecosystems. The experience signaled the richness of our progress over the past decade. We’re so excited to see where we go next.
Our alumni will continue to drive our organization forward — not only through their accomplishments, but also through their direct contributions as educators, mentors and ambassadors. For example, our alumni have served as the primary content facilitators for all our Tech Slam events, regularly inspiring others around the world, including each other. Kyron Loggins (from our fourth Oakland, California cohort) shares, “From student to alumni to employee, it’s just great to be able to experience this growing and scaling because it’s such a positive thing for the community of Black people everywhere.”
Looking ahead, and as we celebrate our 10-year anniversary, we now have the opportunity to expand to new communities. And we are fortunate to be able to lean on a wide range of supporters — including our alumni and funders — to ensure our success.
July 29 is Global Tiger Day, a celebration of the majestic big cats that play a critical role on our planet and serve as cultural and spiritual icons for millions of people. Tigers are influential predators, key to maintaining healthy ecosystems that supply both people and the environment with fresh water, food and health.
Global Tiger Day was founded in 2010, when 13 tiger-range countries (the countries where tigers live in the wild) came together with a goal to double the number of wild tigers in the world — perhaps the most ambitious recovery effort for a single species. World Wildlife Fund (WWF) has partnered with Google Registry to launch the .day domains tiger.day and endangeredspecies.day, to drive attention to this urgent cause.
The team at WWF imagines a world where wild tigers are recovering and thriving. So, how do we get there?
After a century of decline, overall wild tiger numbers in Asia are starting to trend upward, thanks to the passionate work of many advocates. But there’s so much more to be done.
Tiger recovery is possible when governments, communities, conservation organizations and others work together. Visit tiger.day to learn how you can help protect wild tigers. Because protecting wild tigers protects so much more than just this iconic species.
Tigress and cub (Panthera tigris) in Ranthambore Tiger Reserve, India.
© Shutterstock / Bhasmang Mehta / WWF-International
Since inception, Google has innovated with technology to narrow the opportunity gap that exists in education, access to information, job mobility and more – for people around the world. We believe sustainable economic growth is only possible when there is inclusive growth, so we work to equip people with the skills needed to participate in the digital economy.
Grow with Google, our digital skills training program, has trained 94 million people around the world, and more than 800,000 people in the U.K. From Grow with Google, we launched Google Career Certificates, which provides job seekers with accessible paths to careers in high-growth sectors, including data analytics, IT support, project management, user experience design and digital marketing. Seventy-eight percent of U.K. Certificate graduates report seeing a positive impact on their career within six months, including a raise or a new job.
Today, we are announcing the creation of a UK Employer Consortium – a group of employers, including the BBC, BT Group, Deloitte and John Lewis Partnership, that will consider those who have earned the Certificates for jobs. We know one entity acting alone will never be as effective as many coming together, and we have long been committed to partnering with others. For example, we’ve worked with organizations like the Department for Work and Pensions and The Prince’s Trust to offer 10,000 scholarships to job seekers to help them complete a Certificate, and beginning today we will be making another 10,000 scholarships available.
We believe the Consortium will play an important part, alongside the U.K.’s focus on higher education, in building a digitally skilled workforce and filling the growing number of open technology roles in the country. Almost half of U.K. employers have reported they are struggling to recruit for digital roles, and the Certificate fields have been chosen specifically in response to the high numbers of open positions in those areas.
Ousman, a Certificate graduate, speaks to members of the Employer Consortium
Google is committed to helping employers from across the U.K. meet amazing people like Jelena Stephenson, who I was fortunate to speak with last year when I met some of the first people in the U.K. to take part in our Certificates program. Jelena worked for 15 years as a teacher in Serbia. After her husband was diagnosed with leukemia, they decided to move to London, where she quickly found that despite her strong background in education, she was unable to get a job as a teacher. After receiving a scholarship for the Googler Career Certificate in Project Management, Jelena regained the confidence she had lost while out of work, and found a role as a digital project coordinator.
I have been proud to see first-hand the progression of our program in the U.K. and the impact it has had on people like Jelena. We look forward to further evolving our program as we continue to build the UK Consortium and connect growing businesses with talented jobseekers.
As a father of three young girls, I often think about how I can make the most of the time spent with my children. Balancing the professional demands that come with being a working parent with helping my kids navigate life as they grow up often feels like a juggling act. I know I’m not alone in this experience.
So this Father’s Day, our Google Registry team is shining a light on the parenting website Fatherly, plus other resources aimed at parenting, and especially fatherhood. When Google Registry launched the .day top-level domain (TLD) earlier this year, our team partnered with Fatherly to give them the fathers.day domain. Fatherly is now using fathers.day to bring attention to all kinds of fatherhood-related resources and stories, like this article about The Science Of Dad And The “Father Effect” — a helpful reminder of just how important it is to stay engaged and present with your kids.
To help more families and fathers, we’re sharing this list of nonprofits that you and your family can consider donating to this Father’s Day:
Do you have a day that you want to celebrate or bring attention to? Get your own .day domain name by visiting new.day. And don’t forget to visit fathers.day for more great fatherhood-related content and resources.
Native Americans/American Indians, Alaska Natives and Native Hawaiians make up 2% of the U.S. population, yet large philanthropic foundations allocate less than half a percent of their total annual grantmaking towards Native communities, according to Native Americans in Philanthropy.
The Native Ways Federation (NWF) is working to change this disparity. Founded in 2008 by seven national, Native-led nonprofit organizations, the NWF unites the Native nonprofit sector, advocates for Native nonprofits and provides resources to educate people on the needs of Native communities. On May 20, NWF is launching their inaugural Native Nonprofit Day to drive awareness for Native-led nonprofits that are systematically underfunded. To help celebrate this initiative, they’ve partnered with the Google Registry team to register and use the domain NativeNonprofit.day, which anyone can visit to learn about and support Native nonprofits.
Initiatives like Native Nonprofit Day play an important role in building awareness and amplifying the voices of Native people. As a citizen of the Oneida (Onyota’a:ka) Nation of Wisconsin and a lead for the Google Aboriginal and Indigenous Network (GAIN), I see so many inspiring Indigenous organizations that are doing impactful work, but these groups and their efforts are sorely underrepresented in mainstream media. That’s why I hope everyone will take a moment today to visit NativeNonprofit.day to learn more about the NWF’s efforts, and other Native-led organizations that are doing critical work to support Native communities.
At Google, we’ve also launched several initiatives to support Native communities. Google.org recently announced a $10 million grant to the National Digital Inclusion Alliance to provide vocational internet training to thousands of rural and tribal communities.
Grow with Google made a $1 million investment in Partnership with Native Americans to provide digital skills curriculum and career services to 10,000 students at more than 50 Native-serving organizations. This program will also reach high school students preparing for college and careers, as well as vocational and non-traditional students.
If there’s an initiative or special day you want to raise awareness for, you can get your own .day domain name by visiting new.day.