Google foundation announced
Howard Lake | 18 October 2005 | News
Search engine company Google is to put its oft-mentioned corporate philosophy of “do no evil” further into practice with its announcement that it has set aside $90 million to create a charitable foundation.
The foundation’s objectives will be to relieve poverty and advance energy and environmental causes. The company promised in its IPO prospectus in 2005 to donate “approximately 1 per cent of Google’s equity and profits in some form” to a charitable foundation.
The foundation has already made some financial commitments but is not soliciting applications at present.
Google the company has also pledged to provide $175 million to support the foundation over its first three years.
The foundation will be part of Google.org, which is the umbrella title for Google’s philanthropic work. This includes the foundation, the Google grants programme (which donates free advertising space to nonprofits), some of Google’s own projects using Google staff and technology, and other partnerships to benefit nonprofit organisations.
Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page are the latest technology entrepreneurs to create a charitable foundation using some of their personal or corporate wealth. Pierre Omidyar, founder of eBay, has set up a similar network to benefit nonprofit activity at omidyar.net.
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About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.