Google Unveils Philanthropy Plan Valued at Nearly $1-Billion.

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Author: Wilhelm, Ian

After several years of quiet meetings with nonprofit officials, scholars, and other informal philanthropic advisers, the Google company this month shed light on its charitable ambitions by announcing it will spend $175-million to support social causes during the next three years, as well as put $90-million into a foundation the company is creating.

Google also pledged to use the value of 1 percent of its annual profit and 1 percent of the company's stock--3 million shares, worth roughly $900-million--during the next two decades to support its philanthropic efforts, which are known collectively as Google.org.

Google.org will focus on fighting global poverty and solving energy and environmental problems, said Sheryl Sandberg, Google's vice president of global online sales and operations. The two social issues "are broad enough that we feel we can have an impact on some of the world's biggest problems," she said.

Ms. Sandberg, who is shepherding the Mountain View, Calif., company's philanthropy until an executive director for Google.org is hired, also said the two grant-making areas are ones in which technology can play a role and that reflect the personal passions of Google's co-founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin. "They want to take what is special to Google and help make the world a better place," she said.

The Google Foundation has made several commitments already, including $5-million to the Acumen Fund, in New York, to assist small businesses in impoverished countries.

Currently the foundation is not accepting grant applications, Ms. Sandberg said.

While the company has promised hundreds of millions of dollars to combat social ills, not all of it will support nonprofit groups. Ms. Sandberg said Google may use the $175-million it pledged--as well as the other commitments--to invest in companies and investment funds that produce a social benefit. "We wanted to give ourselves the flexibility to take any approach that we think will have the highest return," she said.

Ms. Sandberg did say that the Google Grants program, which has provided $33-million worth of free advertising to Doctors Without Borders, the Make-A-Wish Foundation, and 848 other charities, will most likely be included as part of Google.org's work.

Google's approach drew praise from nonprofit officials.

The company is "not simply putting a block of money aside in a vault and doling it out through a standard grants process, although there's nothing necessarily wrong with that," said Peter Hero, president of the Community Foundation Silicon Valley, in San Jose, Calif., who has been an informal adviser to the company.

Bruce W. McNamer, president of TechnoServe, in Norwalk, Conn., which received $500,000 from Google to help entrepreneurs in Ghana, said the company's support has had the unexpected benefit of publicizing the charity's work among Africans. "Google is a worldwide brand," he said.

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By Ian Wilhelm