USA – According to a post by Sundar Pichai, CEO, Google is announcing a new over $800m plan to support small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), health organizations and governments, and health workers on the frontline of this global pandemic.
The commitment includes: – $250m in ad grants to help the World Health Organization (WHO) and more than 100 government agencies globally provide critical information on how to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and other measures to help local communities. This is an increase from the initial $25m announced last month. In addition, the company is providing $20m in ad grants to community financial institutions and NGOs specifically to run public service announcements on relief funds and other resources for SMBs. – A $200m investment fund that will support NGOs and financial institutions around the world to help provide small businesses with access to capital. This is in addition to the $15m in cash grants Google.org is already providing to nonprofits to help bridge these gaps for SMBs. – $340m in Google Ads credits available to all SMBs with active accounts over the past year. Credit notifications will appear in their Google Ads accounts and can be used at any point until the end of 2020 across our advertising platforms. – A pool of $20m in Google Cloud credits for academic institutions and researchers to leverage Google’s computing capabilities and infrastructure as they study potential therapies and vaccines, track critical data, and identify new ways to combat COVID-19. – Direct financial support and expertise to help increase the production capacity for personal protective equipment (PPE) and lifesaving medical devices. Additionally, employees from across Alphabet, including Google, Verily and X, are bringing engineering, supply chain and healthcare expertise to facilitate increased production of ventilators, working with equipment manufacturers, distributors and the government in this effort. In addition to these commitments, the company has also increased the gift match Google offers every employee annually to $10,000 from $7,500. That means our employees can now give $20,000 to organizations in their communities, in addition to the $50 million Google.org has already donated. 29/03/2020
