Google Offers More Than $800 Million to Support Small Businesses and Crisis Response
Google is pledging $800 million in relief funds to customers and health-care workers, joining a list of corporations providing money and materials to address the coronavirus pandemic.
The company on Friday announced a new $800+ million commitment to support small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), health organizations and governments, and health workers on the frontline of this global pandemic.
Alphabet's unit will offer $250 million 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 company's initial $25 million announced last month. In addition, Google is providing $20 million in ad grants to community financial institutions and NGOs specifically to run public service announcements on relief funds and other resources for SMBs.
Google also announced a $200 million investment fund that will support NGOs and financial institutions around the world to help provide small businesses with access to capital. As one example, Google is working with the Opportunity Finance Network in the U.S. to help fill gaps in financing for people and communities underserved by mainstream financial institutions. This is in addition to the $15 million in cash grants Google.org is already providing to nonprofits to help bridge these gaps for SMBs.
The company will make $340 million 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 Google's advertising platforms.
In addition, a pool of $20 million in Google Cloud credits will be available 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.
Google will aso offer direct financial support and expertise to help increase the production capacity for personal protective equipment (PPE) and lifesaving medical devices. The company is working with Magid Glove & Safety, with the goal of ramping up production of 2-3 million face masks in the coming weeks that will be provided to the CDC Foundation. 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 U.S. government in this effort.
In addition to these commitments, Google also increased the gift match the company offers every employee annually to $10,000 from $7,500. That means Google's employees can now give $20,000 to organizations in their communities, in addition to the $50 million Google.org has already donated.