In an announcement timed to coincide with International Women’s Day, Google.org on Monday issued a global $25 million challenge for nonprofits and social entrepreneurs working to empower women and girls economically.
The winners of the Google.org Impact Challenge for Women and Girls, which will be announced in the fall, will each receive $300,000 to $2 million, said Jacquelline Fuller, president of Google.org, the philanthropic arm of the search-engine giant.
In the past, Google.org has issued challenges on artificial intelligence, climate, and several state- and country issues. In addition to money, winners get access to experts at Google who can help them apply technology to their work. But Fuller said the winners don’t necessarily need to develop the next online app. The grant maker is looking for organizations that offer innovative approaches to problems that could use the assistance of Google and its employees.
The challenge was originally slated to happen last year, but the spread of Covid-19 put those plans on hold, as Google focused on responding to the spread of the disease. The pandemic’s grip has made the need to support women and girls more critical, Fuller said, noting that women have borne the brunt of job losses and continue to lag men in many measures, such as educational attainment and health.
“Women have been disproportionately impacted,” she said. “They’re taking on inordinate burdens outside of their work, which is causing them to drop out of the work force. We’re afraid those women might not come back.”
Funding Gap
The challenge is one of a number of efforts to address the paucity of philanthropic dollars earmarked to support women. According to a study conducted in 2019 by the Women’s Philanthropy Institute at Indiana University’s Lilly School of Philanthropy, only 1.6 percent of philanthropic giving went to nonprofits that promote women’s and girl’s causes in 2017, the most recent year for which complete data is available.
Noting the work of U.N. Women, the United Nations-created organization that deals with gender equality, and the 25th anniversary of the Beijing declaration for human rights for women last September, Fuller said she hopes to generate momentum that will result in more philanthropic support.
“We want to provide the funding, but we also want to lift up this topic and create more of a moment,” she said. “We want to use some of that Google spotlight to help draw attention.”
Other philanthropic efforts to support work that benefits women and girls include the Women Moving Millions “Give Bold. Get Equal” campaign to raise $100 million by the end of next year, and the $40 million “Equality Can’t Wait Challenge,” which was created by Melinda Gates’ investment firm Pivotal Ventures, MacKenzie Scott, and Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies. The challenge, which is managed by MacArthur Foundation spin-off Lever for Change, received 550 applications; 10 finalists were announced Monday.
“Gender inequality isn’t inevitable,” Gates said in a statement. “Solutions exist, but scaling them requires investment.”
If philanthropic grants don’t address the causes of gender inequality, they amount to “Band-Aid” solutions, says Elizabeth Barajas-Román, president of the Women’s Funding Network. For instance, she said, support for things like work-force training may help more women find jobs, but those job placements proved fragile in the time of Covid. In addition to training, philanthropy should consider whether the jobs come with access to child care and health care, whether the jobs pay a living wage, and whether they will continue during periods of disruption.
“If you’re not really addressing those deep, deep-rooted issues, when something like a pandemic happens, it just all crumbles,” she said. “What we saw over the past year is 10 years’ worth of women’s empowerment work just go down the drain.”
Troubled History
In the past year, Google has agreed to hundreds of millions of dollars in legal settlements relating to sexual-harassment and gender-discrimination claims. In September, the company agreed to a $310 million settlement that included changes in its policy related to sexual harassment and the creation of new measures meant to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion. Separately, in February the company agreed to pay $3.8 million in a settlement related to charges it discriminated in the hiring and pay of Asian and women engineers.
Barajas-Román, who spoke generally about corporate donors and did not know about the Google challenge, said companies often make philanthropic gifts to groups they have harmed in an attempt to repair damaged reputations.
If the company’s foundation seeks to include people with direct experience in the issues it is trying to address, and if the company follows through on the commitment, such gifts can provide great benefit, even if they are done to control damage, she said.
“There are really great organizations that can turn apology money into something that’s actually impactful,” she said.
Google.org’s Fuller stressed that a diverse group of leaders will help her organization decide which groups receive money. Members include Ai-jen Poo, executive director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance; 1992 Nobel Prize Laureate Rigoberta Menchú Tum; Mary Robinson, former president of Ireland and U.N. Commissioner for Human Rights; and Amanda Gorman, the first U.S. National Youth Poet Laureate.
She said all of Google.org’s grant making is separate from the company’s settlement requirements. The philanthropy’s $350 million in grant making this year is fueled by the 1 percent of equity and profits Google.com gives to its philanthropic arm each year. A company spokeswoman declined to say how much of the set-aside came from equity and how much was culled from profits.
Fuller said that the company is making progress in addressing the problems highlighted in the settlements.
“It’s a fair question to ask how is Google doing on representation,” she said. “That’s an area that we have really doubled down on because we realize even though we’ve made progress, especially in the area of more women in technology, we’ve got work to do.”
Philanthropy, particularly foundations with endowments greater than $1 billion, should also make some progress, she added.
“We need to see more women in leadership positions in philanthropy itself,” she said.
Applications for the challenge are due April 9.
