We focus our work on the areas where we can have the largest impact.

Opportunity Finance Network’s mission is to lead Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI) and their partners to ensure that low-income, low-wealth, and other underserved people and communities have access to affordable, responsible financial products and services. Google.org has supported Opportunity Finance Network with $5 million to help fill gaps in flexible capital for people and communities underserved by mainstream financial institutions.

The Family Independence Initiative (FII) is empowering low-income families. Since 2015, the Family Independence Initiative has used over $2.5 million in Google.org grants to empower families to escape poverty. Their technology platform UpTogether helps low-income families access small cash investments, connect with each other and share solutions.

In 2019, six Google.org Fellows spent six months working full-time with FII using natural language processing to help make UpTogether’s data more useful in determining what leads to family success.

The Google IT Support Professional Certificate is an online program designed to prepare people for roles in IT support. Beginning learners can become qualified for an entry-level IT support role in just eight to 12 months.

To support Grow with Google’s mission to remove barriers to digital skills, Google.org funds need-based scholarships through leading nonprofits focused on underrepresented communities, including Year Up, Merit America, Per Scholas, Goodwill, the United Service Organization, and Upwardly Global.

Floods are the most deadly of all natural disasters. Flood forecasting and early warning systems can help individuals and authorities better prepare for impending floods to keep people safe. Google’s Flood Forecasting Initiative uses AI and advanced mapping capabilities to better predict the path of a flood which generates detailed alerts in Google’s online SOS and Public Alerts products.

Alerts save lives and livelihoods. Unfortunately, many of the most vulnerable in India do not have access to devices or to internet connectivity to receive them. Google.org is supporting nonprofits, including SEEDS, to build local capacity for flood preparedness, early warning and response- to ensure the benefits of powerful and accurate alerts can reach well beyond smartphones.

Understanding power plant emissions is a critical building block for a greener grid, but monitoring systems are often inaccessible or inaccurate - especially in emerging markets. With $1.7 million in funding and the support of eight Google.org Fellows, Google AI Impact Challenge grantee WattTime is building open-source AI models to quantify and predict carbon emissions from fossil fuel power plants around the globe using satellite data.

The Vera Institute of Justice is an organization working to improve justice systems by bringing transparency to jail population data. Although local jails are increasingly recognized as the “front door” to mass incarceration, justice system stakeholders and others historically have not had access to the necessary data to understand how their jail is being used and how it compares with others. To address this, Google.org granted Vera $4 million and a team of 12 Google.org Fellows to develop a local level prison data set and an accessible, interactive visualization portal, documented in People in Jail in 2019. With this new information, policymakers can begin to make choices that are better for their communities.

4-H is the country’s largest youth development organization, serving more than 6 million young people with STEM, agriculture, civic engagement, and healthy living learning. 4-H aims to empower young people to develop life skills to become leaders in their lives, careers, and communities.

With $6 million in support from Google.org, 4-H will provide meaningful computer science learning to more than one million youth over the next three years, with a focus on rural youth and populations that have traditionally had limited access to CS education. Googler volunteers have also dedicated over two thousand volunteer hours to 4-H chapters around the country mentoring young people as they learn CS.

While Black and LatinX students have equal interest in computer science (CS) education, they often face social and structural barriers to learning CS.

In 2019, we committed $25 million to increase Black and Latinx students’ access to computer science (CS) and artificial intelligence (AI) education across the US. As part of this commitment, Google.org has granted $5.68 million to The Kapor Center, to support their initiatives to improve educational equity through the creation of inclusive teaching practices, curriculum, and materials, as well as strategic student support in schools.

DonorsChoose makes it easy for anyone to help US public school classrooms in need, so every student in every community can get a great education, regardless of the economic status of their community. Teachers use the site to create projects requesting resources and experiences for their student’s needs, and donors give to the projects that inspire them.

Since 2012, Google.org has provided over $20 million in classroom project funding, helping more than 17,000 public school teachers, and ultimately benefiting one in 10 public schools in the US.

Hamilton Families is San Francisco’s leading service provider to families experiencing homelessness. They provide long-term housing solutions and programs to prevent homelessness, in addition to core programs of transitional and permanent housing programs.

Google.org has been supporting Hamilton Families since 2014, with over $2.3 million in funding and since 2015, over 200 Googlers have volunteered their time to support their efforts.

ACT-SO is shaping a generation of leaders who will have their own chance to make history. The program gives Black high school students – over 300,000 to date – a platform to bring their ideas to life, compete, and begin their journey to becoming leaders in STEM, humanities, business, and the arts.

Google.org Fellows work on solving a variety of challenges. For example, one team worked with the City of Boulder to help improve access to city services for low-income households and small businesses. Another team worked alongside the City of San Jose to help transition non-emergency calls from 911 to 311 to increase responsiveness for true emergencies, while a third worked with the City of San Francisco to help improve the permitting process for affordable housing projects.