14 DAY TRIAL // Google is feeling especially generous this time of the year and is announcing a couple of charitable initiatives. Google will be donating $20 million for several projects. At the same time, it also ran an interesting promotion with Chrome enabling users to have Google donate to their favorite charities on their behalf as long as they use the browser.
"We’re grateful for the millions of Google users who helped continue our success in 2010, and we want to do our part to help charitable organizations that are working tirelessly to meet increased need with decreased funding," Jacquelline Fuller, Director, Charitable Giving at Google, wrote.
"In this spirit, our global sales team led by Nikesh Arora is giving a $20 million holiday gift," she added.
The donation will help several projects including help pay for schooling for 15,000 kids in India. In several regions of Africa Global Strategies for HIV Prevention will provide health services and medication with Google's help. The money will also provide vaccines against polio for 50 million children.
Google is also making a donation to charities as chosen by Chrome users. Last week, users were able to install an extension which would enable them to pick their favorite charity.
They did this by "donating" their tabs, the more they used Chrome the more tabs they had to offer. Google will then donate up to $1 million to Doctors Without Borders, The Nature Conservancy, charity: water, Room to Read and Un Techo para mi País. Google will be announcing the results of the campaign this week.
In total, Google says it has donated $145 million to non-profits and academic institutions this year. When accounting for its own projects, like the ones run though Google.org as well as product support for non-profit organizations, the figure goes up to $184 million.
Google is also running an internal program which will match whatever employees are donating to the charity of organization of their choice, up to $12,000.