Google.org gives $2.35 million to groups fighting for racial justice
Google.org gives $2.35 million to groups fighting for
racial justice
Jessica Guynn, USA TODAY 5:43 p.m. EST November 3, 2015
SAN FRANCISCO — Google.org is giving $2.35 million in
grants to community organizations on the forefront of the racial justice
movement that has seized the nation's attention.
The technology giant's philanthropic arm chose
organizations in the San Francisco Bay Area taking on systemic racism in
America's criminal justice, prison and educational systems, says Justin Steele,
who leads Google.org's Bay Area giving efforts.
Steele says the grants are just the first for Google.org
as it seeks to address the Bay Area's growing economic gap that has only
widened during the technology boom.
"We hope to build on this work and contribute to
this movement for racial justice," Steele said in an interview.
The grants will be part of a "larger giving effort
over the course of the next year," he said.
Google is taking a rare public stand for a major
technology company.
The official announcement of the grants is scheduled
Tuesday evening at a screening of 3 ½ Minutes, 10 Bullets at San Francisco's
Castro Theatre. The documentary explores the shooting death of unarmed black
17-year-old Jordan Davis outside a gas station in Jacksonville, Fla., in 2012
by a white man Michael Dunn.
Google and other major technology companies are wrestling
with dismal track records of hiring and retaining women and minorities in their
workforces.
At Google, seven out of 10 employees are men and most
employees are white (60%) and Asian (31%). Latinos made up just 3% of the work
force, African Americans 2%.
The grants also come as technology companies and their
impact on rising property prices and income inequality has become a topic of
frequent and heated debate in the Bay Area.
"This is our home," Steele said. "We want
to support social innovators striving to make the Bay Area better for
everyone."
Steele says Google.org is targeting organizations with
deep community roots that are taking bold and innovative steps to create
"unexpected solutions to unmet needs" and eradicate "inequality
in systems holding people back from being able to participate."
Oakland's Ella Baker Center is receiving two grants of
$500,000. The first will support Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse
Cullors, a fellow with the center who is working with the ACLU on a police
violence reporting app. The second will go to the center's Restore Oakland
program to train the formerly incarcerated and low-wage workers to earn higher
wages in Oakland's burgeoning "foodie" and restaurant industry.
The Oakland Unified School District's pioneering African
American Male Achievement program, whose goal is to close the opportunity gap
for young black men, will receive $750,000 for career academies for high school
students with the goal of lifting graduation rates and admissions to four-year
colleges. Graduates receive a high school diploma in start-up entrepreneurship,
social innovation and civic engagement.
Silicon Valley De-Bug, a San Jose group that helps people
and their families navigate the criminal justice system and reduce sentences,
is receiving $600,000. The group says it has saved people from 1,800 years of
incarceration over the last seven years. With the new funding, it will form
partnerships with churches and other community groups to teach them how to
perform this kind of advocacy.
Google.org has been stepping up its grants to community
groups working on behalf of the homeless, youth, low income and other at-risk
people. Last year it gave $3 million to pediatrician Nadine Burke Harris'
clinic in the predominantly African American Bayview district of San Francisco
that scientifically linked childhood trauma such as neglect, abuse and exposure
to violence to lifelong ailments and risky behaviors.
This year during its Bay Area Impact Challenge, Google
handed out grants to The Reset Foundation, which is developing a model of an
alternative to prison for young adults and Essie Justice Group, which is
working to empower women with incarcerated loved ones.
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