Google Asks Users To Help Fight Ebola — And They Answer With Cash
When you think philanthropy, Facebook and Google don't usually come to mind.
But maybe in your travels across the Internet this week, you notice that both companies placed banners ads on their pages asking you to help end the Ebola epidemic in West Africa.
Google pledged to match every dollar donated by its users with $2. The company has already reached its limit of $7.5 million — $5 million from Google and $2.5 million from donors.
It's the first time Google has asked its users for money to support a cause. Separately, Google CEO Larry Page also donated $15 million of his own money through his family foundation.
Google CEO Larry Page.
The campaign is a product of Google.org, its philanthropic non-profit arm. The money will be divided between Doctors Without Borders, International Rescue Committee, Partners in Health and Save the Children, by way of the online fundraising platform Network for Good.
The company also donated $10 million to a broader list of nonprofits battling Ebola, according to the company blog.
Google.org Director Jacquelline Fuller spoke with NPR's Rachel Martin to explain the thinking behind the matching campaign.
Interview Highlights
On Google choosing Ebola treatment as the first cause to ask for donations
The thing with Ebola is that we're seeing that, globally speaking, it's underfunded, and the public has not yet responded in ways that we saw in the past with things like the Haiti earthquake. So we thought, you know what, let's make it easy for the general public to learn a little bit more about Ebola and to give, if they want to.
On the non-profits Google chose to help
Whenever we fund, we always look and see if there are specific technologies, or new, innovative approaches that can be tried. In this crisis, for the first time, we are also sending a team of our engineers to go work directly with Doctors Without Borders to help develop mobile tools that help with ... contact tracing and that sort of thing.
On potential future causes for Google to support
We ask ourselves a series of questions ... Could Google make a differential impact? Do we have a unique role to play? Is there something that we can add that otherwise just wouldn't be done? Because if others are going to step to the front and do it, we can certainly just step back and let them do it. ... It doesn't necessarily follow a logic train. Sometimes you'll see governments and the major international NGOs stepping up in a big way, and sometimes you'll see something like Ebola, where you think, wow, the global response has not really been commensurate with the need.
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Transcript
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:
A surgeon from Sierra Leone, who contracted Ebola there, has arrived in the United States for treatment at the Nebraska Medical Center. As the virus continues to spread, Google has decided to help out by asking its users for money. Something the tech giant has never done before. Specifically, Google said it would match each dollar donation to the Ebola crisis with two of its own. And last week, Google met its matching limit, $7.5 million.
Jacquelline Fuller is the director of Google's philanthropic organization google.org. And she says the company stepped in because the rest of the world hasn't stepped up.
JACQUELLINE FULLER: The thing with Ebola is that we're seeing that globally speaking, it's underfunded. And the public has not yet responded in the ways that we saw in the past with things like the Haiti earthquake. So we thought, you know what? - let's make it easy for the general public to learn a little bit more about Ebola and to give if they want to.
MARTIN: You've now raised $7.5 million for Ebola. Can you talk a little bit about where specifically the money is going to?
FULLER: Well, one thing that's been interesting for us, whenever we fund, we always look and see if there are specific technologies or new, innovative approaches that can be tried. And in this crisis, for the first time, we're also sending a team of our engineers to go work directly with Doctors Without Borders to help develop mobile tools that help with - within the clinics that help with contact tracing; that sort of thing.
MARTIN: What does contact tracing mean?
FULLER: Well, anytime someone's sick and has been diagnosed, you need to find out, as soon as possible, every single person that they've been in contact with so you can go warn those people, and test them, and see if they've been infected as well.
MARTIN: I mean, I imagine that there would be all kinds of organizations and charities that would love if Google adopted their cause for a day and asked for donations. How are you going to go about deciding when to engage this way?
FULLER: Well, we ask ourselves a series of questions. But the first one is really could Google make a differential impact? Do we have a unique role to play? Is there something that we can add that otherwise just wouldn't be done? Because if others are going to step to the front and do it, we can certainly just, you know, step back and let them do it. And what you see, it's interesting. It's not - it doesn't necessarily follow a logic train. Sometimes you'll see governments and the major international NGOs stepping up in a big way. And sometimes you'll see something like Ebola where you think, wow, the global response has not really been commensurate with the need.
MARTIN: Jacquelline Fuller is the director of google.org. Thank you so much for talking with us, Jacquelline. We appreciate it.
FULLER: Thanks, Rachel. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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