Google.Org Invests in Missing Middle

Rob Katz — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 07:54:42 -0500

January 18, 2008 - 07:00, New York Times

Google Offers a Map for Its Philanthropy

Story Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/18/technology/18google.html

Teaser:
The second initiative, called “the missing middle,” refers to the missing middle class in Africa and South Asia and the missing middle level of financing between microcredits and hedge funds.

Microcredit funds currently provide families with three or four or five days of livelihood, Dr. Brilliant said. “No country,” he said, “has ever emerged from poverty because of microcredit. Jobs make that possible. China did it with manufacturing, India did it with outsourced call centers.”

Google announced a plan on Thursday that begins to fulfill the pledge it made to investors when it went public nearly four years ago to reserve 1 percent of its profit and equity to “make the world a better place.” The beneficiaries of Google’s money range from groups that are fighting disease to those developing a commercial plug-in car.

The company’s philanthropy — Google.org, or DotOrg as Googlers call it — will spend up to $175 million in its first round of grants and investments over the next three years, Google officials said. While it is like other companies’ foundations in making grants, it will also be untraditional in making for-profit investments, encouraging Google employees to participate directly and lobbying public officials for changes in policies, company officials said.

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Google.Org Invests in Missing Middle