Google.org

As many of you have heard, the internet giant Google has started a philanthropic wing to their organization. Here is their description of themselves from their website:

When Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin told prospective shareholders about Google, their vision included a commitment to devote employee time and one percent of Google's profits and equity toward philanthropy, with the hope of some day having greater impact than Google itself. Google.org is the philanthropic arm of Google and is the umbrella which includes the work of the Google Foundation, some of Google's own projects, as well as partnerships and contributions to for-profit and non-profit entities.

At google.org, we are looking to better understand the inextricable linkages among the changing environment, human health and global poverty. And we're also looking closely at innovative ways to detect the early warning indicators of disease outbreak, mass migration and other potential calamities affecting our increasingly crowded planet, so that the world's humanitarian resources will be in the position to best respond to minimize suffering. And we have some unique resources from the company in addition to money: innovative technology and most of all, the inspired community of Googlers.

We'll follow through on the other commitment — one percent of profit — by taking one percent of each year's profits and donating and investing that too. Our first step in meeting these commitments was a $90 million cash donation to establish the Google Foundation. In addition, we've announced our first three year target of up to $175 million in grants and investments across other google.org efforts.

While the results achieved by our grantees and partners are more important than the amount of money we give, we want to be clear about how we're going to keep those "one percent" commitments. There are two parts: equity and profit. For the one percent of equity, Google has committed one percent of the outstanding shares that resulted from Google's initial public offering; this amount began as 3 million shares. We have begun to donate and invest this amount and will continue over a period of up to 20 years. Because it is based on stock, the dollar value of this commitment will rise and fall with Google's stock price.