“Someday this institution may eclipse Google itself in terms of overall world impact.”
-Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page in 2004

January 17, 2008 —

The first round of grants awarded by Google's "DotOrg" charitable organization has  been announced. In total, $175 million will be doled out worldwide to charities and research projects in the next three years, across five areas of philanthropy:

Disease and disaster prevention; improving the flow of information to hold governments accountable in community services; helping small and medium-size enterprises; developing renewable energy sources that are cheaper than coal; and investing in the commercialization of plug-in vehicles.

Google had already developed a reputation as one of the world more socially conscious corporations, but until now it has focussed mostly on responsible, forward-thinking business practices rather than philanthropy. An investment in renewable energy [5] technologies totaling several hundred million dollars was announced in November, drawing criticism from some shareholders who felt that such expenditures should be the role of Google.org, not the Google Inc.