Google announced today more than $800 million in total funding to help businesses, health organizations, and governments weather through the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. CEO Sundar Pichai says the new financial grants will aid in providing small and medium-sized businesses with capital as well as offer free ad slots to health authorities in order to help disseminate information on the virus.
As part of that effort, Google is giving $250 million in ad grants to the World Health Organization (WHO) and more than 100 government agencies globally to help educate local communities on the proper ways of preventing COVID-19 from spreading. It also earmarked $20 million for community financial institutions and NGOs to run public service announcements on relief funds and other resources for SMBs, plus $200 million in investment funds for SMBs.
Businesses with active accounts with Google Ads over the last year will also receive credits which they can use across Google"s ad platforms until the end of 2020, courtesy of $340 million in funding. Academic institutions and researchers can also access Google"s computing power for free to support their studies on potential vaccines and ways to fight the virus, thanks to $20 million in Google Cloud credits.
Google is also working with its partner Magid Glove & Safety to produce 2 to 3 million face masks in the coming weeks for the CDC Foundation while employees from across Alphabet will combine their engineering, supply chain and healthcare capabilities to build ventilators. Plus, Google employees now have an increased annual gift match from $7,500 to $10,000, meaning they can give $20,000 to organizations in their communities.
These efforts complement Google"s recent efforts in the fight against COVID-19. Last week, it launched a coronavirus website to provide guidance and testing information to the public.