When everyone has the chance to succeed, we all prosper
That’s why Google.org supports organizations that use technology and innovation to power an economy in which more people have an opportunity to thrive.
Opportunity to Succeed
The challenge
The global economy has seen positive growth every year since 2010 but, for many, good job opportunities remain out of reach. Across most developed economies, inequality has grown while an aging workforce means productivity could slow. With a changing economy demanding an increasingly skilled and technical workforce, it’s critical to ensure that every worker has the tools and resources they need in order to thrive.
Two-thirds of European countries
have seen a steady decline in the middle class since the late 2000s.1
Our focus
We support nonprofits that work to help disadvantaged communities achieve economic independence through new approaches to building skills and accessing the labor market.
Our work
Helping prepare for the future of work
The nature of work is changing - whether it’s through the rise of the gig economy, technological advances, or demographics. Both workers and workforce development organizations need better access to digital skills and tools to help them adjust to the evolving ecosystem.
To help support these efforts, Google.org has committed more than $50 million to fund research and development projects to better understand how work is changing and identify new solutions. Additionally, we’re investing in traditional job training organizations to help them prepare themselves and their workers for tomorrow’s middle-skill jobs.
Up to one-third
of people in developed economies may need to learn new skills for different jobs by 2030.2
Helping people across America access opportunity through digital skills
View Goodwill Industries International
Designing new portable safety net benefits for low-wage workers
View The Workers Lab
Rewiring the labor market through skills-based hiring and talent financing
View Opportunity@Work
Using AI to enable everyone to find a job that matches their skills
View Chance
Enabling learning opportunities in the gig economy
View OpenClassrooms
Transforming South Bend into a model city of lifelong learning
View The Drucker Institute
Empowering the most marginalized communities through direct cash transfers
View GiveDirectly
Understanding and improving the social safety net for freelance workers
View The Aspen Institute Future of Work Initiative
Researching how to make the Earned Income Tax Credit work for more people
View The Economic Security Project
Creating a data driven platform that will enable people to pursue new employment pathways in Canada.
View MaRS Discovery District
Conducting research and experimentation on thriving in a digital economy
View MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy
Enhancing opportunity youth employment opportunities through soft-skills assessments and credentialing
View Southern New Hampshire UniversityMore economic opportunity grantees
Bayes Impact
Using data science to provide personalized career job search advice to jobseekers
- Funding began in
- 2017
- Total funding
- $1,000,000
- Region of impact
- France
- Focus
- Job Matching
Code for America
Improving America’s workforce development system through digital tools
- Funding began in
- 2017
- Total funding
- $1,500,000
- Region of impact
- United States
- Focus
- Job Matching
National Domestic Workers Alliance - Fair Care Labs
Using technology to make work better for nannies, caregivers, and housecleaners
- Funding began in
- 2017
- Total funding
- $1,500,000
- Region of impact
- United States
- Focus
- Job Quality
Social Finance
Mobilizing capital to drive social progress
- Funding began in
- 2017
- Total funding
- $750,000
- Region of impact
- United States
- Focus
- Skilling
Czechitas
Digital skills and data science trainings for women in the Czech Republic
- Funding began in
- 2016
- Total funding
- $257,700
- Focus
- Economic Opportunity
WeTechCare
To provide digital skills training to 1M vulnerable and socially excluded people in France and help them access jobs and government benefits
- Funding began in
- 2015
- Total funding
- $1,000,000
- Region of impact
- France
- Focus
- Economic Opportunity
America Makes
Job-ready skills training in advanced manufacturing techniques for former military veterans
- Funding began in
- 2016
- Total funding
- $250,000
- Focus
- Economic Opportunity
Digitale-Helden gemeinnützige GmbH
Peer to peer training for digital literacy / online safety
- Funding began in
- 2016
- Total funding
- $281,400
- Focus
- Economic Opportunity
Root Impact / 루트임팩트
Program to connect high potential youth with social impact career opportunitites
- Funding began in
- 2016
- Total funding
- $228,869
- Focus
- Economic Opportunity
Themis
App to inform and educate domestic workers about their rights
- Funding began in
- 2016
- Total funding
- $201,995
- Focus
- Economic Opportunity
BSS (Making a World Together) / 사회연대은행(사)함께만드는세상
Alternative credit rating system based on social signals
- Funding began in
- 2016
- Total funding
- $228,869
- Focus
- Economic Opportunity
First Place for Youth
Ensure that foster youth in Santa Clara County have the housing, education, and employment supports necessary to defy the odds and achieve self-sufficiency and stable housing
- Funding began in
- 2015
- Total funding
- $500,000
- Region of impact
- Bay Area
- Focus
- Economic Opportunity
GiveDirectly: Rwanda
GiveDirectly aims to increase the use of cash transfers in the international development sector and to establish cash as a benchmark against which other interventions are measured; this grant helps expand the use of cash transfers and further studying additional policy questions and how to optimize their design and impact
- Funding began in
- 2015
- Total funding
- $2,000,000
- Region of impact
- Rwanda
- Focus
- Economic Opportunity
The Hidden Genius Project
Supported a 15 month tech skills and leadership training program for black male high school students to transform their lives and communities
- Funding began in
- 2015
- Total funding
- $250,000
- Region of impact
- Bay Area
- Focus
- Economic Opportunity
Infoxchange
To address digital exclusion with a focus on social housing
- Funding began in
- 2015
- Total funding
- $247,000
- Region of impact
- Australia
- Focus
- Economic Opportunity
InnVision Shelter Network/Life Moves
Improve the long-term success of formerly homeless individuals and families by extending case management and encouraging successful habits through the use of an innovative SMS/text–based mobile technology platform
- Funding began in
- 2015
- Total funding
- $750,000
- Region of impact
- Bay Area
- Focus
- Economic Opportunity
Jewish Vocational Service (JVS)
Bridge the gulf between high school and independent adulthood by providing SFUSD students connections to career exploration, post-secondary training and career onramps
- Funding began in
- 2015
- Total funding
- $500,000
- Region of impact
- Bay Area
- Focus
- Economic Opportunity
Kiva Microfunds
Backing a hyper-local crowdfunding platform that provides 0% interest loans to small business entrepreneurs in Oakland
- Funding began in
- 2015
- Total funding
- $500,000
- Focus
- Economic Opportunity
Oakland Digital Arts & Literacy Center (ODALC)
Build and launch BRIDGEGOOD.com, a two-sided online marketplace that matches lower-income, minority graphic design students with small businesses to achieve economic independence
- Funding began in
- 2015
- Total funding
- $500,000
- Region of impact
- Bay Area
- Focus
- Economic Opportunity
Sodate-Age Net
Digital skills training for disadvantaged youth
- Funding began in
- 2015
- Total funding
- $205,000
- Region of impact
- Japan
- Focus
- Economic Opportunity
Tipping Point/Year Up
Closing the opportunity divide for disconnected young adults by designing a blended digital and in-person learning platform that enables Year Up to scale through community partners to reach 100x the number of current young adults directly served by the program
- Funding began in
- 2015
- Total funding
- $500,000
- Region of impact
- Bay Area
- Focus
- Economic Opportunity
Y Generation Education
Online vocational education training and financing model to provide job skills for at-risk youth
- Funding began in
- 2015
- Total funding
- $543,650
- Region of impact
- France
- Focus
- Economic Opportunity
BUILD
Empowering high school kids through entrepreneurship
- Funding began in
- 2014
- Total funding
- $250,000
- Focus
- Economic Opportunity
Catch22 Charity Limited
App to give young people skills needed for work
- Funding began in
- 2014
- Total funding
- $850,300
- Focus
- Economic Opportunity
Center for Employment Opportunities
Providing jobs and support for formerly incarcerated people
- Funding began in
- 2014
- Total funding
- $500,000
- Region of impact
- Bay Area
- Focus
- Economic Opportunity
Colnodo
Build Juventic, a new training platform for digital job skills for at-risk young people, and bring this program to more audiences, including those formerly involved in Colombia's internal conflict
- Funding began in
- 2014
- Total funding
- $600,000
- Region of impact
- Colombia
- Focus
- Economic Opportunity
Comunidad IT (Associación Civil Comunidad IT de fromacion e insercian laboral)
Providing job-ready coding skills for young people in Argentina
- Funding began in
- 2014
- Total funding
- $300,000
- Region of impact
- Argentina
- Focus
- Economic Opportunity
Family Independence Initiative
Restore economic mobility to America’s low-income communities by providing a flexible marketplace of financial resources conditioned upon families self-organizing in community groups to determine their own strategies for improving their lives and rigorously reporting their progress towards goals
- Funding began in
- 2014
- Total funding
- $400,000
- Region of impact
- Bay Area
- Focus
- Economic Opportunity
Fondazione Mondo Digitale
Opened a maker space and studio to train young people in digital job readiness skills
- Funding began in
- 2014
- Total funding
- $500,000
- Region of impact
- Italy
- Focus
- Economic Opportunity
Fundacion Crea (Crea Comunidades de Emprendedores Sociales AC)
Offering basic digital and web skills for women microentrepreneurs
- Funding began in
- 2014
- Total funding
- $443,000
- Region of impact
- Mexico
- Focus
- Economic Opportunity
GiveDirectly: General Equilibrium
Provide evidence to inform governments, funders, and NGOs about how unconditional cash transfers impact the local economy, in order to promote widespread adoption among governments
- Funding began in
- 2014
- Total funding
- $2,000,000
- Region of impact
- Africa
- Focus
- Economic Opportunity
Hack the Hood
Jumpstarting tech careers for low-income youth
- Funding began in
- 2014
- Total funding
- $500,000
- Region of impact
- Bay Area
- Focus
- Economic Opportunity
HandUp
Help both homeless and low-income individuals/families overcome poverty by leveraging a charitable giving technology platform that connects donors with neighbors who are struggling to meet their basic needs
- Funding began in
- 2014
- Total funding
- $500,000
- Region of impact
- Bay Area
- Focus
- Economic Opportunity
Instituto Socioambiental
Creating open source mini-mills used to produce forest products and generate sustainability in the Amazon
- Funding began in
- 2014
- Total funding
- $222,990
- Region of impact
- Brazil
- Focus
- Economic Opportunity
JobTrain
Provide the first rung on the job ladder for people with multiple barriers to employment through launching Rendezvous Café & Catering, a new social enterprise in Redwood City providing livable wage jobs and career paths to people who have been excluded from the workforce
- Funding began in
- 2014
- Total funding
- $675,000
- Region of impact
- Bay Area
- Focus
- Economic Opportunity
Mission Asset Fund
Expanding credit opportunities for hardworking families
- Funding began in
- 2014
- Total funding
- $250,000
- Region of impact
- US
- Focus
- Economic Opportunity
Kiva Labs
Combines the power of crowdfunding and microfinance to accelerate solutions tailored to people’s unique needs
- Funding began in
- 2013
- Total funding
- $3,000,000
- Region of impact
- Global
- Focus
- Economic Opportunity
MAKLab
Workshop giving young entrepreneurs access to digital manufacturing skills
- Funding began in
- 2013
- Total funding
- $151,160
- Region of impact
- UK
- Focus
- Economic Opportunity
Samasource
Developing tools based on its successful model for hiring new tech workers from poor populations
- Funding began in
- 2013
- Total funding
- $2,000,000
- Focus
- Economic Opportunity
vInspired
Digital platform facilitating the search for short term employment opportunities
- Funding began in
- 2013
- Total funding
- $151,160
- Focus
- Economic Opportunity
GiveDirectly
Direct electronic cash transfers to poor families with mpesa
- Funding began in
- 2012
- Total funding
- $2,400,000
- Region of impact
- Africa
- Focus
- Economic Opportunity
Samasource
Grew and sustained an engineering team that enabled us to accommodate more sales clients and data services, resulting in an accelerated pace of impact to our beneficiaries
- Funding began in
- 2011
- Total funding
- $1,250,000
- Region of impact
- Bay Area
- Focus
- Economic Opportunity