On Thursday, Google.org Principal Justin Steele announced the philanthropic arm of the company would give $11.5 million to groups and organizations fighting for racial and social causes in the U.S. criminal justice system.
The tech giant is more than doubling the pledged amount it gives to non-governmental organizations, charities, and initiatives in the United States. Since 2015, it granted $5 million to diverse groups.
Google is also assuming a deeper compromise with its employees. The in-company group Black Googler Network (BGN) is also getting more funds to keep spreading the word about inequality and injustice against African Americans.
Organizations will receive $11.5 million in grants
Ten organizations will get $11.5 million in total from Google.org this year so they can continue fighting for the rights of black people waiting for trial, pending sentences, in prison, or just released back into society.
The Center for Policing Equity (CPE) will receive $5 million to bolster its data collection service and statistics on African American detentions and imprisonments, as well as to train officers to treat everyone the same way.
$1.5 million will go to Measures for Justice, a California-based initiative looking to build a centralized platform where all kinds of people can know how their local justice system would treat them according to their profiles.
Another $500,000 are going to the W. Haywood Burns Institute, which is in charge of distributing information in all 58 counties of the state to help affiliate organizations have strong foundations for their decisions.
Impact Justice is getting $1 million to keep young African Americans out of trouble through their Restorative Justice Project, while JustLeadershipUSA will build a network of former inmates nationwide with help from Google’s $650,000.
Defy Ventures, Center for Employment Opportunities, Silicon Valley De-Bug, and Code for America are among the groups helping colored ex-prisoners get new skills to make them valuable members of society.
Google wants to fight inequality with information
Most of the organizations receiving financial help from Google are focused on spreading the word about the issue of African American mistreatment in the criminal justice system.
The search giant has not only vowed to maintain its contributions on a yearly basis but also to provide some of its engineers to help pull some work at some of these entities managing large amounts of data.
Creating unbiased databases that accurately reflect the state of the American justice system is paramount for lawmakers and public defenders to get their point across in courts nationwide.
Source: Google