Google pledges $1M to five Minnesota nonprofit firms

Google this week pledged $1 million to five Minnesota social enterprises. The five are winners of the Google.org Impact Challenge Minnesota competition launched last fall, which aims to innovate workforce development, environmental work, child care and other work. A million bucks shared by these small nonprofits, selected by a panel of local business judges, is chump change for Google. Alphabet, Google’s parent company, is valued at $1 trillion by investors. It earned $34 billion over the past year and committed in 2017 to donate at least $1 billion in pretax profits over five years to environmental, educational, human rights and other organizations. That amounts to about 1% of profits annually earned by Google. But the $1 million donation by Google represents much more to the Minnesota nonprofits.