Ashoka and Google's Million Dollar Friendship

Published August 28, 2009 @ 07:51PM PT

Ashoka is one of the leading organizations supporting innovative social entrepreneurs. Google is one of the most innovative for-profit organizations of our time, and although their focus isn't explicitly social, their mission to get the world's information online has had a dramatic impact on the way the world's have nots access knowledge. Given that, maybe it's not a big suprise that Google co-founder Sergey Brin and his wife Anne Wojcicki have donated $1,000,000 in matching funds to Ashoka.

The announcement was made earlier this week and promoted as a matching contest to get more people to contribute. I think this is interesting for a couple of reasons:

The current explosion of social entrepreneurship is funded in large part by tech entrepreneurs. Jeff Skoll and Omidyar have been some of the most important actors in promoting social enterprise over the last five to ten years. Bill Gates is obviously heavily invested in this space and Google.org and now, Brin's individual philanthropy are also aimed on social enterprise. I continue to believe that there's an even more fluent conversation that can happen between the social and tech entrepreneurship worlds, and these funding relationships can help that happen.

I think it's an interesting case study in the obligations of wealth. Google.org is the primary way in which Google as a company expresses its financial commitment to social good. But the question becomes, does that take those who have made money with Google off the hook for their own individual obligations? I'm excited to see Sergey invest in a totally unrelated organization; I think this sends the right message.

Help Ashoka access these funds by donating here.

(Photo: Starmedia)

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Comments (1)

I raise another question. Does such a donation compensate for the anonymous smear blogs Google hosts about our "social enterprise" a business which gives ALL its surplus to a social mission.

One one hand we go toe-to-toe with organised crime, in activism to raise awareness of children suffering abuse and neglect in institutions for disposable humanity, on the other Google cuts our legs away by being publisher to those who would hide what goes on, because there's profit in the consumption of children.

For the last decade we've been "leveraging social enterprise in low income economies" as Ashoka plans with Ayllu. There's no endorsement, shoulders are shrugged.

If social enterprise is to flourish it cannot be about "me and mine" only.

http://www.ecademy.com/node.php?id=132188

Posted by Jeff Mowatt on 08/29/2009 @ 12:35AM PT
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Author

Nathaniel is the founding Director of the Center for Global Engagement at Northwestern University, which works annually with hundreds of students in dozens of countries around the world through curricular programs and student project incubation.