Google.org's Great Move

by Nathaniel Whittemore

Published February 24, 2009 @ 06:45AM PT

(via Robert Scoble)

Let me start by saying that I think that Dr. Larry Brilliant is, well, brilliant. His resume - from working with the World Health Organization to eradicate smallpox to founding and building the Seva Foundation to focus on sight issues around the world, humbles even the most committed philanthropists.

So why then was I excited to see his note yesterday (and a corresponding New York Times piece) explaining that he was stepping down from Executive Director at Google.org?

Google.org is a strange beast in the philanthropic world. It's organized not exactly as a traditional nonprofit foundation, but has the ability to act more like a for-profit venture investor as well. According to Dr. Brilliant's letter, his move was not about any disagreements, but simply due to the fact that the foundation was re-evaluating how it could better align its activities with Google's larger core competencies in technology and information, citing their Flu Trends project among others as an example.

There are a few reasons this makes sense to me:

One, lets remember that the current structure of most foundations was originally designed after the fashion of the hierarchical, industrial process of the companies that made the Robber Barons so wealthy. They were built to allocate funds in specific chunks according to specific rules. As we move forward, the 20th century institutional form is increasingly challenged by distributed networks that can allocate and harness resources in new ways. This doesn't mean the foundation as we know it is dead, but we should certainly be interested in exploring which alternative models provide new types of value.

Two, the personality of the founders and the culture of the organizations from which foundations stem seem to me always to inflect the nature of their approach. This isn't always a good thing, but its got a pretty good track record when it comes to social entrepreneurship. The field would nearly be as advanced as it is if Pierre Omidyar and Jeff Skoll had both just decided to put their eBay money in "traditional" giving.

Three, when it comes to the bottom of the pyramid, there are real grey areas between business-styled nonprofits and mission-driven for-profits. Africa's 900 million people, I would argue, need to be viewed as potential clients and potential entrepreneurs who are just waiting to reward the companies and investors willing to bet on them. Google certainly seems to be interested in the African market, and the scale with which they can make an impact is bigger when their work can also relate to the bottom line. Frankly, I'm willing to trade some brand loyalty for communications infrastructure.

Four, Google's core competencies are real, and they're valuable. More than anything else, Google unlocks the power of information. It's not hard to understand how that core capacity could be the driving force behind their entire philanthropic strategy. Google *should* be investing in and scaling tools like Ushahidi, or the new FrontlineSMS:Medic project that has the potential to dramatically improve the care community health worker's can provide.

Five, why not experiment? I think at this point it's fairly safe to reject the premise that anyone has the silver bullet answer to the world's problem and instead get to experimenting and iterating. If Google.org's projects become simply self-serving, we should call them out on it. And if they end up being pretty (and pretty ineffective), well there's a worthwhile critique there. But why not let maybe the most innovative company of the last decade unleash its creative fury on poverty, health inequity, and injustice?

Best of luck to Dr. Brilliant and we'll be watching Google.org (now under the helm of Megan Smith) closely as they chart their next exciting steps.