Mission to fund "good works" and solve "big problems"

Google has begun to make good on its commitment to plough a small fraction of the proceeds from its wildly successful stock offering into social projects.

Funding for "good works" will largely be derived from the donation of one per cent of the equity from last year's IPO, along with one per cent of its annual profits.

Google said on Tuesday it plans to organise its charitable work under the umbrella of a new organisation it calls Google.org. The mission is to focus on vast issues such as global poverty, energy and the environment.

Sheryl Sandberg, Google's vice president of operations and advertising, who is also in charge of overseeing Google.org, said: "These are big problems, so our focus is to provide sustainable and scalable solutions to these problems."

One percent of Google's stock represents about three million of the 300 million shares created by its IPO in August 2004.

Full article: silicon.com