When we established our racial equity commitments in June 2020, we started with a concerted focus on building equity with and for the Black community as part of our ongoing work to build a Google where everyone belongs. Over the past year, we’ve provided regular updates on our progress.
Through this work, we've found new ways to support all groups who have historically been underrepresented in the tech industry, and to improve our products so they work better for everyone. Here’s a look at our latest efforts.
Building a more representative workforce
We set out to improve leadership representation of Black+, Latinx+ and Native American+ Googlers in the U.S. by 30% by 2025. We’ve already reached our goal, and we’re on track to double the number of Black+ Googlers at all other levels in the U.S. by 2025.
Hiring alone isn’t enough. We’re continually investing in onboarding, progressing and retaining our underrepresented employees. This year, we ran an onboarding pilot to provide a sense of community, and targeted support and mentorship for Black new hires in the U.S., including providing an onboarding roadmap, resources and virtual seminars. New employees at the Director level were also paired with buddies in the Black Leadership Advisory Group (BLAG). We’ve seen positive feedback from this program — in fact, 80% of respondents to questions about their pilot experience said they would recommend it. We'll take what we’ve learned and roll out a six-month onboarding program for Black new hires globally early next year.
We’re building a similar program for Latino Googlers, and many of our Employee Resource Groups have worked with us to establish a Noogler Buddy program. And in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, Black employees can opt in to receive one-on-one mentorship and external executive coaching during the second half of this year — regardless of tenure.
We continue to invest in fair and consistent performance reviews, promotion and pay outcomes. And we know leadership engagement is critical in this area, so all VPs are now evaluated on their leadership in support of diversity, equity and inclusion, which factors into their ratings and pay.
Ensuring our products work for everyone
We’re also continuing to build products that work for all users. Last month, we launched the Pixel 6 with an improved camera, plus face detection and editing products, which we call Real Tone — specifically to power images with more brightness, depth and detail across skin tones. And we’re continuing our work to take down videos with misinformation, removing roughly 10 million a quarter.
The call for product inclusion and equity ideas to support the Black community resulted in 80 new projects since 2020, including making a Black-owned business attribute available to merchants in the U.S. We also worked closely with the United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce (USHCC) to unveil a new Latino-owned attribute in Google Business Profiles to help Latino-owned businesses get discovered in Google Search and Maps. We’re also creating Grow with Google digital resource centers with USHCC that will train an additional 10,000 Latino business owners on how to use digital tools to grow their business.
Creating pathways to tech
Back in June, we granted Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) $50 million in unrestricted funding so these institutions could invest in their communities and the future workforce as they see fit. For example, North Carolina A&T State University is putting $150,000 towards curriculum development in pre-college programs for aspiring science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) students. Morgan State University has dedicated $1 million to computer science operations, which includes new ideation lab spaces and equipment enhancements. Additionally, as part of our $15 million investment in the Latino community, we’re providing a $1 million grant to Hispanic Federation to help Latino-led and Latino-serving nonprofits train more than 6,000 individuals in career-aligned digital skills over the next year.
We’ve also partnered with the Thurgood Marshall College Fund, the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities and Partnership with Native Americans to bring digital skills and workforce training to HBCUs, Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs) and Native Serving Organizations (NSOs) through the Grow with Google Career Readiness program. In total, Google has committed to training more than 250,000 Black, Latino and Indigenous students by 2025. And through Grow with Google: Black Women Lead, we’re providing 100,000 Black women with career development and digital skills training by spring 2022.
We're also expanding the paths to technology outside the U.S. For example, in Brazil, we launched the second class of Next Step, an internship program exclusively for Black students that removes the prerequisite for English.
Providing opportunities for economic advancement
Last year, we announced a goal to spend $100 million with Black-owned suppliers, as part of our broader supplier diversity commitment to spend more than $1 billion with diverse-owned suppliers in the U.S. every year. To date, we’ve paid out nearly $1.1 billion to diverse-owned suppliers, exceeding our $1 billion goal for 2021. We are also on track to meet our $100 million commitment toward Black-owned suppliers for 2021.
We continue to offer resources for Black-owned businesses through programs like the Google Storefront Kits program, which provides small businesses with free Google Nest and Pixel devices, alongside free installation and Grow with Google online training. In the first 60 days of the program, we donated 3,000 Nest and Pixel devices to more than 550 Black-owned businesses across the U.S. We’ve updated the kits based on business owners’ feedback and aim to reach an additional 1,200 Black-owned businesses across more cities in the U.S.
Google's commitment of $185 million has enabled Opportunity Finance Network (OFN) to establish the Grow with Google Small Business Fund and OFN's Grant Program, funded by Google.org to assist Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs) working with underserved small businesses. To date, over $149 million in loans and grants has been disbursed to OFN member CDFIs, including $50 million to support Black-owned businesses.
We’re focusing on communities outside the United States, too. For example, in addition to the $15 million we invested in Black and Latino founders in the U.S., we’ve invested in 50 Black-owned startups in Africa, 29 Black-owned startups in Brazil and 30 Black-owned startups in Europe.
We’re also partnering with financial institutions like BlackRock, Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan to launch money market funds that promote racial equity. We’ve invested more than $1 billion in products that generate revenue for diverse-led financial institutions, like Loop Capital, and support programs like the One Million Black Women Initiative and the Thurgood Marshall College Fund.
Our racial equity work is an important part of our company-wide commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion. It takes thoughtful engagement with our underrepresented employees, including the Asian and Pacific Islander, Black, Latino and Native American communities — as well as people with disabilities, those who identify as LGBTQ+ and those who come from different religious backgrounds. Through this work, we’ll build a Google where everyone belongs and more helpful products for our users and the world.
by Melonie Parker via The Keyword
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