Google has never been shy about its support of black communities, and it’s recently doubled down on that commitment.
The company announced Thursday that their humanitarian division, Google.org, pledged a total of $11.5 million toward research and data analysis for organizations dedicated to achieving racial equality.
Among the organizations the tech giant provided funding for were the Equal Justice Initiative, Center for Policing Equity, Measures for Justice and Impact Justice. A majority of the organizations are centered on criminal justice reform.
The idea for the pledge came after members of the company’s Black Googler Network researched national policing data after repeated high-profile incidents of police brutality over the summer, Justin Steele, principal at Google.org, told CNN Tech.
“We were finding that the data in this space is really minimal,” Steele said. “[So] we started looking at [giving] grants around data science, policing and sentencing.”
In 2015, Google gave $2.35 million to organizations involved in Black Lives Matter activism, despite the “controversy” that surrounded the movement.
In addition to organizations focused on the black community, Google has also been very vocal about its support for LGBTQ citizens.
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