Google "Impact Challenge" Winners Announced

Google’s Impact Challenge sought to find the nonprofits with the most innovative ideas for making the Bay Area stronger. After 200,000 votes were cast in the 10 days after Google announced its 10 finalists, the four winners will each collect $500,000 from Google to expand or implement new projects.

The winners are:

• Hack the Hood, a summer program that teaches technical skills to at-risk youth and puts them to work for local businesses that cannot afford to hire full-time technical employees;
• Health Trust, which, among other efforts to enable healthier living in the Bay Area, operates strategically placed food carts that offer nutritional snacks as an alternative to convenience stores;
• Bring Me a Book, which aims to instill a love of reading at a young age and plans to provide libraries in the Bay Area with high-quality children’s books and read-aloud workshops for disadvantaged children; and
• The Center for Employment Opportunities, which provides transitional employment and job placement services to ex-convicts.

The remaining top 10 finalists will each receive a $250,000 grant. 15 additional finalists were also selected to each receive a $100,000 grant to scale their impact in the community. All 25 organizations will receive technical support from Google and one year of support from Impact Hub SF.

How would your organization expand its impact with a Google grant?