Google Launches Another PR Ploy, Er, Google for Non-Profits
03/18/2008, 5 months 3 weeks ago
Color me jaded. At a time when there seems to be a huge upswing in companies launching to either do good or add doing good to their repertoire, Google wants to jump that train. The problem is that repackaging existing services as a “charitable” idea doesn't really make it as a good will gesture.
Today, Google launched Google for Non-Profits, a destination site that, er, looks almost the same as the standard Google offerings page. They've simply posted links to their existing services that can be used by non-profits (just like everyone else), and didn't even go to the trouble of creating a “Google for Non-Profits” logo. Similar to last month's announcement that Grand Central would continue to offer free phone numbers to the homeless in San Francisco as they'd been doing all along, this is nothing more than public relations.
It shouldn't be this difficult for Google to do something important that really gives back. We're seeing companies like RiverWired, a news and social site centered on green issues, and RecycleBank, a site that rewards users for recycling, get funded, so it's obvious someone thinks there is a large audience for these types of sites. And Eric Janszen believes that the solution to the U.S.'s economic woes is a restructuring based on cleantech: green technologies. It's clear that green is fast becoming the new black, so why is it taking Google so long to back green efforts or actual charitable efforts instead of pointing out that they have free things that charitable organizations can use just like the regular folk?
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There are subtle differences from the usual offering for many of these services, but you have to click through to them to find out the differences, and in many cases they are very small.
GMail is being offered on your own domain as part of Google Apps Education Edition which is now available for free to US registered non-profits (but still not for non-profits in other countries - boo). Docs and Calendar form part of Google Apps Team Edition (this is really confusing: how do these different editions interrelate?). Checkout is free but also limited to US 501(c)(3) organisations (I have heard that may be about to change), and Grants has for some time been available to non-US organisations.
Duncan, the point is that it really isn’t anything new. As long as you aren’t wanting the pro version, you can use Gmail for your own domain for free anyway. I’ve been doing so for a year or so now.
What I’m trying to say is that you can still have a business model that allows you to profit while actually doing something good. Also, note that Checkout is only free for 501(c)(3) organizations until 2009.