Action #3 — Representation

Our Washington D.C. office.

We’ve been expanding our investment in the regions we’ve called home for many years—and we’ve planted deeper roots in newer locations. For example, we’ve grown our presence in more locations, especially Atlanta, Chicago, New York, and Washington D.C., so that we can attract talent from a wider variety of backgrounds and communities. We also invested (and achieved meaningful growth) in our London site. We’re proud of our progress because these efforts have helped us achieve greater representation of historically underrepresented groups in the tech industry, and they’ve also put us on track to achieve the racial equity commitments we’ve made. Alongside these efforts, we also expanded how we give back to communities around the globe.

In 2020, we began a concerted and proactive effort to help end the systemic racism experienced by Black communities for generations. Research shows that from healthcare to everyday interactions with colleagues, racism and bias exist across experiences of Black people around the world. So for our Black employees, we focused on creating more support across their entire Google experience.

For example, we piloted a new onboarding program for Black employees. The program is tailored to each employee’s experience level and provides mentorship and resources tailored to guide them through the first few months at Google. So far, 80% of pilot participants say they’d recommend the program to other Black employees.

We’re working to help Googlers around the globe develop knowledge and skills to foster a sense of belonging.

A truly global effort.

For employees around the world, we launched an internal Racial Equity Platform, a digital tool that provides learning content tailored to each region, so that Googlers around the globe can develop the knowledge, skills, and attitudes that help foster a personal—and shared—sense of belonging at Google.

In addition to our regular diversity, equity, and inclusion progress tracking, we developed concrete leadership actions to make sure we deliver on our racial equity commitments in all our regions. This allows us to both take action and track our progress in areas like building more knowledge around diversity, equity, and inclusion, and creating more digital learning opportunities.

Construction Partners Moody-Holder on site.

We want to help build an inclusive economy that works for everyone. This extends within our company, and accounts for the economic impact that we can have when we buy goods and services. That’s why we’re providing access, development, and investment in diverse-owned companies through our supplier diversity program.

While our supplier diversity efforts began nearly a decade ago, in the summer of 2020, we committed to do more. We ended 2021 surpassing our goal to spend $1 billion with diverse-owned suppliers by spending nearly $1.5 billion. In 2022, we aim to grow our spending with diverse suppliers to $2.5 billion while expanding our program beyond the U.S. to include suppliers from historically underrepresented groups around the world.

We’re helping transform Miami into a tech hub of the Americas.

We created the Latinx Founders Fund, with an initial $7 million commitment. The Latinx Founders Fund gives founders cash awards of up to $100,000 in non-dilutive funding. This kind of support helps founders retain ownership of their company and avoid debt. We’ve seen the profound impact that non-dilutive capital can have on a founder’s journey. Recipients also receive hands-on programming and support, including deep mentorship from Google technical and business experts, and membership in a vibrant community of fellow founders.

We’ve also expanded our Black Founders Fund globally, investing a total of $16 million in more than 200 founders across the U.S., Brazil, Europe and Africa. Black founders in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa received $63 million in “follow-on” funding after they participated in our Black Founders Fund, with 95% of participants reporting a positive impact on their startup’s ability to fundraise. Additionally, 81% of participants in this region reported a positive impact on revenue after receiving support from us, with $1.3 million total monthly recurring revenue reported across the cohort.

We’re proud to support spaces where LGBTQ+ people feel safe—like Mina’s World, a community-centered trans and people of color-run café in West Philadelphia.

We launched a global resource hub for LGBTQ+ and LGBTQ+-friendly businesses to make it easier to access our free, inclusive growth tools. Additionally, Grow with Google helped LGBTQ+ small businesses in the U.S. learn how to use digital tools to drive business growth. We partnered with the National LGBT Chamber of Commerce (NGLCC), the “business voice of the LGBT community,” to provide their network of affiliate chambers with training curriculums and resources that help small businesses adapt, grow, and better serve their community. Together, we delivered more than 100 digital skills workshops.