Facebook and Google Ditch The Festivities for Charity

by Nathaniel Whittemore · 2009-12-21 22:52:00 UTC
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Both Facebook and Google have opted to do something a little bit different this holiday season.

TechCrunch reported today about how, instead of getting some new Google-themed schwag or getting an invite to an open bar holiday party, users of Google's AdSense and AdWords project got a link to an announcement that they would be donating $20 million to a host of organizations include social innovators like Ushahidi.

Similarly, Facebook sent out a message today to some folks saying that, instead of a holiday party, they were donating $25 to DonorsChoose.org - the site that allows donors to fund a specific project in a specific classroom. The email Facebook sent out gave recipients the chance to redeem a "token" and select the project they wanted to support.

These seem to me to be the polar opposite of the cause marketing fiasco I've been writing about with the Chase Community Giving challenge. Whereas Chase's basic approach was to extract as many Facebook Fans as they could for a preset cost, and to get as much press and buzz as they could about it, both FB and Google have done this more quietly. While that doesn't mean they're not interested in positive marketing, it does bias one to think their motivations may be more in line with the organizations they're supporting.

Oh, and by the way, for some context. Google's annual operating income is about $6.6 billion a year, vs. JP Morgan Chase's $37 billion, yet it gave away 4x as much as the entire Chase Community Giving campaign, with barely a drop of the fanfair.

Nathaniel Whittemore is the founder of Assetmap. Previously he was the founding director of the Northwestern University Center for Global Engagement.
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