Google today announced “charitable donations on Google Play” – an update to the service that adds the ability for you to make donations to nonprofit organizations. Google says that making a donation is extremely simple and that 100-percent of your donation will find its way to a nonprofit of your choosing. Do keep in mind that this option will not be available on a global scale, at least not at first, as Google announced specific regions that will get the option. The company said that this option will be rolling out to users in the US, Canada, Mexico, Germany, Great Britain, France, Spain, Italy, Taiwan, and Indonesia over the coming days. No other regions were mentioned, nor hinted at. That being said, if you head to this link, you will be able to learn more about the charities that you can donate to, and also donate when you’re ready, presuming that the option is available to you at the time.
If you head to that link, you will realize that you can donate to the following charities: American Red Cross, charity: water, Doctors Without Borders USA, Girls Who Code, International Rescue Committee, Room to Read, Save the Children, UNICEF, World Food Program USA, and the World Wildlife Fund US. As you can see, there are plenty of nonprofits that you can opt to help via the Play Store as we speak, and chances are you are quite familiar with at least some of them. For example, the American Red Cross “prevents and alleviates human suffering in the face of emergencies”, as Google put it, as it organizes volunteers and donations to help people. Girls Who Code, on the other hand, is a nonprofit which organizes programs to inspire, educate and equip girls who are interested in coding and similar activities, who have computing skills and are willing to use them, basically, in order to give them a better opportunity of succeeding in a work environment.
Background: This announcement came out of the blue, Google did not hint that something like that may arrive to the Play Store. The company’s online store did see some changes in the last couple of months, well, some tiny tweaks, if you will. Google rolled out app download preference options back in August, which will help you avoid wasting your mobile data to download applications. Speaking of the Play Store, a rather interesting analysis surfaced in August as well, claiming that the Play Store could lose billions in revenue, and it remains to be seen how will that pan out, but you can read more about it by clicking here.
Impact: There’s nothing wrong with giving people an option to help nonprofit organizations, and thus help other people in a number of ways, quite the contrary, it’s a great move by Google. The company will hopefully work with many more charities around the world and make this option available in other regions as well, as there are a ton of countries / regions missing from the list, but this is a good start, that’s for sure.