(Originally published at blog.Google on March 27)
As the coronavirus outbreak continues to worsen around the world, it’s taking a devastating toll on lives and communities. To help address some of these challenges, today we’re announcing a new $800+ million commitment to support small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), health organizations and governments, and health workers on the frontline of this global pandemic.
Our commitment includes:

• $250 million in ad grants to help the World Health Organization (WHO) and more than 100 government agencies globally provide critical information on how to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and other measures to help local communities. This is an increase from our initial $25 million announced last month. In addition, we’re providing $20 million in ad grants to community financial institutions and NGOs specifically to run public service announcements on relief funds and other resources for SMBs.

• A $200 million investment fund that will support NGOs and financial institutions around the world to help provide small businesses with access to capital. As one example, we’re working with the Opportunity Finance Network in the U.S. to help fill gaps in financing for people and communities underserved by mainstream financial institutions. This is in addition to the $15 million in cash grants Google.org is already providing to nonprofits to help bridge these gaps for SMBs.

• $340 million in Google Ads credits available to all SMBs with active accounts over the past year. Credit notifications will appear in their Google Ads accounts and can be used at any point until the end of 2020 across our advertising platforms. We hope it will help to alleviate some of the cost of staying in touch with their customers.

• A pool of $20 million in Google Cloud credits for academic institutions and researchers to leverage our computing capabilities and infrastructure as they study potential therapies and vaccines, track critical data, and identify new ways to combat COVID-19. Learn how to apply for credits on the Google for Education site.

• Direct financial support and expertise to help increase the production capacity for personal protective equipment (PPE) and lifesaving medical devices. We’re working with our longtime supplier and partner Magid Glove & Safety, with the goal of ramping up production of 2-3 million face masks in the coming weeks that will be provided to the CDC Foundation. Additionally, employees from across Alphabet, including Google, Verily and X, are bringing engineering, supply chain and healthcare expertise to facilitate increased production of ventilators, working with equipment manufacturers, distributors and the government in this effort.

In addition to these commitments, we also increased the gift match Google offers every employee annually to $10,000 from $7,500. That means our employees can now give $20,000 to organizations in their communities, in addition to the $50 million Google.org has already donated. Together, we’ll continue to help our communities—including our businesses, educators, researchers and nonprofits—to navigate the challenges ahead.
-Sundar Pichai
CEO of Google and Alphabet

So what does this mean for our clients?

Something awesome — many of our Google Ads clients have already received between several hundred up to a few thousand in Ad grants! For new Google PPC advertisers, this offer may not apply to you. If you have been an active Google Ads advertiser since January of 2019, you will likely qualify if you are a small to medium-sized business, and your account is in good standing.
In the coming months, we’ll find out greater details about your specific qualification status, and when good news comes, expect it to appear as a credit in the billing section of your Google Ads account. For eligible organizations, this credit will be valid until December 31, 2020, and we believe that it will be something you can use across all Google properties (Google Search, YouTube, Google Display Network).
From conversations with our own points of contact at Google, we believe that any business working to mitigate the COVID crisis, whether as a product or service provider, will be the first to see these credits hit their accounts. This could include medical supplies companies that are providing essential items, health organizations, and health-related first responders.
Of our other types of Google Ads clients, specifically, local service companies with a Google Guarantee status on Local Service Ads, we expect those to be among the first non-crisis related organizations to see these grants hit their accounts.
Unfortunately, there is a lot of ambiguity and a lack of specific information about this grant. It was announced just this past Friday via a Tweet from Sundar Pichai so this program is still very new. For now, we will continue to keep our ears to the ground and listen out for any specific updates in this regard.
Please feel free to reach out to us with any specific questions!
Best regards,
Adam