Accelerating diversity outreach to businesses in local communities

In May 2009, a team of Googlers and I attended the Black Enterprise Entrepreneurs Conference near our office in Ann Arbor, Mich., where we talked with dozens of small business owners. These folks were true entrepreneurs and clearly not afraid to try new things, yet many were unaware of Google’s products and services, such as AdWords and Apps for Enterprise. In fact, many of them didn’t even have an online presence.


The following Monday, two women Googlers who were new to the team and passionate about Google’s diversity initiatives busted into my office already on a mission—to help educate small businesses on Google tools in order to help them better connect with their target audience. They had attended the conference as well and decided to start a 20 percent project to increase awareness of and engagement with small, minority-owned businesses. Two months later, we proposed a business plan to Bonita Stewart, vice president of sales, to start reaching out to businesses. She approved our proposal and gave us the go-ahead to lead the initiative; it was our responsibility to find people who wanted to help.

We found our first volunteer when an intern on the team decided to make our initiative her 20 percent project, and, throughout that summer, more people were inspired to contribute their expertise part-time as well. Before we knew it, we had more than 40 Googlers working on what eventually became Accelerate with Google—a program to help minority-owned small businesses grow their online presence by working with organizations and partners who encourage the adoption of web tools within their local communities.

Official Google Blog: Accelerating diversity outreach to businesses in local communities