Google Grants $2-Million to Winners of ‘Impact Challenge’

Four nonprofits active in nutrition, literacy, and job training and placement will collect $500,000 each from Google to expand or implement new projects after coming out on top in online voting for the firm’s Bay Area Impact Challenge contest, technology-news site TechCrunch writes.

About 200,000 votes were cast in the 10 days after Google announced 10 finalists in the competition, which overall is divvying up $5-million in grants among some two dozen groups chosen by a jury of community leaders and celebrities from more than 1,000 applicants.

The top winners are Hack the Hood, a summer program teaching technical skills to at-risk youths; Health Trust, which operates food carts offering nutritional snacks as an alternative to convenience stores; reading charity Bring Me a Book; and the Center for Employment Opportunities, which helps ex-convicts find employment.