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(Copyright 2008 The Economist Newspaper Ltd. All rights reserved.)

At last, Larry Brilliant has set Google's philanthropy strategy. Now for the hard part

"WHAT does a moral person do, given all the problems and suffering in the world? Howdo you focus?" Larry Brilliant illustrates how difficult this is by recalling a friend's

struggle to decide how best to allocate a few rupees among the beggars waiting to die in

the Hindu sacred city of Benares, in India. Such a place could hardly be more different

from Google's headquarters in Mountain View, California--with its population of geeky

20-somethings, free food, volleyball courts and fake dinosaur--where Dr Brilliant and his

40-strong team have at last agreed a strategy for Google.org , the internet giant's

philanthropic arm, which Dr Brilliant leads.

The strategy, unveiled on January 17th, has been a long time coming. The announcement

marks the end of the beginning of a mission that began before Google's initial public

offering in 2004. As well as adopting the informal company motto, "Don't be evil", the

internet search firm's co-founders, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, decided to commit Google

to engage in serious philanthropy. Innovative as ever, they created a new sort of

philanthropic entity, a division of the company that could pursue its mission through both

for-profit investing and making charitable grants. This, they hoped, would one day

"eclipse Google itself in overall world impact by ambitiously applying innovation andsignificant resources to the largest of the world's problems." It would be funded with 1%

of the firm's equity, annual profits and employees' time.

In February 2006, after a lengthy search, Dr Brilliant was appointed to run Google.org.

Media reports focused on the old hippy's colourful past, not least his spell as a doctor with

the Grateful Dead, a legendary 1960s rock band. What attracted his new employers was

his unique record of success both in running Silicon Valley tech firms and in

implementing large-scale solutions to big social problems. In the 1970s, an appearance in a

film featuring the Grateful Dead had taken him to India, and thence to a job with the

World Health Organisation, where he helped to lead its successful smallpox-eradication

programme. Later he created the Seva Foundation, which has prevented an estimated 3m

people in nine developing countries from going blind. As a businessman, he ran two

public firms and, in 1985, co-founded The Well, a pioneering online service.

Though he has taken nearly two years to produce a strategy for Google.org , Dr Brilliant

has not been taking things easy. He may have added a taste for Hindu meditation to his

Detroit Jewish roots (he once shared a guru with Apple's boss, Steve Jobs), but he is adriven man, travelling widely and seeking advice from hundreds of people, pushing

himself harder than friends say is wise for a sexagenarian. When he arrived at Google.org

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he found extraordinarily high expectations, a blank sheet of paper to fill with a strategy,

and "microscopic attention" from outside on what it was doing.

Within a short time Google.org had compiled a list of over 1,000 ideas. These were

reduced to 11, focused on the world's "biggest, most imminent, least well resourced

problems". Each of the 11 was allocated to a different member of the Google.org team,

who acted as its advocate in a process of further scrutiny and selection that Dr Brilliant

likens to being in court. This led to the five initiatives announced this week. In thesedeliberations, the focus was on what Google specifically had to offer in each area, given

its technological and engineering capabilities, mastery of information, entrepreneurial

culture and global reach.

In broad terms, the outcome is not terribly surprising. Google.org will pursue five "core

initiatives" in three areas: fighting climate change (a particular obsession of Messrs Brin

and Page); economic development (a passion of Sheryl Sandberg, the unseen driving force

behind the creation ofGoogle.org); and building an early-warning system for pandemicsand other disasters--something Dr Brilliant wished for when he won the 2006 TED Prize,

which first brought him to Google's attention.

They're feeling lucky

Accordingly, Google.org has made a $5m grant to InSTEDD, a non-governmental

organisation that is building a rapid-reporting platform to connect people on the ground

with those monitoring pandemics. It hopes to raise the quality of public services in poor

countries by improving the flow of information both to those who run them and to thosethey serve. It has big ambitions to help small and medium enterprises in developing

countries. It is investing in the development of a plug-in electric car. And it has launched a

project called RE{lt}C to develop renewable energy that is cheaper than coal, "within years

not decades".

Each of these initiatives is deliberately high-risk and high-return, says Dr Brilliant. If the

pilots go well, Google.org plans to scale up fast; at the moment it is spending much less

than Messrs Brin and Page promised. Dr Brilliant thinks that being effective demands anarrow focus: this week's announcement was as much about telling people inside and

outside the firm what Google.org will not do as what it will. Among other things, it

decided against getting involved in microfinance, which Dr Brilliant thinks is now awash

with money, or trying to eradicate a disease (something he found especially hard to let go,

given his personal history in the battle against smallpox).

In the 1960s Dr Brilliant bought into the anti-corporate zeitgeist, but "I must have been

wrong," he says. Now he believes that companies can play a big part in solving the

world's problems. Is Google.org , with its innovative mix of for-profit and non-profit

strategies and political advocacy, within a corporate structure that denies it some of the

tax and regulatory advantages of a traditional foundation, a new model for how a big firm

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should engage with society? "Let's see how we do first," says Dr Brilliant, showing why he

has a reputation for being wise.