A whopping Sum Of $1 Million To Be Donated By Google Towards Education In Android Pay Charity Campaign

Google announced a holiday campaign that will see the tech giant donating up to a million dollars toward special education projects in partnership with nonprofit DonorsChoose.org, this is an effort to kickstart its mobile payments solution, Android Pay. The company noted that this is the first time Google has ever worked with an NGO on a mobile payments campaign.

However, it’s not the first time Google has tried its hand at mobile giving. Several years ago, the company’s own nonprofit arm, Google.org — which is also now backing this new charitable effort — launched an Android application called One Today. The idea was to allow users to donate $1 to different organizations using their mobile phone. That app is still around, though never cracked 100,000 installs, indicating little interest from consumers in dedicated apps for mobile giving.

According to Google, each time an Android Pay purchase is made beginning today through the end of the year, Google will donate $1 — up to $1 million. The funds will go to support the 6.4 million children in the U.S. education system with special needs, and will be funneled through DonorsChoose.org.

Hopefully, this renewed effort which sees Google making the donations, instead of consumers, will do better.

But of course this charitable campaign is not an entirely altruistic effort on Google’s part. The company wants users to adapt to this new way of making payments using their mobile phones, which requires a change in behavior. And old habits can be hard to break. The charitable campaign gives consumers a reason to try to set up and use Android Pay on their phone, and hits them at a time when they’re likely out doing a lot of shopping at brick-and-mortar retailers.

The Android Pay app is available here on Google Play and works on any NFC-enabled Android device running KitKat 4.4 or higher.

In addition, Google says it will double its donation for every Android Pay purchase made on Black Friday (Nov. 27) and it was said that there are a million locations around the U.S that support Android Pay today.