Google Inc. (Alphabet Inc.) | Report on Charitable Contributions at Google Inc. (Alphabet Inc.)

Status
0.56% votes in favour
AGM date
Previous AGM date
Proposal number
9
Resolution details
Company ticker
GOOGL
Lead filer
Undisclosed filer
Resolution ask
Conduct due diligence, audit or risk/impact assessment
ESG theme
  • Governance
ESG sub-theme
  • Lobbying / political engagement
Type of vote
Shareholder proposal
Filer type
Shareholder
Company sector
Technology
Company HQ country
United States
Resolved clause
Shareholders of Alphabet, Inc. (the “Company”) request that the Company prepare and annually update a report to shareholders, at reasonable expense and excluding proprietary information, listing and analyzing charitable contributions during the prior year. The report should



1. Identify organizational or individual recipients of donations, whether cash or in-kind, in excess of $5000 and aggregate smaller contributions by categories of recipients such as community organizations, schools, medical groups, churches, political or social activism organizations, and the like;
2. Identify for donations not yet spent or used: the purposes to which the donations are to be put, any restrictions on the use of the donations, and any mechanisms by which the restrictions on donations will be monitored and enforced;
3. Identify for donations already spent or used: the purposes to which the donations were to be put, the purposes to which the donations were actually put, the method by which the use of the donations was monitored and ascertained, and an evaluation of the efficacy of the donations and the Company’s intention with regard to future donations to the organization;
4. Include management’s analysis of the risks to the Company’s brand, reputation, or shareholder value posed by public controversies associated with the donations, including an explanation of the objective and consistent standards by which such controversies were discovered and their effect on the Company gauged; and
5. Identify, if and as appropriate, philanthropic areas of initiatives considered most germane to corporate values while posting less risk to Company reputation; or in the alternative, any decision to scale back without replacement risky or misused donations.
Supporting statement
The Securities & Exchange Commission has long and consistently stated that charitable contributions by corporations are “generally found to involve a matter of corporate policy which is extraordinary in nature and beyond a company’s ordinary business operations,”1 and so is amenable, without omission, to shareholder proposals to require reporting about them and about potential or realized risks and controversies arising from them, so long as the proposal relates to the corporation’s “charitable contributions generally,” rather than merely to some segment of the corporation’s charitable contributions.2



The need for such reporting has grown particularly acute in this shareholder season. Many corporations, including the Company have committed to making significant charitable contributions in recent months.3 The political and social events which triggered these commitments are potentially highly divisive, and carry with them significant potential for misapplication of well-intentioned contributions to activities fraught with risk to the Company’s reputation.4 It has therefore become more important than ever for corporations, and for Company specifically, to monitor carefully, and to report to shareholders, the content of, intentions for, actual use of and lessons learned from its charitable contributions.

How other organisations have declared their voting intentions

Organisation name Declared voting intentions Rationale
Anima Sgr Against
VidaCaixa Against
Universities Superannuation Scheme - USS Against After careful consideration, we do not believe the proponent's resolution is in the best interests of shareholders.

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