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Google is a household word in many places, thanks to the clean and friendly search bar.  Less well known are the many applications (apps) that are becoming increasingly powerful for home and business use.  With their recent $11.5 million donation to anti-slavery organizations, Google has moved into  a new activist landscape.

According to Google’s director of charitable giving, Jacquelline Fuller, the company chose to spotlight the issue of slavery because the topic of freedom — “the most basic of human rights,” as she puts it — resonated with company employees around the world.

Google’s efforts shine a powerful light on the new corporate ethic.  Stuart Hart, a respected author and academic at the Johnson School of Management, states that “Capitalism truly does stand at a crossroads.  The old strategies of the industrial age are no longer viable.  The time is now for the birth of a new, more inclusive form of commerce, one that lifts the entire human family…however, [the path] will be anything but smooth.  It will be a bumpy ride strewn with the remains of companies that variously dragged their feet, made promises they could not keep, bet on the wrong technology, collaborated with the wrong partners, and separated their social and business agendas.”

A hearty hurrah to Google for leading the way and staying true to their motto: Don’t Be Evil.