Winners of Bay Area Impact Challenge Announced!!The Bay Area Impact Challenge was a crowdsourced effort to discover the best nonprofit ideas for improving life in the Bay Area. The reward for those nonprofit efforts doing the most good to bring about a better Bay Area would win monetary grants and support from a newly created impact lab. The impact lab is a collaboration between Google and Impact Hub SF to create a shared workspace for entrepreneurs invested in creating positive social and environmental change.!

The Competition:!!The challenge focused on the top twenty-five nonprofit initiatives in the Bay Area. The top four projects, as determined by online voting, would receive a five hundred thousand dollar grant and a year of time to work in the Google Impact Lab. The following six runner-up endeavors would receive two hundred and fifty dollars in grants each. Additionally, the final fifteen projects would receive one hundred dollars in grants; all runner-ups would also be granted a year of time collaborating with the Google Impact Lab.!!The Top Four Winners:!!An article recently completed by the Philanthropy News Digest announced the top four projects and how they would employ the funds granted to them. Hack the Hood plans to use the money to address equity in the region; they will seek to train low-income youths in the area in the tasks of creating and building websites for businesses, to equip them for employment in the demands of the twenty-first century workplace. Similarly, the Center for Employment Opportunities indicated that it would use the funds to develop an online platform to help prepare formerly incarcerated individuals for employment in the digital world.!!Health Trust, Bring Me A Book!!Health Trust declared that it would employ its funds towards the creation of channels to help supply and increase access to affordable local produce in underserved areas. Finally, Bring Me a Book will use its money to provide youths with access to digital books in multiple languages in an attempt to widen the exposure of underprivileged children to literature and textbooks. The nonprofit will also seek to create a supportive online community for parents and caregivers.