Give with Microsoft Bing
By: Microsoft Design
Tags: Microsoft, Design

Giving is a universal behavior that spans cultures around the world. Altruistic acts — from supporting disaster relief to voting rights efforts to housing development and cultural preservation — not only benefit the recipients, but also make a positive impact psychologically on those who give. The effect of giving tends to be contagious. When we see others engage in giving behaviors, we want to give ourselves.

As a design and research team working on web experiences that connect the globe, we are passionate on this point: giving is for everyone.

Available now, Give with Bing is an experience that converts your everyday web searches into charitable donations. Your Microsoft Rewards points become actual dollars donated to the nonprofit of your choice. Every query makes a difference. As we continue to invest in Bing, our approach is evolving. We’re not only including new features; we’re rethinking and redesigning the function of search, asking ourselves how the web can be used for good.

Broadening the responsibility of design

The act of searching the web hasn’t changed much in 30 years. What has changed is the number of people connected to the web today. With more than half the world’s population, or 3.8 billion people, using the internet every day, we seek to push boundaries and start thinking about how we can use this scale of impact responsibly.

Our design methodology partially stems from our modern understanding of corporate social responsibility. According to Microsoft CEO, Satya Nadella, “The corporation’s purpose is to find profitable solutions to the problems of the people and the planet.” This expands the notion of shareholder capitalism to stakeholder capitalism, asking us to consider anyone and anything that technology’s reach impacts. This holds corporations accountable to a much larger constituency, solving problems that help contribute to the common good.

A sampling of hero images designed for the Microsoft Bing homepage.

We’ve seen a year filled with loss and anxiety that has amplified the need for good. We’ve experienced the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, a resounding call for racial justice, and a rise in wildfires and other natural disasters. These events are enough to overwhelm people, making them wonder how they can even begin to help. But it’s empowering to think that you don’t need to be a wealthy philanthropist to give back — that something you do every day could help make a difference, no matter your cause. Through Give with Bing, we’re hoping to remove the historical barriers to philanthropy and democratize the act of giving.

You, and the causes you care about, are crucial to this goal. Give with Bing supports more than a million charitable organizations, and you can change your chosen cause at any time. We also believe that there is power in small acts, and we see an opportunity for equity in opening the idea of philanthropy to include personally meaningful contributions. Giving is giving is giving.

Elevating an everyday tool

Empowering personal web searches with greater impact and purpose translates as a form of data dignity, the idea that a person’s online activity is a personal, autonomous asset. Give with Bing is a way to respect data dignity by using your personal interest — the charitable cause you care about — as a valued and valuable data currency within your control. Conversations about data dignity are gaining traction in the realm of technology ethics, with experts like Jaron Lanier arguing that people should be paid for their data. Give with Bing essentially models data as currency, whereby your searches (data) become cash donations (currency). This is really only possible on the web, where everyone has inherent value. The internet was built with an egalitarian vision. Give with Bing is an evolution of this vision, helping democratize search into a data-equitable experience.

Feeding children, protecting wildlife, or giving clean water are among myriad causes you can contribute to.

We want to see more of this thinking go into designing web experiences. Beyond improved privacy interactions, what are the opportunities to translate web searches into the common good? Take Ecosia, the search engine that uses ad revenue to plant trees. In many cases, the web already functions in a way that we can elevate toward the greater good, repurposing some aspects of technology for a more human experience. As designers and creators, we need to tap into the better angels of our nature.

Designing responsibly now and tomorrow

We know that people have the propensity to do good, and the benefits of altruistic behavior are well documented. There is even something called the “helper’s high” to describe the effects of giving, with the giver experiencing lower stress, improved mood, and increased happiness. Knowing this, and considering our reach as designers working on Bing, drawing the connection became that act of responsible design — to leverage the power of technology to effect change.

Everyone searches the web. Bing is repurposing this platform to acknowledge that anyone who wants to make an impact should be able to. The promise of technology falls short without this egalitarian mindset. For this reason, we see Give with Bing as a promise, with bigger plans for the future. This isn’t just about the dollars being donated right now, but about the approach we take to design better, challenging the way things work, and imagining that things could work differently.

A lot of people across different teams in Microsoft came together to make this possible. Thanks to Alexander Kim, Altaf Gilani, Bobby Bernethy, Camille Basilio, Cyrus Kanga, Igor Rondel, Jane Park, Jess Boos, Kim Brown, Nandhini Kohareswaran, Richard Jacques, Rob Frye, Urmi Bhayani, YoungSun Park, everyone in the research, engineering, and branding teams, and all the amazing folks who contributed to the success of this project!