There are multiple good reasons. Relative pain. The same amount of money has far more substantial effects on an individual than Google. You could live in compl

There are multiple good reasons. Relative pain. The same amount of money has far more substantial effects on an individual than Google. You could live in complete squalor for amounts that Google might not even notice missing. Ability to contribute. Even the bulk of the salary of 250 Google employees pales in comparison to Google's budget for this kind of thing. Getting Google to act could easily end with a large total contribution. Time. Presumably these 250 people have not been living on 50k a year with the intention to find some cause to throw literally all of their savings at. It may well take a year for them to contribute as much as you're suggesting. Public perception. Google doing a thing is not at all the same as a group of Google employees doing a thing. One would be far more influential than the other. Other corporations. Once Google does a thing, it is far easier for other corporations to follow suit. Not only is it simply easier to sell - I mean Google did it, it can't be that bad of an idea right? - it's more than possible that Google taking a stand would apply pressure to other corporations to do the same. They wouldn't want to be morally inferior to Google now would they? So, off the top of my head... yeah there's more than a few good reasons for trying to move Google like this. And who says none of these people haven't donated what money they could currently afford to? I don't know how we'd even know that.