Not at all. Companies may benefit indirectly from philanthropic activities (good PR, tax benefits, social influence, etc.), but this is not the same thing as profiting directly from doing so. Many companies donate to causes that have nothing to do with their business interests – that is, the causes that they help are not a source of potential profit for them.
In the case of a philanthropic division of a company, those in charge of determining what donations or grants to spend the available funds on do not in fact have monetary profit as their only goal, at least not in the sense of increasing sales or income from the company’s products.
https://www.givingforce.com/what-are-corporate-donations
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0927538X1730392X
I understand scruples about accepting funding from a corporation with a morally questionable history (though in a capitalist system I would question whether there is any company that is not in some way complicit). But
non-profits may still find that if they wish to survive they have little choice but to rely on large donations from corporate sources, simply because corporations typically have more money to give than individuals. Many non-profits also benefit from programs in which companies match employee donations, which are offered by a wide variety of companies across the political and ideological spectrum.
Of course corporate donations — like any donations – can be used as a way to promote particular activities or causes. We see that in this grant, which specifically funds AI development rather than funding development of iNat in other directions. One might question whether this is really the best priority (it is not, however, a radical departure from iNat’s existing profile, which already integrates AI into its interface in the form of the CV).
However, one of the repeated concerns that has been expressed is the fear that Google will lay claim to either the content used to train an AI model as part of the grant or to the AI model itself. This seems to be based on a fundamental misunderstanding of how charitable grants work. The fact that the grant program and its purpose is openly announced and promoted by Google should be seen as an indication that it is above-board and not a backdoor scheme to steal data from grantees.