Mother Jones reports that the WWF was already using unmanned aerial drones in Nepal, where they act as eyes in the skies for park rangers on the hunt for poachers hiding in remote destinations. Now the WWF's drone program will expand across the world:

The Google funding will enable WWF to expand its drone program in Asia and Africa to protect rhinos, which are hunted for their horns; elephants, which are pursued for their tusks, and tigers, which are killed for everything from their eyes to their reproductive organs. The grant will also be used to advance wildlife tagging technology, specialized sensors, and ranger monitoring software.

Money awarded to the WWF comes from Google's Global Impact Awards. According to a Google blog post published Tuesday, these awards will "support organizations using technology and innovative approaches to tackle some of the toughest human challenges."

Google has awarded a total of $23 million to seven organizations including the WWF. They include DonorsChoose.org, Equal Opportunity Schools, the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media and  GiveDirectly, a program that utilizes mobile tech to assist the poor.

So the next time we ponder whether Google has become "evil," perhaps we'll stop and ask the endangered rhinos.

The philanthropic collabo is being facilitated by DonorsChoose.org.  Mr. Ohanian told Betabeat that he will soon be joining the startup's advisory board. "WOO for NY startups," he emailed. Since this is for a good cause, we'll refrain from asking him to step away from the pom-poms. Anyone who makes a donation of $10 or more towards physical education projects in New York City schools is eligible to win the tickets. The initiative, which did a soft launch last Friday, has already raised $1,561. Deadline for donations is next Monday at midnight.

Mr. Ohanian initially claimed to be the world's biggest Jeremy Lin fan, but backed down after some gentle prodding. "I haven't seen him play live (hence the idea for the contest!) and I accept that I may not in fact be his biggest fan," Mr. Ohanian admitted. "But I adore him because he's a validation of the geek's worldview: ignore expectation, follow the data. I then realized my social enterprise, breadpig.com (a Newman's Own for Nerds) made total sense to organize the fundraiser and asked Seatgeek (they were 110% stoked!)."

This isn't the first time Mr. Ohanian's gotten personally involved in a DonorsChoose fundraising initiative. Reddit broke records by raising more than $100,000 for Stephen Colbert's "Restoring Truthiness" rally, a rejoinder to Glenn Beck, and helped raise more than $620,000 towards history and civics projects. Breadpig has also pimped out collaborators for the greater good. Of course, nothing as personal as that time Mr. Ohanian got his own facial hair involved.