First off, what is Google Ads?
You’ve used Google search – this is one of Google’s bread and butter product that they make billions off of every year. Advertisers pay a fortune to land on the top of the search results. When someone searches for “car insurance” instead of the website most related to car insurance coming up first, they will likely see a few advertisements. This is one more reason why paying attention to search engine optimization is so important – your website is facing paid competition.
The key points of Google Ad Grants for nonprofits
- It is an in-kind donation that you can use to advertise your nonprofit.
- You could use it to attract new volunteers, get people to sign up for your newsletter, get people to attend your events, attract donors, etc..
- Some nonprofits even have the majority of their website traffic coming via Google Ad Grants. It has helped them scale immensely.
- It allows you to show your nonprofit’s website on Google’s search results based on certain keywords. When someone is searching Google for “nonprofit that teaches kids how to code” or “animal shelter nonprofits looking for board members” or “best senior citizen homes in Virginia”, you have a chance to show up near the top.
- People do click on these ad links. Maybe you generally do not, but many do. Again Google makes billions off of these clicks.
- While there are limitations, it adds up to a lot of advertising for your nonprofit. It is up to $329 per day or roughly $10,000 in advertising per month or about $120,000 per year.
Some considerations for your nonprofit before applying:
- To access the full grant amount, you need to either know what you’re doing on Google Ads or trust that Google will spend it all on Adwords Express. A big decision you’ll need to make is should you choose Adwords Express or the regular version of Google Ads for your Google Ad Grant. Adwords Express basically lets Google run the campaign for you. While this makes it easier, it does not allow for so much flexibility as far as your ability to tune campaigns and spend the full budget. That said, there are a lot more stipulations Google has for the regular Good Adwords grant users. For example, you have to maintain a percentage of clicks and high-quality scores. In general, testing out both could be a good idea.
- There are a lot more limitations than using paid Google Ads. For example, you need to use location targeting and you can only use text ads.
- Google changes the grant occasionally – there were big updates at the beginning of the year and many nonprofits were eventually blocked from using it unless they fixed their account – but Google has insisted the grant is here to stay.
It sounds great – does my nonprofit qualify for the Google Ad Grant?
Google has updated this program a few times, but it is available in many countries plus for many different types of nonprofits. You also need to have a good quality nonprofit website. If you want to check, Google shares more info to see if your nonprofit qualifies. Should your nonprofit apply is, of course, a different question. In general though, if you qualify for the grant, the answer is yes. It’s not incredibly difficult to apply and it’s better to have access to in case you need it. All in all, it is a great program Google offers to help spread the word about nonprofits. Tens of thousands of nonprofits have made use of the grant and many more should.