Google Adwords Grant non-profit grant…yes or no?

A Google AdWords non-profit grant is $10,000 to spend PER MONTH on Google advertising.  The benefit of a Google grant is that it can drive traffic to your website from people looking for your services.  But the additional benefit is that the more traffic you get to your website, the higher your search engine rankings are for specific keywords as well.  Going back to my other articles:  Google loves what Google makes.   Google grants can be used for many things including promoting their mission, raising awareness, recruit volunteers and our favorite, increase donations.

Benefits of Using Google Ads to Promote Your Nonprofit

By using Google Ads for your promotional needs, you and your team can:

• Drive traffic directly to your website all while providing a frictionless user experience for your target audiences, including prospective donors, volunteers, visitors, and Corporate Sponsors
• Access a collection of apps specially-designed for nonprofits through GSuite for Nonprofits, which includes: Calendar, Gmail (with GSuite Basic email service with your domain at no cost), Hangouts Meet, and Docs, and Drive to help run your team more efficiently and collaboratively
• Track, analyze, and report on Google ad performance, reach, and effectiveness from a dashboard
• Access the Google Ads platform to build, monitor, and manage ad campaigns
• Get support with online resources and tools

Applying for a Google Grant

Step 1: Get approved through the Pre-Qualification Process

• Create an Ad Grants account
• Submit survey
• Complete Ad Grant training
• Submit account for review (Can take up to five business days)

 Step 2: Register for an Ad Grants account. Be sure to also opt-in for the Google Ads platform to use in conjunction with your Ad Grants account for help with building your ads and keywords.

Step 3:  Your Ad Grants account will go through a final review process to ensure eligibility, and that all information submitted is correct.

Who is Eligible for Google Grants?

Google Grants are available for eligible nonprofits to apply at any time on a rolling basis.  Eligibility criteria for the Google Ad Grant program include:

• Holding valid and current charity status, such as 501(c)(3) status registration with the IRS in the United States
• Have a website that meets Google’s Website Policy, which requires:
  • Website domain owned by the nonprofit entity
  • High-quality web content that provides clear information, loads quickly and contains no broken links
  • Commercial activity (sales) not the main focus of the website
  • No obtrusive ads

Exclusions include:

• A governmental entity or organization
• Hospitals, healthcare organizations
• Schools or educational nonprofits (See: Google for Education)
• Note: Churches and other religious institutions that are automatically recognized as 501(c)(3) organizations under the United States tax code can apply, but must obtain and provide charity status verification and documentation.

Maintaining your eligibility.

There are additional criteria to maintain eligibility in the program, including:

• Ads must follow the standard Google Ad guidelines (not limited to nonprofits) related to ad quality and legal terms
• Advertisements must also follow specific Google Ads for Nonprofits guidelines, including:
  • No single word keywords (some exceptions apply)
  • No extremely generic keywords
  • No keywords with a quality score of 1-2
  • Maintain a 5% click-through rate each month. If an organization goes two months without this, it may lose its grant privileges.
  • Conversion tracking.
  • At least two ads per ad group
  • At least two ad groups per campaign
  • At least two site links
  • Each organization must do the annual survey for the Grants program
• Must follow Grant Ads Terms & Conditions

Managing your Adwords account

Honestly, not for the faint of heart.  Google has a free service and can help set you up, but if you ever look at the Adwords admin panel, you may, like me, have a panic attack. So, We Are Immediate is here to help.  We are specialists in setting up and maintaining Adwords accounts.  Let us get you started, give you some basic skills and offer pro-bono support hours along the way.

If you are interested, please contact us! CLICK HERE

The original article was written by Hearst.  You can find it HERE.  We don usually republish other people’s content but we thought this was an awesome article.