Google for Nonprofits – make the best use of Google Grants for your 501(c)(3)

Share your cause with the world, imagine what you could do with $10,000 Google Grants

– Google

Well, what would you do? I’m sure as a nonprofit you know the feeling of being forever constrained by budgets. Even if comfortably funded, those funds are sacred and are not to be wasted. But, if you needed to bring in new eyes in order to continue to be funded, I’m sure you’re also aware of the need to spend money in order to do so.

With Google Ad Grants

You’ll receive $10,000 USD of in-kind advertising every month to create text-based ads, and get access to specialist tools to help you build effective campaigns that can display on Google Search when people look for information related to your nonprofit or its programs. You can use this to build campaigns around fundraisers or events and, in theory, see returns many times in excess of the original ad spend.

Are you eligible for the Google Grant?

In the US you must:

• Be a participant in the Google for Nonprofits program
• Enjoy 501(c)(3) status
• Have a website with landing pages or content to be advertised.

Outside the US:

• Be a participant in the Google for Nonprofits program
• Enjoy nonprofit status in ~50 countries
• Have a website with landing pages or content to be advertised.

Making the most Google Grants

The average non-profit isn’t aware of the very generous AdWords spending grants (or Google’s offers of free G Suite access, free Maps API access for websites and other tools). The few that are have no-one available internally to plan out a marketing strategy. Or to plan out a PPC/SEM campaign to take advantage of the grant. They often failing to spend the vast majority… or any at all.

The choice is simple… hire someone to do this for you (you’ll need to work on a cost-benefit analysis to see if the management fee can be covered by the value of increased exposure for your organization or newly driven donations) or learn the basics of AdWords campaigns yourself.

An effective PPC Campaign involves

1. Setting goals you can measure and modify when you have more data. Before you start anything, plan out what you want to advertise, why, and how you’ll judge it to be effective. DO NOT: Publish an ad for just “XYZ Non Profit” with a link to your homepage. DO: Create special landing pages for events, programs or donation drives and advertise those instead. Tie into by Google Analytics and follow through at events or within programs to determine the sources of your audiences.
2. Learn what keywords people who’ll be interested in what you do are using to search for things related to what you do. DO NOT: Advertising the name of your organization as the main keyword (people will find you with that anyway, and you’ll only reach those who already know you). DO: Spend time researching keywords related to your causes. Examine keyword phrases people already use to find you but you don’t rank in results for as highly as you’d like.
3. Work out how to catch users’ attention with enticing ad copy. You have to think what you’ll write in both the titles and body of sponsored search results. DO NOT: Simply write who you are or what you do. DO: Focus on whether the title and body text answer a question the user is asking and also focus on the page subject you’re sending them to, but, still make it clear who you are.