5 Things Every Non-Profit Should Know About Google Grants

1.  What it is?  Google Ad Grants provides eligible non-profits with $10,000 per month in in-kind AdWords advertising.  You can spend up to $329/day advertising your company, events and cause on Google.

2.  Are you eligible? There are three requirements an organization must meet to be eligible for the program: hold a current and valid charity status, agree to the required certifications regarding nondiscrimination and donation receipt and use and have a current, functioning website.

The following types of organizations are not eligible: government entities, hospitals and medical groups, schools, childcare centers or academic institutions/universities.

3. Why should I apply?  Say it with me $10,000 in ad revenue a month to run ads on Google.  This is a huge opportunity to grow your donor base and get your message out.  While you are limited to mission based ads and keywords, if your goal is to raise money or drive awareness, your ads would be directed this way anyway.  In addition you can highly target your ads based on location and interest to increase the likelihood that they are seen by the right people.

4.  How do I apply?  Visit http://www.google.com/grants/ and click “join the program”.  You will be walked through the application, confirm your eligibility and then submit your application for review.

5. What do I do now?  It may take some time to receive your approval.  This is the time to make a plan.  You have decisions to make in two buckets if you will.  The first, what are you going to do with your new budget? And the second, what keywords will you use. For the first question, the following is a small list of ideas that you could focus on in your ads:

• Promote a specific upcoming event
• Promote the sale of items to raise money for your cause
• Promote volunteer opportunities
• Promote your organization overall
• Drive people to your website or Google+ page

The second point you need consider is keyword selection.  The best way to start is to go into Google and do some searches using keywords where you would like your website or even to show up.  Make a list of those words and then go into AdWords Keywords Planner Tool.  You can enter in those keywords and it will tell you how competitive they are and give you ideas for similar search terms people might be using.

Using Google Ads is not like the Easy Bake Over, you can’t set it and forget it.  You need to monitoring it, change things, update things and sometimes tear it all down and start again.  But with the support of Google (both their help desk and the in-kind ad dollars) this is worth the time for any non-profit.

Program details from http://www.google.com/grants/