Google AdWords Advertising for Non-Profit Organizations: Part 1 – Google Grants Program Overview

This series of blog posts is intended to provide solutions for non-profit organizations searching to find new ways to leverage online channels as a means of increasing awareness for their cause.

Many non-profit organizations focus on traditional advertising channels, (TV, radio, print, etc) and supplemental web properties, ignoring newer advertising mediums such as paid search. Often times, this is because they are apprehensive about trying something new, something not well understood, something unproven. Other times, they simply don’t know about the Google Grants program.

There are three key situations that we feel hold back many non-profits from making full use of online advertising campaigns:

• Some non-profit organizations do not use online advertising channels such as Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising
• Some non-profit organizations use PPC, but are not aware of the Google Grants Program
• Some non-profit organizations know about Google Grants Program but don’t have enough expertise/knowledge/manpower to take advantage of it

Google AdWords Grants provide advertising opportunities for non-profit organizations. Google Grants are part  of the Google for Nonprofits program and they help more than 6,000 organizations by promoting them through search engine marketing.

Video: Introduction to Google Grants

Google Grants Program Strengths

• Easy to apply
  It takes just few minutes to fill out and submit their very simple application form

• $10,000 per month grant
  Google Grants provide $10,000 grant in advertisement for qualified non-profit organizations.

• Ability to expand the grant up to $40,000 per month
  It’s possible to expand an existing $10,000 grant to to the amount of $40,000 per month upon reaching outlined requirements.
• Results
  Google Grants will drive more targeted traffic to your website and, as a result, they will help you reach wider audience, increase donations, educate, find additional supporters, involve new volunteers, and more.

Google Grants Program Limitations

While the Google Grants program provides the same AdWords interface as regular AdWords account, there are some limitations and budget constraints. Please make sure you are aware of these limitations. We’ve listed 5 key areas below:

• Maximum allowed cost-per-click is $1.00
• Ability to advertise within the Google Search only (cannot advertise on the Google Display Network or Google Search Partners)
• Only manual bidding option is available (features like automatic bidding and conversion optimizer are disabled)
• Available monthly budget is divided equally between days of a month.
  It means unused daily budget will not roll over to the next day. Basically, we have to deal with multiple daily budgets and try to utilize available budget every day.
• Violation of any program policies could lead to grant termination

More detailed information is available on this page. Want to learn more about Google Grants? Cardinal Path can help you with your application and develop a strategy to make sure your organization optimizes the use of your Google Grants account.