Launched in 2003, Google Grants is a unique ‘in-kind’ donation programme that awards free AdWords advertising to selected charitable organisations around the globe.
Google Grants are offering a golden ticket to charities based online; $10,000 worth of PPC advertising. The programme currently gives over 4,000 organisations the ability to achieve their goals by helping them promote their websites via advertising on Google.
Google Grants will give you an advertising grant within the Google AdWords™ programme. AdWords is the online self-managed advertising programme where your organisation will manage its advertising campaign by creating and monitoring text ads that run on Google. You create ads and choose keywords, which are words or phrases that are related to your organisation.
When people search on Google using one of your keywords, your ad may appear next to the search results and people can click your ad to see your website. You’re advertising to an audience that’s interested in your organisation because you’ve created a relevant ad and chosen relevant keywords to describe your efforts. You can edit your ads or keywords at any time.
Google ads appear when users search on Google. For example, when you search for “world poverty” on Google, text ads related to world poverty appear on the right hand side. When you click one of the ads, you are brought to the website being advertised.
The ‘in-kind’ online advertising scheme can be used in a variety of different ways; general outreach, recruitment of volunteers and fundraising campaigns, and in the past there have been examples of huge success. One of these examples is the US fund for UNICEF’s e-commerce site Shop UNICEF, which saw a 43% increase in sales over the previous year, while CoachArt â supporting children with life threatening illnesses- have seen a 70% increase in their number of volunteers.
To be eligible for the Grant your organisation must
1. Have a website
- Your ads must link to a page on your website.
- The keywords that you target must be relevant to your programmes and services.
- Your website cannot display revenue-generating ads, such as Google AdSense or affiliate advertising links, while participating in Google Grants.
- The ongoing, active management of your advertising campaign is your organisation’s responsibility once your account is active.
2. And things you cannot be are:
- Governmental entities and organizations
- Commercial / Goods and Services
- Car, boat and real estate donation websites
- Websites with a primary focus on selling goods, products or services
- Consumer credit counselling
- Communities and Groups
- Programs requiring membership and/or providing benefit solely to members, such as clubs, sports teams, alumni, networking and other membership organizations
- Religious content or to have content which tries to religiously convert people, on the website as well as organizations that use religion or sexual orientation as factor in hiring or populations served
- Groups serving a primarily political function such as lobbying, think tanks and special interest.
3. Other
- Promotion of illegal or disruptive tactics
- Websites serving solely as a portal or directory
- Websites participating in Google AdSense program
- Your organisation needs to be frequently active on the scheme to keep it running and frequently make good use of your Google Grants AdWords account. If you stick to the rules, your grant keeps on rolling, you don’t need to reapply at any time.
- The rules are simple and this is a fantastic opportunity. The more you use the grant, the longer your grant will roll on for, and in theory the more traffic should be directed to your site.
How to Apply
If you meet all the requirements you couldn’t get on this scheme fast enough!
To apply simply follow the steps below:
1. Review the website and the information above to see if Google Grants is appropriate for your organisation.
2. Complete the application form. You will know that your application was received when you see a “Thank you” page and receive an automated verification email.
Your application is more likely to be successful if you have a basic understanding of Google Grants and Google AdWords. In your application, you’ll be asked to provide sample keywords, ad copy and a brief statement about how your organisation will benefit from participating in the Google Grants programme. Use this section of the application to think about what your organisation would like to promote via Google Grants, whether this be events, volunteer recruitment, donations, etc.
3. Once your application has been submitted, the Google Grants committee (some of Google’s employees) is responsible for selecting award recipients. We will confirm if you are eligible and we will review your application and website carefully.
4. Once we review your application, you will be notified via email with the outcome of this review and, if selected, you will also receive your AdWords account login information and instructions for managing your advertising campaign. This email will also include educational content and other support materials to assist with your account management. Because of the high volume of interest in our programme, we are unable to respond to requests on the status of individual applications before the review is completed.
The programme has been running for seven years and has helped hundreds of charities, worldwide, spread their message and help the people they represent. The internet is now a priceless source of marketing for charities and AdWords is one of them.
We have a range of Pay per click management services and we offer a 20% discount on all our services for charities. If you are a charity please apply today and start using the world wide web to get your charity out there.
By Lucie Crouch and Gurpreet Bassi.
