Here’s How to Get Your Nonprofit Approved for Google’s $10,000 Ad Grant

First off, let’s address why the Google Ad Grant is an important resource that your nonprofit should look into. There are 3.5 billion searches happening on Google each day, which means the search engine could bring thousands of new visitors to your organization’s website daily. It’s important to make sure that you are effectively sharing your story with these people. Properly leveraging the Google Ad Grant to its fullest can also help you with various conversion actions, like yielding donations or getting more email subscribers, for example.

Three Functions of Eligibility

Your organization needs to hold valid charity status

You must agree to Google’s required certifications

Your nonprofit must have a live website with substantial content 

These three things are measures of your nonprofit’s eligibility for the Google Ad Grant. Without these, unfortunately, you won’t be approved because your organization would not be eligible. Additionally, government organizations and entities, schools, medical groups, and hospitals are not eligible for the Google Ad Grant.

Ad Grant Application Checklist

Register With TechSoup

The first item to check off your Google Ad Grant checklist is to register your nonprofit as a charity through TechSoup. Once you do so, you will receive a validation token that you will then use to apply for Google. Nonprofits with a Google for Nonprofits account are verified as charities by Google.

Create Google Ads Account

The next step in your Ad Grant application process is to actually create a Google Ads account and incorporate a few more key elements. You will need to set up an active campaign for your organization. Within the campaign, you will have to set up two ad groups with two ads in each ad group. Lastly, you have to set up sitelink extensions to the campaign itself. Once you’ve gotten your campaign set up and active, you can move on to the next and final step.

Set Up Conversion Tracking

The final step in your Ad Grant saga prior to submitting the application is to set your Google Ads account up with conversion tracking. This will track any actions taken on your site after people see your ad on Google’s search engine.

Submit…and Subscribe!

And that’s all! Once you’ve checked your organization’s eligibility for the Ad Grant and gone through the application checklist, you are ready to submit your application for ten thousand dollars in free ad spend. If along the way you find yourself having trouble with your Google Ad Grant application, let us know! We’d love to help.

Emily Fisher