Free Google Advertising For Nonprofits Worldwide
1 min to read ✭
How do social organizations outside of the United States qualify for Google’s Nonprofit Programming without the tax status of 501(c)(3) nonprofit? While the Google Ad Grant has proven to impact nonprofit organizations in the United States very positively, many social focused ventures whose home base is outside the US have yet to take full advantage of this incredible boost in free advertising.
From Thailand, to Kenya, Canada, Chile, and many more – Google currently offers its nonprofit programming services to 49 different countries. For organizations outside the United States, they must be registered with their regional TechSoup arm.
TechSoup Global is an amazing organization that connects civil society initiatives with technology solutions around the world, allowing them to accelerate their impact. Access to some of Google’s products – like AdWords – are some of the most effective offerings TechSoup has for social businesses. Every country has unique eligibility guidelines that must be understood before applying to the Google for Nonprofits Program. You can further explore your country’s eligibility guidelines here.
Let’s look at Canada for example.
Unique To Canada
Canadian organizations must first ensure that they are registered with the Canadian government as either a federal charity, a federal nonprofit, or a provincial nonprofit. Just like qualifying for nonprofit status anywhere else, there are a flurry of forms and steps to go through. Once you have your charity status, you can move on to the next step.
Every Nonprofit
Before they can qualify for Google for Nonprofits, each non-US organization must first register with TechSoup and receive a validation token. TechSoup is an international company, and takes between 7-10 business days to verify an organization’s social status.
Once approved, there is a place inside the member portal to generate a token that is unique to your organization (check out this video by TechSoup if you can’t find it). We will then need to head to the Google for Nonprofits portal, select Canada from the list of 49 countries, and enter in that validation token. Verify that our organization meets the other eligibility guidelines and we can hit submit!
