Learning and applying the Art and Science of Google Ad Grants for fundraising and telling your story is one of the most powerful online promotional opportunities available to your nonprofit.
Google Ad Grants is for nonprofits only. Google Ad Grants provides a $10K/mo advertising budget for use on their Google Ads platform, which is an online service that places advertisements near the list of search results. Stated another way, Google Ad Grants is the nonprofit version of Ads, which is Google’s online advertising service and Google’s primary source of revenue.
Commercial businesses pay to advertise online with Google Ads.
Qualified nonprofits use a limited version of Ads to promote their cause for no cost. And indeed, every qualified nonprofit should be taking advantage of Google Ad Grants to tell their story, to increase volunteers and to raise funding for their mission.
For the purpose of this message, the most important point is that successful use of Google Ad Grants can be broken down into two general areas:
1) Understanding and applying the mechanics of how to use Google Ad Grants.
2) And more importantly, developing creative strategies to generate the greatest value from the advertising.
That value would be measured in the achievement of your nonprofit organization’s goals, whether that be more donations, more volunteers, more attendees at events, etc.
An unsuccessful application might be reflected in an increase in web traffic, but not tangible benefits, such as more volunteers or more funding. Given that we have a free budget of $10,000 per month to spend, we not only want to spend it, but we want to see tangible results. However, on average, most nonprofits are only spending a fraction of their $10k/mo advertising budget. Which is reflection of a poor understanding and management of Google Ad Grants.
In short, successfully utilizing Google Ad Grants requires a combination of art and science. As we continue through this HOW TO USE GOOGLE AD GRANTS training, we will be looking into both the mechanics of how to use Google Ad Grants, as well as strategic use of this advertising to better achieve your nonprofit goals.