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Amplify Your Voice: Getting Started With Google Ad Grants

June 6, 2023 by Dennis Fischman Leave a Comment

A guest post by Jessica King of Getting Attention

Nonprofit marketers at small nonprofits have to make every penny count, especially when up against big-name organizations with established brand awareness. One of the most cost-effective ways to garner attention is by building an online presence. A strong digital presence can go a long way in making a name for your organization and establishing a pipeline of motivated supporters.

Google offers free access to its advertising platform to nonprofits. The program — known as the Google Ad Grants program — is designed to help nonprofits amplify the most important pages that will push their missions forward. By applying, you’ll receive $10,000 monthly to spend on Google search ads.

With some work, you can make powerful strides in different areas of your daily operations — whether focused on fundraising, volunteerism, advocacy, or something else. To help, we’ll offer practical tips for getting started with Google Ad Grants by answering these questions:

  • What Content Can My Nonprofit Promote?
  • How Can I Maximize Google Ad Results?
  • How Do I Apply For the Program?

$10,000 a month can make an astounding impact on any cause, especially those operating on limited budgets. Through thoughtful nonprofit marketing, you can maximize your resources and drive more support for your nonprofit.

What Content Can My Nonprofit Promote With The Google Ad Grant?

The Google Ad Grant can supercharge your digital presence and maximize supporter engagement. However, experiencing those wonderful benefits means you must amplify the right content with your ads. Center each campaign around a specific area of your mission, whether you want to increase volunteer registrations, raise more donations, or secure new members.

While great for advancing any area of your work, the Google Ad Grant is most often used to promote pages related to fundraising, events, and volunteering. Getting Attention’s ultimate Google Ad Grant guide delves into these use cases for the grant:

  • Increase fundraising and memberships by sharing your online donation form, member registration form, current campaigns, and sponsorship opportunities.
  • Share upcoming events to increase attendance.
  • Boost volunteer registration forms and other volunteer content to strengthen recruitment and retention.
  • Provide details about your organization’s services to spread mission awareness.
  • Amplify advocacy activities such as online petitions and advocacy events.
  • Promote educational content to educate users about your cause.

Remember, any content you promote should directly impact your mission, so go beyond choosing your nonprofit’s homepage. After all, Google enforces a series of compliance requirements for Ad Grant recipients, one of them being driving meaningful conversions. Stick to one of the options above, and you’ll be set.

How Can I Maximize Google Ad Results?

$10,000 in free advertising credits is a substantial amount of money that can have an even more substantial impact on your cause. Instead of crossing your fingers and hoping for the best, put some thought into your Google Grant management approach.

Some easy ways you can optimize your budget include the following:

  • Write an attention-grabbing ad. Ensure your ads are persuasive and concisely summarize your case for support. Start with an eye-catching headline related to the search query, and use your description to provide more details about how users can help. Don’t forget to include a call to action, or CTA, calling people to donate, volunteer, or take another step.
  • Target the right keywords. Your keywords are just as important as the ads themselves. Choose high-value keywords that prospects might search to find your mission. Whichever ones you choose should be connected to your cause instead of being generic like “donate to a charity.”
  • Optimize your landing pages. When your ad inspires someone, they’ll click through to your landing page. Direct them to a page that is equally as inspiring and meets their search intent. Start by choosing one that serves a specific role in advancing your mission. Then, organize your content into sections, don’t clutter the page with unnecessary details, include keywords to indicate relevance, and feature impactful videos or images to capture attention.

Let’s take a look at a quick example. Let’s say you’re fundraising for a youth shelter. You might target terms like “donate to a youth shelter” and “youth homelessness support.” Then, your ad’s headline could be “Support Hope & Safety for Vulnerable Youth.” Your description can be along the lines of

Donate to our youth shelter and provide a safe haven. Your contribution will help provide shelter, meals, and mentorship. Make a difference today!

When clicked, the ad should direct users to your donation page.

Outsourcing Ad Grant Management

No matter your cause or goals, maximizing results often requires an advanced perspective and a watchful eye on your campaigns. Turn to a Google Grant manager for help, especially if you’re limited in staff capacity.

NXUnite’s guide to Google Ad Grant agencies explains that these experts offer professional experience to save your team time and eliminate the program’s learning curve. Plus, they can keep a close eye on your campaigns to interpret your performance data and ensure your account stays in compliance.

Great… Now How Do I Apply For The Program?

If you’re ready to take the next step, you’ll need to apply. Before doing so, we recommend confirming your eligibility. To allocate funds to the organizations that need it most, Google implements a series of eligibility requirements for Google Ad Grants. You’re likely eligible if you’re a registered 501(c)(3) organization. Although, there are three types of organizations that are automatically ineligible, regardless of charitable status:

  • Government-affiliated organizations and entities
  • Hospitals and other healthcare organizations
  • Schools, academic institutions, and universities

You’ll also need a user-friendly website with promotable content. If you meet the basic requirements, it’s worth it to apply.

Note that the Google Ad Grants application process entails quite a few steps. Here are the required ones to get started:

  1. Register your nonprofit with TechSoup or Percent, both of which are third-party organizations that work with Google to verify organizations’ legitimacy. U.S.-based organizations must be verified by TechSoup.
  2. Create a Google for Nonprofits account. Using your verification token from TechSoup, set up your account by providing information like your tax ID and non-discrimination policies.
  3. Fill out the Google Grant application. Once Google activates your account, you can access the program’s application. You’ll provide information like your website’s URL and some basic information like your goals for the program.

Once you’ve done all this, wait for the program’s coordinators to approve your application. After you’re approved, you can amplify your content via Google Ads. Just know that beyond the initial eligibility requirements, you’ll need to meet ongoing compliance requirements to stay eligible.

 

We can’t wait to see how you amplify your nonprofit’s voice with the Google Ad Grant!


Jessica King head shotJessica King, Business Lead at Getting Attention

 

Jessica helps nonprofits acquire and manage the Google Ad Grant to expand their impact. Prior to her work at Getting Attention, Jessica worked in nonprofit and higher education organizations focusing on communication and digital marketing, and most recently in search engine optimization in the mission-driven sector. Jessica holds a master’s degree in communication from Virginia Tech. In her free time, you can find her reading, building furniture, and hanging out with her cats, Benny and Olive.

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Fundraising Tuesday: No Volunteers, No Problem–5 Fundraising Events for Small Teams

March 22, 2022 by Dennis Fischman Leave a Comment

A guest post by Howard Gottlieb at Read-A-Thon

From bustling 5Ks to complex community events, you’ve probably run into the same handful of results when searching for profitable and effective fundraising ideas. Yet while these fundraising events can be very engaging and lucrative, they’re simply too involved and need too many hands for your small fundraising team to host.

If you’ve found yourself stuck in this dilemma—looking for great fundraisers that can be pulled off without many volunteers or event organizers—then this list was made with you in mind. Whether you’re a young team just starting your nonprofit or a small but ambitious group of PTA fundraisers, teams of any size, budget, or cause should find a solution that suits their needs among these top fundraising ideas:

  1. Read-a-thon Fundraisers
  2. Google Ad Grants Program
  3. Virtual Merchandise Fundraisers
  4. Matching Gift Fundraisers
  5. Virtual Workshops & Classes

1. Read-a-thon Fundraising Events

Read-a-thon campaigns are an incredibly popular idea for K-12 organizations and can be especially effective for teams who engage with young, developing minds. That being said, read-a-thons can be applied to any organization interested in an educational fundraiser.

Like most a-thon events, read-a-thons are like any peer-to-peer campaign where participants share their donation pages to gain support for a target activity—and in this case, that target activity is reading. But unlike many other campaigns, read-a-thon fundraisers can be managed by a mere handful of campaign organizers, with marketing, communications, and the management of your campaign easily accessible through your online fundraising tools.

For best results, consider investing in a read-a-thon platform. With an affordable, dedicated read-a-thon fundraising solution, you will have access to:

  • Integrated marketing tools
  • Easily customizable fundraising pages
  • Data and reporting features

These tools and the remote capabilities of a read-a-thon fundraiser should allow your small team to handle the entire campaign with relative ease and potentially raise thousands of dollars!

For more information on read-a-thons and other simple, effective fundraising ideas in the educational sector, explore Read-A-Thon’s list of 50+ Elementary School Fundraising Ideas.

2. Google Ad Grants Program

The Google Ad Grants program gives eligible nonprofits the chance to obtain $10,000 a month to put towards ad credits on the Google search engine. To be considered for this program, applicants simply have to:

  • Hold an official 501(c)(3) charity status.
  • Agree to Google Ad Grant’s terms of service, conditions, and certifications.
  • Host a functioning, valuable website adhering to Google’s website policy.
  • Secure a website SSL certificate.

If your organization meets these standards, then you could very well have access to thousands of dollars in Google Ad Grants to raise brand awareness, revamp your online presence, and attract a vast number of new donors.

3. Virtual Merchandise Fundraising Events

Online merchandise sales are not only a profitable, year-round fundraiser, but they’re also surprisingly easy to set up through your website, a merchandise service provider, or a merchandise fundraising platform.

Here are some of the most popular, top-selling items for these kinds of fundraisers:

  • T-shirts, jackets, and hoodies
  • Mugs and water bottles
  • Tote bags and backpacks

Once you’ve decided on your merchandise, be sure to brand these items to your organization. Every time a donor wears or uses them, they’ll be marketing your brand to family, friends, and onlookers.

Additionally, Bonfire’s guide to designing and selling custom apparel offers these tips to ensure your merchandise sale is as successful as possible:

  • Before creating your merch, identify your audience, their tastes, and their interests.
  • Determine the most effective messaging and marketing channels for your audience.
  • Draw design inspiration from past branded materials, new design trends, and popular styles.

Once you have a firm grasp of what marketing strategies your audience responds well to and what they would genuinely want to buy, your merchandise should practically sell itself.

4. Matching Gift Fundraising Events

Did you know that an estimated $4 to $7 billion in corporate matching gifts goes unclaimed every year? A matching gifts fundraiser can help you to take advantage of this untapped well of potential donations and easily maximize revenue.

The great thing is that donors’ employers already have submission systems in place through which many donors should be able to get their gifts matched. Your main job is to promote matching gift opportunities so that your donors know that they could easily be giving double or triple the support to your organization without spending another penny.

To drive more traffic to your website, your donation page, and employers’ matching gift request forms, you could:

  • Integrate your website with social media, posting information about matching gifts and links to your donation page
  • Include promotions about matching gifts in your post-gift acknowledgments and other email communications
  • Integrate a matching gifts database into your donation form, streamlining the entire matching gift request process

These strategies should keep your donors educated about matching gift opportunities and encourage them to take that extra moment of time to submit a request and expand their support.

5. Virtual Workshops & Classes

As remote work and digital engagement increase, many donors are going a bit stir crazy, spending much of their time at home, on their devices, and looking for fulfilling activities. This is part of what has made virtual classes such a popular choice for many fundraising teams.

Streaming an online class is not only a great way to remotely engage your donors and increase donor affinity for your organization, but it’s also an especially easy event to host. All you have to do is choose a topic, select an instructor, organize your agenda, promote your fundraiser, and charge a small admittance fee for attendees to get the stream link.

Take a look at just a few class, webinar, or workshop ideas that you might use to attract interested supporters:

  • Painting, drawing, and crafts. These art-based class topics are a favorite among various age groups, working both as a fun online school fundraiser or a relaxing paint-and-sip for adult donors.
  • Dance and fitness. Promote health and physical activity with a dance, yoga, or fitness workshop. This can be a one-off beginner’s class or part of a recurring series.
  • Professional development. If you’d like to take a more serious approach to your online class, you could conduct a book discussion, an educational webinar, or a lecture about a professional topic that you think your donors would find interesting.

To maximize revenue and increase marketing and engagement potential, you might even partner with a local business or instructor that specializes in your workshop’s topic or activity.

As a smaller, newer, or more local fundraising organization, it can often feel as if you’re at a disadvantage in terms of your ability to effectively fight for your cause. However, while you may not have the same access to campaign resources or volunteers, these simple, manageable, and effective fundraising ideas should lead you in the right direction towards fundraising success!

 


HOWARD GOTTLIEB

Howard GottliebFounder and CEO, Read-a-thon Fundraising Company
Howard Gottlieb has been a serial entrepreneur for more than 35 years. His latest venture, Read-a-thon, is a novel school fundraising concept that truly shifts the paradigm when it matters most. Read-a-thon replaces in-person bake sales, magazine drives and the like with a contactless method of raising much needed cash, one that can be used both in real classrooms and virtual learning spaces. The real bonus? It promotes literacy and gets kids excited about picking up a book.

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Leveraging Google Ad Grants for Brand Awareness: 4 Tips

October 18, 2021 by Dennis Fischman Leave a Comment

Raising brand awareness online can seem challenging at first. The internet is full of a million distractions and competitors, so your organization needs to stand out to the people who matter most: your supporters.

That’s where Google Ad Grants come in.

Google Ad Grants give eligible nonprofits up to $10,000 in ad credit each month. With these ad credits, your nonprofit can place targeted ads in search engine results about topics relevant to your work. Think of how easily you could meet your fundraising goals if you could double or triple the number of visitors to your website!

The key to raising brand awareness is to make sure that your brand is being seen. You can master Google Ads to get clicks online with a little time and practice, and anyone can learn the basics in a few short minutes. To increase your brand awareness with the Google Ad Grant, you should:

  • Design a branded website.
  • Identify high-priority conversions.
  • Create targeted ad campaigns.
  • Meet your supporters’ needs.

We will explore a few tips that anyone can use to gain an edge with their brand awareness online, starting with the center of it all: your website.

Design a branded website.

Your website is the most influential piece of your branding strategy. Remember, a poorly designed or under-used website can say just as much about a brand as an expert one.

An effective and well-maintained website is the headquarters of  your nonprofit’s online success and how well the Google Ad Grant will work. Here are a few things to examine to improve the quality of your website’s branding and functionality:

  • Your mission statement should be featured prominently. Your mission statement is like your nonprofit’s heartbeat. It inspires visitors to take action and gives your brand a chance to speak.
  • Choose your images wisely. Images and infographics provide a splash of color and useful information that can stay with a reader long after they have moved to the next website, but be careful about image sizes. An image that’s too large can make your website take a long time to load!
  • Say what you mean and say it well. The text on your site should be engaging to your readers. Think of your website as an always-on spokesperson for your nonprofit’s brand, and write something that gives life and energy to what you do.
  • Make your website accessible to all. Ensuring that your website follows accessibility guidelines, such as being navigable by keyboard alone or using clear fonts and text sizes, are simple steps that may help your website be fully functional to a wider audience.

Having a quality website is also one of the things that Google checks when examining your application for the Google Ad Grant. Put in the time to make your website into your brand’s helpful home on the internet and you will find that more of your visitors decide to stay awhile!

Identify high-priority conversions.

Getting visitors to your site isn’t everything. You also need to make sure that they are interacting with your site in ways that contribute to your cause. This is called a conversion.

A few high-value conversions include:

  • Increasing donations
  • Recruiting volunteers
  • Connecting with local businesses to encourage workplace giving
  • Getting views or downloads of important content
  • Signing up for an email newsletter

Ask yourself:  What does your organization hope to accomplish? What do they want to be known for? Which statistics might help with future grant proposals or program expansions? Ultimately, the conversions you decide to anchor your brand around will form the basis of how you target your ad campaigns with Google Ads.

Create targeted ad campaigns.

When you post an ad with Google, it doesn’t appear in every search on the internet. Google Ads can only place you at the top of the right search results if you know which searches to target, which will likely require a bit of critical thinking and research.

Spend some time thinking about your cause and your brand. What are common internet searches that your ideal audience might make? Use demographic data and from past fundraising or volunteering if you have it to inform your decision. Prospect research can also help you identify your ideal audience.

For example, let’s say you run a  nonprofit that aims to place stray animals in loving homes. If your organization was hoping to find volunteers, you could target phrases like “where to help animals in my area” or “benefits of volunteering with animals.” However, if you’d rather fundraise, you could shift your ads to target phrases like “support local animal rescues” or “how to help stray dogs.”

As you gain more experience in placing targeted ads. you will see what strategies and marketing channels are more effective to reach your ideal audience.. Your supporters have much to offer, but you need to understand them in return.

Meet your supporters’ needs.

Making a difference in your community is a collaboration between you and your supporters. It is important that you consider what they hope to gain through their volunteering or support for you, and meeting those needs will help to solidify your brand in their mind and build trust.

The Google Ad Grant gives you an easy way to speak directly to them. Think of your targeted ads not as marketing, but as the chance to answer a question, and even get to know your donors’ needs in the process.

Here are a few tips for how to meet potential new supporters where they are:

  • Track past ad campaigns to see which ones work. Google Ads tracks extensive data for you. This allows you to explore which ad campaigns are more successful than others and which goals they are helping you to meet.
  • Tailor your messaging to the campaigns that work best.  Successful campaigns indicate that something is resonating with your readers. Try to focus on what made those campaigns effective as you think of future ads.
  • Connect tailored messaging and your brand. Your supporters will show you which messaging works and which doesn’t. Take what you learn beyond Google Ads and use it to help improve your brand’s tone and voice everywhere that you communicate with your supporters.

The takeaway

Seeking change in your community is a team effort. It means taking the time to listen to your supporters and understand their needs and wants. Google Ads provide a way for you to find new supporters and communicate with them both directly and indirectly, providing essential information you need to help your organization thrive.

The size of your organization doesn’t have to limit how many people you can reach or what you can accomplish. Whether you choose to put the Google Ads to work for yourself or seek the help of Google-certified grant management, there is something for everyone in the Google Ad Grant to increase brand awareness.

 


Grant Hensel nonprofit awarenessGrant Hensel is the CEO of Nonprofit Megaphone, an agency focused 100% on Google Grant Management for nonprofits. NPM is honored to manage the Google Grant for 370+ leading nonprofits worldwide and to be an inaugural member of the Google Ad Grant Certified Professionals community.

 

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