Your charity can benefit from £95,000 in Google Adwords grants

Would you turn down £95,000+ per year? The Google Non Profit programme offers just that - $10,000 per month for advertising on Google, also known as Google Adwords.

What is Google Adwords and Google Non Profits?

Google Adwords is part of the Google Non Profits programme and it offers much more than the monthly advertising grant. You can also access the G Suite for Non Profits which includes cloud storage, plus Gmail, Calendar and more, as well as access to the YouTube Non Profit Program and a range of other Google services all for free. In order to apply to the program you need to apply to the Technology Trust.  They validate that you’re a charity and provide a validation token that’s needed to complete the application (this takes 7 – 10 business days). Once you’ve applied to Google Non Profits you can enrol in Google Adwords.

Our experience with Google Adwords

At SCVO, we had an Adwords account that we knew we could be doing more with. So a few months back, we brought together members of staff from across the organisation to look at how we can better maximise our grant. We had some training as a team to help us better understand how we could manage the account internally and what tools could help us ensure we were reaching the right people.  Google Adwords isn’t the easiest to get your head around, so if you’re not familiar with the platform then getting some training will help you make the most of the £95,000+ per year grant. We have now been up and running on Google Adwords for a couple of months, and in the last month alone it has driven nearly 6,000 additional visits to our websites. The fairly small investment in training and staff time, now means we can reach more people and promote our services to new people.  

Rumours & myths

When setting up our account we encountered several rumours and myths about what you could and couldn’t do with a Non Profit Adword account, due to changes in the programme since its launch. Take a look at them below.

You can only use one domain per account

False. At SCVO, we have several domains. But we only have one Adwords account. Although advice online is mixed, you can in fact advertise multiple domains under one account with permission. Apply using the Additional Website Domain form. When submitting the form, you’re advised it will take five to seven business days to hear; in reality it took less than three hours for us to get approval. You can apply for all domains under the same application, so it doesn’t take too long to complete the form.

You need to log in regularly to keep your grant

True. Not only do you need to log in to your account once per month, Google also asks you to make changes at least every 90 days. If you don’t do this, Google claim they will automatically close your account – so make sure you remember to log in!

If you consistently spend your $10,000 per month allowance, you’ll get an upgrade

False. This used to be true and was known as Google Adwords Pro. Unfortunately, last year Google stopped increasing the limit to $40,000 per month for organisations consistently spending near to the $10,000 limit. There doesn’t look to be any signs that they will be re-opening the programme at the minute – but you never know.

The default cost per click (or bid) on an ad is capped at $2.00

True. You are unable to bid more than the maximum $2.00 for each click through. This means that other organisations who are paying for ads and are bidding on the same keywords, are likely to outbid you. Therefore, appearing before you on Google search results (although SEO and relevance are also important). Remember to bear this in mind if you’re bidding on more commercial keywords or generic ones like ‘donate’.

Over to you

How will you use your Google Adwords grant? To encourage people to volunteer for your organisation? To donate? To campaign? Find out more about the Google Non Profits programme.