Google Ad Grants for Nonprofits: How to Get $10,000 a Month in Free Google Ads

Say you run a food pantry, and tonight a parent in your town types “food pantry near me” into Google. Your shelves are stocked, and your volunteers are ready, but the first results belong to larger organizations, and that family may never find you.

Google Ad Grants helps close that gap. Eligible nonprofits get up to $10,000 per month in free search ads, putting your mission in front of the people who need you and those ready to help. Because Google rewards relevance, a small local nonprofit can sometimes show up ahead of a much larger national organization.

What’s Included in Google Ad Grants

Google Ad Grants is Google’s in-kind advertising program for nonprofits. Approved organizations get up to $10,000 a month in text ads on Google Search. You don’t pay for any of it.

Since 2003, Google says it has given more than $10 billion in free advertising to over 115,000 nonprofits in 51 countries.

The budget comes preloaded in a Google Ads account that Google creates for you. Every ad and keyword has to reflect your primary mission and relate to your programs and services, so the grant works best when it points people toward the work you already do, like a free tutoring program or a weekend meal service.

You also don’t have to figure it out alone. Google offers step-by-step videos, a Help Center, and a community where you can learn from other grantees, and you can talk to a Google Ads expert while you set up your account.

How Much You Can Spend And Where Ads Appear

The $10,000 figure is a monthly maximum ad spend, which works out to $329 per day. How much of that spend turns into real clicks depends on how many people search for what you offer and how closely you follow Google’s policies.

If you run more than one campaign, such as one for donations and another for volunteer recruitment, you split the daily budget between them. Unused funds don’t roll over to the next month, and Google never charges you if a campaign goes over budget.

Google also doesn’t require you to spend the full amount. If only a few hundred people a month search for what you offer, your account will spend less, and that’s fine.

When an account spends far less than the cap, Google points to common causes such as keywords that are too specific or rarely searched, or location targeting that’s too narrow. Revisiting those settings is the first place to look if you want your grant to reach more people.

Where Your Ads Show Up

Grant ads are text ads on the Google Search results page. They run in a separate auction after paid ads, so they appear on their own or below the paid ads, and an advertiser paying for the same search may rank above you.

Local searches are where smaller groups can make big gains in their search results positioning. Google notes that a small nonprofit using location-specific keywords may appear before larger national organizations. A phrase like “youth soccer league in Dayton” can reach local families more easily than “youth sports.”

Location targeting lets you choose the cities, states, metro areas, or regions where your ads appear. Google’s Ad Grants rules say that if you primarily serve your local community, your ads should run only in your town or local area, keeping every click focused on people you can actually reach.

How to Keep Your Google Ad Grant Active

Under Google’s account management policy, every account must maintain a 5% click-through rate each month, measured across the whole account. That’s the share of people who click your ad after seeing it. If you miss it two months in a row, Google temporarily deactivates the account.

Following these additional rules will ensure you stay in compliance:

• Track conversions, which are user actions like a donation payment or a volunteer sign-up, and make sure you’re getting at least one a month.
• Use Smart Bidding, Google’s automated bidding, if your account was created on or after April 22, 2019.
• Build at least two ad groups per campaign and add at least two sitelinks, which are the extra links that appear under an ad.
• Skip single-word keywords, apart from your own brand name, approved medical conditions, and a few other exceptions in the compliance guide.
• Pause or remove any keyword with a quality score of 1 or 2.

Who Qualifies for Google Ad Grants

In the US, your organization needs 501(c)(3) status and verification from Goodstack, the partner Google uses to confirm nonprofits, under its US eligibility guidelines.

Government entities, hospitals and health care organizations, and schools and universities aren’t eligible for Google Ad Grants, although their charitable or philanthropic arms can be. Fiscally sponsored groups without their own 501(c)(3) status don’t qualify either.

Your website has to pass a review, too. Google’s website policy says you must own the domain and serve the entire site over HTTPS. Most pages should be original content about your mission, with only limited commercial activity, and every link needs to work, especially your donate button.

How to Apply for Google Ad Grants

To get started, you first need a Google for Nonprofits account. Then you can apply for the grant itself. Google lays out the steps for setting up an account in its getting-started steps.

The grant side follows its Ad Grants activation process:

1. Request a Google for Nonprofits account and wait for Goodstack to verify your organization, which usually takes two to 14 business days.
2. Check your website against the grant’s website rules before you activate.
3. Sign in to Google for Nonprofits, choose Google Ad Grants, and enter your website.
4. Watch the roughly five-minute welcome video on program rules and confirm you finished it.
5. Submit your activation request, which Google says may take several business days to review.

Don’t create your own Google Ads account at any point during activation. Google sets one up for you when it activates the grant.

When Google Grant Ads Require Charitable Registration

Once your grant is live, you’ll choose where your ads run. Google’s legal requirements policy states that you’re responsible for complying with the local laws of every area your ads target. For donation ads, it includes state fundraising laws.

Forty jurisdictions require nonprofits to register before soliciting donations from their residents, as our overview of nonprofit fundraising registration explains. Even a donation button on your website generally means you need to register in those states. Check our Charleston Principles guide to learn how different states treat online giving.

Our nonprofit compliance guide covers the other state filings nonprofits keep up with each year. Labyrinth, Inc., our nonprofit brand, files initial charitable registrations and annual renewals in every state where you fundraise.

You can also talk to a registration specialist at Labyrinth. Our team files your initial registrations and tracks every renewal deadline in each state where your ads run.

Google Ad Grants FAQs