Did you know that non profit organisations can advertise on Google without having to pay a penny? If not, it is something worth knowing; this is not a small token gesture from Google. If you were to pay for this level of advertising through their standard Adwords program – it would cost you thousands of pounds a month.

Google runs a nonprofits edition of their Adwords program to help nonprofits promote their initiatives. If you are an organisation with charitable status, this is an opportunity not to be missed.

Free advertising on Google; here’s a quick summary.

To be eligible you need to:

• Have charity status.
• Have a functioning website with substantial content on it.
• Agree to Google’s terms of use.

Additionally:

• You must have a single website page to link to; and the page linked to should not primarily be a page of links to other sites.
• You must manage your own Adwords account; and make changes to your account at least once every 90 days.
• Your adverts must be relevant to your cause; if you promote products all proceeds must go to your cause.
• Your site cannot display Google Ads or affiliate advertising.

The above details are only a quick guide, if you are interested in taking advantage of this opportunity you need to read the guidelines on the Google’s own site and make an application via the Google Ad Grants website. Get in touch if you need help setting it up.

You are not eligible if you fall into one of the following categories:

• Governmental entities and organisations.
• Hospitals and medical groups.
• Schools.
• Childcare centres.
• Academic institutions and universities (philanthropic arms of educational organisations are eligible). To learn more about Google’s programmes for educational institutions, visit Google for Education.

Get in touch, we can help you to take advantage of this advertising opportunity.

“Notwithstanding the fact that the commissioning group were spread across the UK, and Jim is in Scotland, the project was completed efficiently and on budget.” Richard Brine, CoLRiC Committee Member

Image by Henripontes (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0), via Wikimedia Commons

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