What is the Google Ads Grant for Nonprofits?

The Google Ad Grants for Nonprofits is a program for eligible non-profits that awards $10K USD in-kind per month for a Google Search advertising budget.

Find out how to apply for this grant, use it to reach your goals and drive more online donors, volunteers, clients and partners to your site.

April McClellan consulting has been assisting non-profits for over 5 years with their Google Ad Grants strategy, implementation and management.

Benefits of the Google Ad Grant include:

creating awareness of your mission and expanding your reach online,
driving more quality traffic to your website,
growing your local presence on Google Maps, using Perfromance Max campaigns
building lead lists to attract potential donors, volunteers and partners,
developing your remarketing data audiences
sharing data between Google and social media audiences for higher quality ads,
diversifying your marketing strategy and advertising channels
tracking and reporting on your marketing performance.

Additional Benefits include free access to several other valuable Google tools and platforms:

Can Any Non-Profit Apply for a Google Ad Grant?

Yes, with some caveats. The process for applying is quite simple, however to apply for the Google Ad grant, your organization must be a registered non-profit or charity in your home country, and your country must be eligible.

Note that certain organization types are not eligible: hospitals, government entities and academic institutions (there is a separate educational grant)

General Steps for Applying:

Check the country list to see if your country is eligible.
Ensure your website has content relevant to your mission and performs well! Websites that load slowly or have technical errors are often not approved on the first try.
Ensure you have the proper legal documentation to prove your non-profit or charitable status.
Apply for the Google Ad Grant and complete the application process.
In Canada, you may verify your legal status with Techsoup if you already have a Techsoup account.
Expect to wait 2 days – 2 weeks.
Celebrate once approved!

How to Make The Most of the Google Ad Grant

Set Clear Goals

First, clearly define your business or organization profile and marketing goals. Answer the questions below to set your non-profit up for success with Google Ad Grants. Align your findings with your organization’s mission.

Evaluate In-House Skills

It’s important to know that the Google Ads Grant has different rules, features, pecularities and limits than regular paid Google Ads and can take time to learn and apply effectively.

The policies and features around Google Ad Grants also regularly evolve. For example, the Performance Max campaign type became available in 2025, but only for Google Search and Google Maps.

Consider whether you have the right skills, experience and time in-house to implement and execute your vision effectively and efficiently, while keeping on top of the ever evolving Google Ads landscape.

Consider Engaging a Google Ad Grants Expert

Many nonprofits fail to fully utilize the $10k usd available every month, losing valuable free resources.

This is primarily due to improperly segmented campaigns, poor choice of keywords, the limits of the grant itself, niche topic areas, limited geographic audiences, poorly optimized landing pages, lack of regular campaign management and more…

An experienced Google Ad Grants professional can help start you off on the right foot and build an account structure that will deliver for the long-term.

This non profit organization’s dramatic growth in high quality conversions from Google Search Ads AND a 95% utilization rate came during 2025 when many organizations were seeing up to a 60% reduction in their Google Search traffic.

How To Optimize a Google Ads Grant

Here are some primary steps to take when setting up your account and campaigns:

Determine your overall goals and priorities as they apply to online marketing: awareness, engagement, leads and conversions.
Consider how to structure your campaigns and their timing. For example, is seasonality relevant? Do you have specific regular or singular events, projects or programs or niche audiences that could benefit from a Google Ads campaign?
Decide which Campaign Types, or combination of, will be most beneficial to you based on your business goals, desired audiences, timing and sector – Search Campaigns, Performance Max or AI Max?
Determine your Bidding Stategies, relevant Keywords, high quality image assets, compelling marketing copy, Calls To Action and more…
Focus on Conversions, and ensure your website is setup to track those conversions in Google Analytics.
A critical step is to optimize your website landing pages for your Google Ads Campaigns and for SEO. Your landing pages must be relevant and useful to potential searchers, for Google Ads to even consider showing your ads.
Regularly manage your campaigns, assessing performance, trends and insights to continue to refine your campaign structure. This informs Google’s ad algorithm how to better target the right audience.

An experienced Google Ad Grants professional has expert knowledge of the policies, rules, limts and best practices for implementing and managing the Google Ads grant. They can help you execute your vision and design your Google Ads strategy, as well as train your staff to manage and grow your Google Ads in the future.

Contact Us to learn more about our Google Ad Grants services for non profits and charities.

Read on to hear how April McClellan Consulting has helped nonprofits to successfully implement and manage their Ads grant, significantly increasing awareness, engagement and conversions on their websites. (blog coming soon)