How to get a $10K Google AdWords grant as a UK charity

Google Ads for Charities: $10K Grant Available in the UK

Did you know that registered charities in the UK can receive up to £8000 PER MONTH to run Google Ads campaigns?!

Despite being such a generous and beneficial grant, Inspire was shocked at the lack of knowledge charity owners and workers had about the availability of the grant.

In fact, when a Fife Chamber Member who is directly involved in running a UK Charity approached David asking for advice on how to run a successful Pay-per-Click (PPC) campaign, David was met with a surprised reaction when he mentioned the Google AdWords Grant.

For this reason, Inspire decided to put together a helpful guide for Fife Chamber Members explaining more about the Google Ads Grant, including details on how to apply and how it could help boost interest in your charity.

First things first: What are Google Ads and how do they work?

Google offers its users the option of running PPC campaigns to boost their online visibility and shoot straight to the top of page one. The often high costs for paid advertisement can be worth their weight in gold due to the high number of clicks and the huge amount of traffic effective Google Ad Campaigns can bring in.

Google Ads works by having users “bid” for a particular keyword(s). The more competitive the keyword, the higher the price point. The keyword(s) you choose will be paramount to your success, as they need to be directly related to your business and have a high number of monthly searches WITHOUT being overly competitive.

There are several factors that affect how high up the page your ad will sit. These include:

• How much you bid
• Your budget per campaign
• How well your organisation or website scores compared with competitors bidding on the same keyword
• The quality of your proposed ad

A plus point of Google Ads is that you only pay per click, so the amount you pay to Google will directly be influenced by the number of people clicking on your ad.

Therefore, as long as you have a good quality sales funnel and an attractive product or service to sell, your ad should, in theory, reap profits rather than leave you high and dry.

What are the benefits of using paid ads?

We all know the benefits that ranking on Google can bring to a business or to a charity. Google dominates the search world, sitting as the largest search engine in the world by quite some considerable distance.
Firstsiteguide estimates that there are more than 3.7 billion Google searches conducted every day. Talk about a wealth of opportunity!

But these insane numbers also mean an extremely high level of competition, which makes ranking on Google organically a real challenge. Yes, it is absolutely achievable through best SEO practices and consistent effort, but ranking organically is by no means a simple feat.

By opting for Paid Ads, however, charities can send their website listing to the top of Google without the effort of SEO, taking advantage of the ginormous volume of traffic to spread their charitable message to a wider audience, resulting in new (and more) donations from all around the world.

And although there are downsides to Paid Ads (which we won’t go into here), if you qualify for this fantastic grant, why not take advantage?

Ads are showing at the very top of your search results, depending on the popularity of the term there are more or less of them - here is an example for the search term "UK charity" (from the 1st June 2022)

How can UK charities apply for the Google Ads grant?

To access this generous Google Grant there are a few boxes that need to be checked. To qualify an organisation must:

• Be registered as a UK charity
• Hold current and valid charity status
• Acknowledge and agree to Google’s terms and conditions regarding non-discrimination and proper donation practices
• Have proper security certifications in place on your site
• Have a live website with relative content that proves you are who you say you are

Public organisations that are NOT eligible to apply are:

• Governmental entities
• Hospitals and medical groups
• Schools
• Academic institutions
• Universities

You can learn more about the eligibility Google requires via their official site.

If you feel you meet all of the above criteria and you are interested in applying for a Google AdWords Grant, you can start the process through the Google Grants for Non-Profits web page.

You can also learn more about using Google AdWords effectively via the Inspire blog.

As always, the team here at Inspire are ready and willing to help in any way that we can!

You can get in touch with us through our website and request a meeting by clicking here or drop me a WhatsApp direct on 07776 410777.