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Benefiting most from this year’s Google Ad Grant
For those unfamiliar, the Google Ad Grant offers eligible charities up to $10,000 (approximately £7,000) in free Google Ads spend each month. That equates to $120,000 per year to appear at the top of Google search results, right when people are actively looking for information. It is a remarkable opportunity for charities to boost their visibility and increase awareness.
However, a reality check is important: the Google Ad Grant is not suitable for every charity.
Here is a straightforward checklist to help you assess whether your charity has the right foundations in place to succeed. Without these, the grant is unlikely to deliver meaningful results.
CAUSE APPEAL. The grant works best for charities with a broad or widely relevant mission. If your cause is highly niche, there may not be enough search demand to fully utilise the grant.
REACH. Charities with a national or regional audience typically benefit most. The grant is designed to help you scale your impact, and a broader reach ensures there is sufficient search volume.
A CONTENT-RICH WEBSITE. Your website is the cornerstone of your success with the Ad Grant. It must go beyond basic functionality to offer valuable, engaging content. Key features include:
- A clear sitemap to structure campaigns effectively.
- In-depth content that matches common search terms.
- Defined endpoints such as donation pages, volunteer sign-ups or downloadable resources.
A strong user experience is also essential. Visitors should be able to navigate easily and find the information they need without frustration. Poor navigation, lack of mobile optimisation, or irrelevant content can all undermine your advertising efforts.
If you meet these criteria, you are ready to implement the five-point framework to make the most of your Google Ad Grant.
STEP 1 – BUILD THE RIGHT WEBSITE FOUNDATION. The grant hinges on your website’s ability to meet real search demand. Put yourself in the shoes of your audience. What are they searching for? If they click on your ad, does the landing page provide what they expect?
Consider how your content can address a wider audience while still aligning with your mission. The goal is to attract anyone searching for topics relevant to your cause.
STEP 2 - STRUCTURE THE ACCOUNT EFFECTIVELY. Your Google Ads account should mirror the structure of your website. This ensures that campaigns align with your content and are easier to manage and update.
Run ongoing campaigns alongside short-term fundraisers. If your website changes, review how that affects your advertising account and what updates may be needed.
A well structured account also allows you to analyse performance at a granular level. You can quickly identify which pages users are engaging with — and which ones they are leaving immediately. If a particular page has a high conversion rate, you can see which keywords are driving visitors there and optimise your campaigns accordingly. This visibility helps you improve both advertising performance and the user journey across your website.
STEP 3 - WRITE ADS THAT WORK. Your advert is often the first impression someone has of your charity, so it needs to count. Your ads should reflect the audience’s intent, be relevant, and direct users to the most appropriate page on your website.
Make use of Google’s Dynamic Search Ads (DSA). These allow you to include multiple headlines and descriptions so that Google can automatically test and optimise the best performing combinations. Use all available space in your ads to stand out on the results page.
STEP 4 - OPTIMISE BIDDING STRATEGIES. While manual bidding is now largely outdated, Google’s AI can perform well when your campaigns are correctly configured.
If you are just starting out, using the “Maximise Clicks” setting can help drive initial traffic and identify useful trends. Once you have enough data, switch to “Maximise Conversions”, which is often the most effective strategy — especially when linked correctly with Google Analytics 4 (GA4). This helps your charity appear in more competitive search markets.
Google’s Performance Max (PMAX) campaigns are also worth exploring. Although they have yet to outperform a well optimised “Maximise Conversions” strategy, they are improving rapidly. PMAX allows your ads to appear on Google Maps, which is useful if you operate physical locations. However, support for platforms such as YouTube is currently limited.
STEP 5 – TRACK AND REPORT CLEARLY. Even the best campaign is only as effective as the insights it provides. You must be able to track performance and understand how it supports your objectives.
Analytics is not just about accountability. It enables you to learn and improve. Tools like Fundraise Up can integrate donation data directly into Google Analytics, helping you measure the impact of your ads more accurately.
Key takeaways
The Google Ad Grant is not the same as standard Google Ads. A generic, copy-and-paste approach will not work. Success requires an understanding of how the grant operates and a tailored strategy to match.
Above all, think of the grant as a brand awareness tool. It allows your charity to appear in front of thousands of potential supporters each month — right at the point when they are actively looking for something you offer. This visibility builds recognition and lays the foundation for long term engagement.
Make sure your website converts this attention into action. Focus on your strategic objectives, avoid vanity metrics, and stay up to date with developments. Tools such as Performance Max are only the beginning of what Google is expected to introduce in 2025.
Bonus opportunities for 2025
Google is not the only platform offering ad grants for this year. For instance, there is the LinkedIn Ad Grant where a new opportunity to apply is now available. Eligible categories include:
- Diversity, equity and inclusion.
- Economic opportunity for professionals overcoming barriers.
- Environmental sustainability.
Also, Microsoft has reopened its Ads for Social Impact programme. Charities can now join the waitlist for the next round of grant-supported advertising.
Looking ahead
CONTENT IS STILL KING. To get the most from your Google Ad Grant, continue feeding your website with fresh, relevant, and well-structured content. This is one of the most effective ways to attract and convert visitors.
AI AND SEARCH TRENDS. Search behaviour is evolving. For instance, Microsoft’s Bing Ads now influence results in AI-powered tools such as ChatGPT. At the same time, structured, informative content can help your website appear in generative AI outputs.
Remember, AI is only as effective as the content it draws from. Make sure your site gives it something valuable to work with.
Happy fundraising.
The right approach for a social media strategy
Since the explosion of social media in the early 2000s, with the launch of Friendster and Myspace, it has been a constantly evolving, hard to predict, and turbulent landscape.
Even the largest social media platforms can become the centre of controversy seemingly overnight, highlighted by X (formerly Twitter) since its takeover by Elon Musk.
There have been recent cases where companies have withdrawn social media advertising due to a lack of control over the content it appears alongside. Business titans, such as Apple, Disney and IBM have all taken the decision to pull their publicity from X after screenshots emerged of their paid posts next to hate speech.
TikTok is an example of a social media platform that had an unprecedented meteoric rise and now presides as one of the most influential - whereas the launch of Meta’s Threads showed initial promise with millions of people registering in the first week, but it quickly fizzled out. Knowing whether or not to jump onto emerging platforms and trends can be a real headache for charities.
The dilemma for charities
Charities should not feel pressured into thinking they need to be present across each and every platform all the time. Trying to manage this without the staff, skill sets or time required to do so effectively will likely only create a lot of unnecessary work, stretch teams further and take away from the overall impact of effective channels.
While it is important that charity teams are visible in the right places to engage with their supporters, as well as stay ahead of trends that could help boost donations or awareness, if they don’t currently have the capacity to manage a platform effectively, it may be that their resources are better spent elsewhere for the time being.
Charities also should think about how they can work efficiently so they're not reinventing the wheel each time they produce something for social media. They can use one piece of content and repurpose that for each of their social channels. The key is to have clear guidance and processes when creating these to help with things like word counts, image sizes and calls to action so that less time is spent on putting together the basics.
This could include using a template for your posts to keep them consistent, having a user guide for teams to know the type of content they could post, or tips on how to take high quality photos and videos for your social pages. Having something written down to cross-reference every time you want to post on social media helps teams to keep your platforms on-brand, while remaining recognisable and consistent for your followers too.
Where to start?
It may seem daunting to take on a social media strategy, but it is almost a necessary step for building and maintaining a following today. Fortunately, charities already have a great source of information they can draw on to get started - their donors and volunteers.
A great first step in kicking off or reassessing a social media strategy is engaging with existing supporters. This can be as simple as sending a survey to supporters through a charity CRM (customer relationship management system). Use the online communities that existing supporters already engage with as a guide for where to invest time and resources for publicity. Using the same tools, charity CRMs can provide campaign managers with a clear insight into existing supporters which can be applied to popular trends on social media as well.
Opening a dialogue with current supporters gives a great insight into the charity’s exact target audience - what works for them is likely to connect to other like-minded people, and therefore new potential supporters.
Once charities have decided where they are going to be active, they must decide on their messaging. Creating a social media strategy is the best way to ensure all outreach stays aligned with their values and goals.
Last year, the Charity Commission published its updated guidance around social media use mirroring this. It pointed out that having clear, agreed rules “can empower you or your team to post and share content, confident it’s right for your organisation and its purposes”. The updated guidelines outline that social media is a “highly effective way” for charities to engage audiences and communicate their work, but that there are risks involved, which trustees should plan and look out for.
The Charity Commission Guidance guidance advises that having social media policies in place ensures that everyone has a standard practice to follow and ensures that usage aligns with the charity’s own guidelines, ethos and conduct.
The Commission also urges charities to consider how content posted by an individual connected to the charity on their personal pages could have a wider impact on the charity by association. There are examples such as a high profile CEO sharing their opinions on a topic on X, or an ambassador posting controversial content on their personal Instagram account. While these people have a right to exercise their freedom of expression, charity trustees need to think about the risks to the charity’s reputation and its impact on supporters and beneficiaries.
Using data as a guide
With the information from social media account interactions and advertisements, campaign managers have access to even more data behind the full donor journey. With these insights it becomes much easier to see what's working and allocate time, effort and finances accordingly.
If one platform is far out-performing another, then it might be worth allocating more time and effort for it. Similarly, the data can show when to pull back from certain platforms if the return on investment isn’t working out as well. As with any new strategic move, it can be a balancing act when starting out to find where the ideal results and benefits lie.
All this isn’t to say that charities shouldn’t just stick to what already works and shy away from trying anything new. For example, taking a leap onto an emerging TikTok trend can suddenly become a portal to hundreds of thousands, or even millions of extra viewers for a charity. But moments like this are not always guaranteed to reach a large audience.
For those just starting out, or in the early stages of establishing a social media presence, there's nothing wrong with focusing on just one platform, before expanding into new platforms as audiences grow. Social media is constantly evolving, and so it is only natural that charities' presence on them does too.
The power of PR for charities
It goes without saying that fundraising is vital to the survival of charities, but securing finance during a cost of living crisis is incredibly challenging. Many charities are still recovering from the impact of the pandemic, with data from the Charity Commission showing that 60% saw a loss of income, 90% have experienced some negative impact and 32% experienced a shortage of volunteers.
In the face of this difficult landscape, however, there are also opportunities for charities to enable them to attract public support and build their reputation. This article aims demonstrate the power of public relations and why a PR strategy could be the key to unlocking a brighter future for your charity.
Why PR matters
A good PR strategy will identify your key messages and objectives, define your target audience and outline the best way to communicate these messages to the people who you want to reach by producing engaging, high quality content. This could take the form of press releases, broadcast interviews, social media content, magazine features, case studies and much more.
The end goal is to achieve positive content shared across your own channels, the media and other platforms to help raise awareness, enhance your reputation and support wider goals such as fundraising or signing up volunteers.
It can sometimes be difficult to put a monetary value on PR activity, but in the case of charity fundraising the power of PR is often clear to see. A survey of more than 2,000 people recently found that 42% of people have donated to a charity or fundraising drive after learning about it in the media. Nearly half (46%) of people agreed that it is more important for them to support local charities rather than national causes and 52% agreed that positive news stories about charities would make them more likely to support them.
Fundraising for events
It can be particularly useful to consider PR when there is a charity fundraising event taking place and you are aiming to attract as much public support as possible. Take the case of a family who were aiming to raise £50,000 for life-changing multiple sclerosis medical treatment for mother of three Maddy Boardman. Maddy’s husband Phil and her cousin Dave committed to running ten marathons in ten days, accompanied by family and friends.
They used PR to raise awareness to help them reach their ambitious target. A press release brought their story to life and there was then a media relations campaign to connect with journalists who might be interested in the story.
As the marathon challenge approached, media coverage was generated across local newspapers, websites, broadcast and offline channels. From BBC Radio Berkshire to MSN News and BBC One’s Spotlight show, TV, radio and print interviews were secured to raise awareness for the family as they undertook the huge mission. Each time the interviews went live, the donations spiked, and by the end of the 10 days the family had exceeded their target.
An ongoing campaign
PR can play an equally powerful role when you are gradually building your reputation and aiming to secure consistent support. In 2022, YMCA Newark & Sherwood aimed to launch its new Activity & Village and promote it as an asset to the local area. Over six months, a PR and media relations campaign was run to seed positive stories to the local press and to shine a light on the ways the charity was helping to improve the lives of young people.
It was arranged for the media to attend on the opening day of the Village and during key milestone moments, with the local BBC team filming a segment about the launch of the centre. Over the six month campaign, 48 pieces of positive press coverage were achieved across broadcast, print and online channels, with more than 600 social media engagements about the news stories. This helped to drive membership enquiries and encouraged local residents to visit the Village and use its incredible facilities.
A fresh approach
If you are looking to raise awareness of your cause but you don’t have any major milestones or news to communicate, hosting a one-off event can be an effective tactic. This might take the form of a fun day, an awards ceremony or a fundraising challenge. And if you can create something unusual or unique, you will stand a better chance of generating press interest and public support.
This was the case in a charity communications campaign for Forget Me Not Children’s Hospice to raise awareness of a new site and promote it in the surrounding areas. One of the key elements of the campaign was an event called Bark in the Park, which aimed to raise funds and awareness of the hospice. Families were invited to bring their dogs to the event, where they could enjoy activities, a best-dressed dog show, dog agility shows and a group walk around the park.
Alongside regional press coverage and celebrity attendance, a partnership with Channel 4 was secured that meant the charity was shown to millions of people on prime time TV. As well as raising thousands of pounds for the hospice, the PR campaign was seen by 8.1 million people, leaving a lasting legacy for its reputation.
Crisis management
While it is important to build awareness of all the positive work you are doing as a charity, you should also aim to reduce any negative press that could occur by creating a crisis management strategy. Even if the chances of needing this are slim, things can - and do - happen that are beyond your control.
Start by outlining a process you would follow in the event of a PR crisis and identify roles and responsibilities within your charity. Don’t forget to include any external partners you work with, and ensure every individual understands what is required of them and that you have their contact details for any out-of-hours emergencies. You can then identify the most likely risks and outline how you would respond to them.
It is a good idea to build a statement library which you can use as a foundation for any requests for comment. You should also agree on any named spokespeople in advance, to reduce the number of big decisions that need to be made in the heat of the moment. Smooth handling of a potential crisis could help you to avoid irreparable reputational damage that might hamper fundraising efforts and indeed risk the future of the charity as a whole.
PR can be transformational
While PR can feel daunting to charities which have never approached it before, with the right expertise and a strong strategy, it can be transformational. Not only can it help you to engage with your supporters and reach new donors, a good PR strategy can help to boost relationships with stakeholders, employees and the wider public.
As 2024 beckons, your thoughts might be turning to plans for the year ahead. Incorporating PR into your strategy should stand you in the best stead to navigate the challenging backdrop and embrace the opportunities that await.