Tag Archives: Nonprofits

5 tips to fundraise for Giving Tuesday using Ad Grants


Giving Tuesday was first established in 2012 to encourage people to volunteer, advocate for a cause, donate, and perform other acts of generosity. This day has become a fundraising milestone for nonprofits: in 2019, people donated nearly $2 billion on Giving Tuesday in the U.S. alone.  


This year, Giving Tuesday is on December 1st. Giving day related search trends spike each November in the U.S. and more than half of nonprofits have reported a decrease in fundraising as a result of COVID-19. So early October is the right time to set up Ad Grants campaigns to be ready to raise funds online when the day arrives.


We compiled our top five tips for designing Ad Grants fundraising campaigns to help you prepare for Giving Tuesday:

1. Define your goals

Design your digital marketing strategy by identifying your target audience, setting organizational goals and establishing a value for each goal. Fundraising goals could include raising a certain amount of donations or generating a certain number of RSVPs for a virtual fundraising event. 

2. Update your website

Refresh your website often with clear calls to action. Since 40 percent of people will leave a page that takes longer than three secondsto load, you’ll want to test your website’s speed and get tips on how to improve it. 

3. Turn your goals into ads

Structure your Ad Grants account for success by translating your goals into your campaigns. If your goal is to promote a virtual event, you’ll need to write headlines that grab people’s attention and ad copy outlining exactly why they would benefit from attending. Learn how to adapt the goals you previously defined into actual ads.

4. Measure what matters

Measure your goals by tracking the actions people take on your website via conversions. Conversions are the actual website actions that complete your goals such as clicking the “Donate” or “RSVP” buttons. By tracking these conversions you can understand exactly how many people are taking the actions you want after viewing your ads.  

5. Ask for help 

If you sign up for Ad Grants, you also have access to free help from Google Ads-certified university students through the Online Marketing Challenge program. You’ll be matched with a team for hands-on support, including setting your strategy and activating new campaigns. You can also ask other nonprofits questions in our community forum, find answers to commonly asked questions in our help center, or see if other free Google tools can help your nonprofit make the most of Giving Tuesday. 


Since 2003, Google Ad Grants has provided over 115,000 nonprofits across 67 countries with free Search advertising to raise awareness for their missions, drive donations, and recruit volunteers. We hope these tips we’ve learned over the years will propel your organization to raise more funds on Giving Tuesday and set you up for sustained online growth. 

5 tips to fundraise for Giving Tuesday using Ad Grants


Giving Tuesday was first established in 2012 to encourage people to volunteer, advocate for a cause, donate, and perform other acts of generosity. This day has become a fundraising milestone for nonprofits: in 2019, people donated nearly $2 billion on Giving Tuesday in the U.S. alone.  


This year, Giving Tuesday is on December 1st. Giving day related search trends spike each November in the U.S. and more than half of nonprofits have reported a decrease in fundraising as a result of COVID-19. So early October is the right time to set up Ad Grants campaigns to be ready to raise funds online when the day arrives.


We compiled our top five tips for designing Ad Grants fundraising campaigns to help you prepare for Giving Tuesday:

1. Define your goals

Design your digital marketing strategy by identifying your target audience, setting organizational goals and establishing a value for each goal. Fundraising goals could include raising a certain amount of donations or generating a certain number of RSVPs for a virtual fundraising event. 

2. Update your website

Refresh your website often with clear calls to action. Since 40 percent of people will leave a page that takes longer than three secondsto load, you’ll want to test your website’s speed and get tips on how to improve it. 

3. Turn your goals into ads

Structure your Ad Grants account for success by translating your goals into your campaigns. If your goal is to promote a virtual event, you’ll need to write headlines that grab people’s attention and ad copy outlining exactly why they would benefit from attending. Learn how to adapt the goals you previously defined into actual ads.

4. Measure what matters

Measure your goals by tracking the actions people take on your website via conversions. Conversions are the actual website actions that complete your goals such as clicking the “Donate” or “RSVP” buttons. By tracking these conversions you can understand exactly how many people are taking the actions you want after viewing your ads.  

5. Ask for help 

If you sign up for Ad Grants, you also have access to free help from Google Ads-certified university students through the Online Marketing Challenge program. You’ll be matched with a team for hands-on support, including setting your strategy and activating new campaigns. You can also ask other nonprofits questions in our community forum, find answers to commonly asked questions in our help center, or see if other free Google tools can help your nonprofit make the most of Giving Tuesday. 


Since 2003, Google Ad Grants has provided over 115,000 nonprofits across 67 countries with free Search advertising to raise awareness for their missions, drive donations, and recruit volunteers. We hope these tips we’ve learned over the years will propel your organization to raise more funds on Giving Tuesday and set you up for sustained online growth. 

5 tips to fundraise for Giving Tuesday using Ad Grants


Giving Tuesday was first established in 2012 to encourage people to volunteer, advocate for a cause, donate, and perform other acts of generosity. This day has become a fundraising milestone for nonprofits: in 2019, people donated nearly $2 billion on Giving Tuesday in the U.S. alone.  


This year, Giving Tuesday is on December 1st. Giving day related search trends spike each November in the U.S. and more than half of nonprofits have reported a decrease in fundraising as a result of COVID-19. So early October is the right time to set up Ad Grants campaigns to be ready to raise funds online when the day arrives.


We compiled our top five tips for designing Ad Grants fundraising campaigns to help you prepare for Giving Tuesday:

1. Define your goals

Design your digital marketing strategy by identifying your target audience, setting organizational goals and establishing a value for each goal. Fundraising goals could include raising a certain amount of donations or generating a certain number of RSVPs for a virtual fundraising event. 

2. Update your website

Refresh your website often with clear calls to action. Since 40 percent of people will leave a page that takes longer than three secondsto load, you’ll want to test your website’s speed and get tips on how to improve it. 

3. Turn your goals into ads

Structure your Ad Grants account for success by translating your goals into your campaigns. If your goal is to promote a virtual event, you’ll need to write headlines that grab people’s attention and ad copy outlining exactly why they would benefit from attending. Learn how to adapt the goals you previously defined into actual ads.

4. Measure what matters

Measure your goals by tracking the actions people take on your website via conversions. Conversions are the actual website actions that complete your goals such as clicking the “Donate” or “RSVP” buttons. By tracking these conversions you can understand exactly how many people are taking the actions you want after viewing your ads.  

5. Ask for help 

If you sign up for Ad Grants, you also have access to free help from Google Ads-certified university students through the Online Marketing Challenge program. You’ll be matched with a team for hands-on support, including setting your strategy and activating new campaigns. You can also ask other nonprofits questions in our community forum, find answers to commonly asked questions in our help center, or see if other free Google tools can help your nonprofit make the most of Giving Tuesday. 


Since 2003, Google Ad Grants has provided over 115,000 nonprofits across 67 countries with free Search advertising to raise awareness for their missions, drive donations, and recruit volunteers. We hope these tips we’ve learned over the years will propel your organization to raise more funds on Giving Tuesday and set you up for sustained online growth. 

Nonprofits use Google tools to stay resilient

From bringing an aquarium online through live webcams to building an app that prepares underrepresented students for the workforce, nonprofits around the world are responding to issues facing their communities during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using technology as a key resource, these organizations are showing resilience, determination and flexibility while also trying to quickly adapt to everything that’s happening this year. Google for Nonprofits is now available in 67 countries around the world, offering free tools and resources for organizations to boost productivity, engage supporters and spread the word about their stories. Here’s how three organizations continue to make an impact with help from Google tools. 

Providing workshops for budding entrepreneurs

Instituto Fazendo Acontecer (IFA) is a nonprofit based in São Paulo, Brazil which provides entrepreneurial education for vulnerable children and adolescents. Before COVID-19 became a concern, they ran eight types of in-person free workshops to prepare students for their professional futures and strengthen their roles as citizens, regardless of their backgrounds.

At the start of the pandemic, they worked quickly to move education programs online. They developed a free mobile app with their learning curriculum available in both English and Portuguese, so students could access workshops, educational games and training experiences from any location. IFA also started using Google Meet to create an interactive environment from home and connect teachers to students. 

Instituto Fazendo Acontecer

IFA team members use Google Meet to stay connected and develop programs. 

With these new app-based workshops and remote work capabilities, they soon realized this was an opportunity to expand their programs from São Paulo to more locations. So far, they have supported more than 8,000 students. IFA expects to engage 10,000 more this year by partnering with teams around the world, and they have more than doubled their instructors during the pandemic. “Google has helped us provide the tools we needed in a moment when we weren't sure how to keep our work running, and this was key for our success,” says Jose Dornelas, IFA’s president. 

Bringing interactive activities online

California Academy of Sciences is an aquarium, planetarium and natural history museum in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park—and a powerful global voice for biodiversity research, environmental education and sustainability. Normally, they see around 1.5 million visitors every year. Prior to COVID-19, they opened their doors every Thursday night for an experience called NightLife, a themed interactive event that immerses visitors in a mix of science, art and culture. 

With the museum closed due to the pandemic, they had to quickly reorganize their approach to start working remotely. In just two weeks, they started to find ways to support the community and make these nighttime programs still accessible.

California Academy of Sciences

Viewers can now watch live streams of the Steinhart Aquarium which is home to nearly 40,000 live animals from over  900 unique species.

With help from G Suite for Nonprofits, staffers used Google Chat and Meet to stay in touch and brainstorm ideas virtually. They had dabbled in livestreaming before, so they decided to create a YouTube livestream for NightLife, bringing in many production partners like scientists, musicians and programming teams to create a virtually engaging experience. Their YouTube channel became more popular than ever before with people tuning in to join educational programs, take part in Nightlife and to enjoy live animal webcams. With the in-person exhibits remaining closed for the time being, NightLife continues each week to bring its after-hours educational experience to the community. 

Supporting volunteers and addressing uncertainty 

Venture 2 Impact, based in Halifax, Canada, works to break the cycle of poverty for individuals, families and communities by connecting skilled professionals with the communities around the world that need their support. Before the pandemic, they had tech experts travel around the world to lead workshops and trainings. But when travel was no longer safe, they had to reassess their entire strategy while helping volunteers cope with loneliness, anxiety and fear about the future. Their challenge was to figure out how to use technology to inspire hope within volunteers and continue to provide support to the communities they serve. 


Venture2Impact

Venture 2 Impact now trains their nonprofit partners by creating content on YouTube. 

They focused on understanding the challenges of NGO partners by using surveys with Google Forms. Then, they determined which training videos to produce, reached out to industry experts to create them and used Google Calendar to organize the schedule. Google Meet, which is now free for everyone, was essential in delivering and recording the workshops. Then, they uploaded the videos to YouTube to share them with their nonprofit community in India, Nepal, Thailand, Romania and Rwanda, and they organized the content into playlists to make it easier for viewers to find. 


To support volunteers in the U.S., Ireland, the U.K. and Canada, they created a mental health-focused virtual series hosted on Google Meet called WholeHearted Thursdays. They also created a room on Google Chat to share simulating articles, videos and ideas. Google tools helped them to launch new programs quickly, engage their staff, partners and volunteers in meaningful ways and tackle the problems that each community is facing. 

The Last Mile grows with G Suite Enterprise for Nonprofits

In the United States, as much as 83 percent of formerly incarcerated people return to prison. The Last Mile (TLM) is a nonprofit on a mission to reduce the re-incarceration cycle by creating new pathways to jobs for prison populations. Since 2010, it has provided classrooms to 600 incarcerated men, women and youth across the country, offering a highly competitive coding skills curriculum and becoming one of the most requested prison education programs in the country. Technology has played a huge role in TLM’s growth and is helping to keep the program going despite the COVID-19 pandemic, which is hitting prison populations especially hard. We interviewed Mike Bowie, director of Engineering, to learn more about TLM and how G Suite helped them boost efficiency and streamline operations.

What is the story of The Last Mile, and what’s the problem you are trying to solve?

We believe that high-quality education for incarcerated populations is key to providing new opportunities and breaking the re-incarceration cycle. When Chris Redlitz, our cofounder, entered the San Quentin State Prison for the first time in 2010 to speak to a group of men about business and entrepreneurship, he was impressed by the men’s eagerness to learn, and started to nurture the idea of creating a technology accelerator inside the prison. 

He started The Last Mile alongside his wife and business partner, Beverly Parenti. Graduates of TLM coding programs in San Quentin now take part in the first-ever web development shop in a US prison. After leaving prison, many TLM graduates enter paid apprenticeships with leading companies, turning their skills into careers and smoothing the way for reentry. 

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The Last Mile upgraded from G Suite for Nonprofits to G Suite Enterprise. Why?

As the information services at TLM have evolved, technology needs have also changed. It became clear that we could vastly simplify our service catalog, improve our security posture and streamline our IT operations with this one low-friction transition, so we decided to upgrade to G Suite Enterprise. Given the valuable range of functionality G Suite Enterprise already affords us, having Google now offer such reasonable discounts for nonprofits makes it hard to pass up. 

Did one or more of the G Suite Enterprise features help you solve a challenge that you think most nonprofits might face?

For any organization, people are the most critical component, and in the nonprofit environment, that’s especially true. As part of G Suite Enterprise, we now use Secure LDAP Service as a single identity and access management platform. Staff use the same G Suite credentials to log into multiple apps and, in many cases, without re-logging in. 

Having standardized on Chromebooks as our platform of choice, we can ensure the key G Suite apps for our organization are readily available as soon as the user logs in, and everything is kept up-to-date without the need for significant technical support. A centralized access management system has reduced financial costs, simplified IT management, streamlined staff onboarding and simplified the experiences for everyone who interacted with the complicated and burdensome systems we'd used in the past. Less time spent by IT engineers creating or updating accounts means more time working on things that have a valuable impact on our cause. 

How is TLM using G Suite to increase collaboration and security?

G Suite is the foundation platform for all of our team. Having that familiar, feature-rich set of tools as a starting point for communication and collaboration is key to our productivity. To ensure documentation processes are well detailed, TLM is using enterprise features in Google Meet, including the ability to record meetings and securely store them in Drive. 

The IT staff also gets access to security dashboards, reporting and eDiscovery tools. For example, email log helps determine the coverage of phishing campaigns, and eDiscovery gives visibility to phishing engagement. The system alerts IT of any suspicious logins, and gives them the ability to prioritize, investigate and escalate them in the console. 


What’s next with The Last Mile?

COVID-19 has posed new challenges. In-person activities have been paused to protect our students and slow the spread of the virus in prison facilities, which are particularly affected by the outbreak. But TLM's momentum isn't stopping. We have 23 classrooms across six states (California, Indiana, Kansas, Oklahoma, Michigan and North Dakota), with plans for rapid expansion. Our goal is to be in 50 classrooms across the country within the next four years. The tech-centric nature of our program has enabled us to continue providing value during the pandemic with remote instructions and recorded content. The efficiency of having a single unified means of managing all of the systems we have further supports our growth.

Closing data gaps with Lacuna Fund

Machine learning has shown enormous promise for social good, whether in helping respond to global health pandemics or reach citizens before natural disasters hit. But even as machine learning technology becomes increasingly accessible, social innovators still face significant barriers in their efforts to use this technology to unlock new solutions. From languages to health and agriculture, there is a lack of relevant, labeled data to represent and address the challenges that face much of the world's population.

To help close this gap, Google.org is making a $2.5 million grant alongside The Rockefeller Foundation, Canada’s International Development Resource Center (IDRC) and Germany’s GiZ FAIR Forward to launch Lacuna Fund, the world’s first collaborative nonprofit effort to directly address this missing data. The Fund aims to unlock the power of machine learning by providing data scientists, researchers, and social entrepreneurs in low- and middle-income communities around the world with resources to produce labeled datasets that address urgent problems.  

Labeled data is a particular type of data that is useful in generating machine learning models: This data provides the “ground truth” that a model can use to guess about cases that it hasn’t yet seen. To create a labeled dataset, example data is systematically “tagged” by knowledgeable humans with one or more concepts or entities each one represents. For example, a researcher might label short videos of insects with their type; images of fungi with whether or not they are harmful to plants around them; or passages of Swahili text with the parts of speech that each word represents. In turn, these datasets could enable biologists to track insect migration; farmers to accurately identify threats to their crops; and Swahili speakers to use an automated text messaging service to get vital health information.  

Guided by committees of domain and machine learning experts and facilitated by Meridian Institute, the Fund will provide resources and support to produce new labeled datasets, as well as augment or update existing ones to be more representative, relevant and sustainable. The Fund’s initial work will focus on agriculture and underrepresented languages, but we welcome additional collaborators and anticipate the fund will grow in the years to come. And our work is bigger than just individual datasets: Lacuna Fund will focus explicitly on growing the capacity of local organizations to be data collectors, curators and owners. While following best practices for responsible collection, publication and use, we endeavor to make all datasets as broadly available as possible.

Thanks in part to the rise of cloud computing, in particular services like Cloud AutoML and libraries like TensorFlow, AI is increasingly able to help address society’s most pressing issues. Yet we’ve seen firsthand in our work on the Google AI Impact Challenge the gap between the potential of AI and the ability to successfully implement it. The need for data is quickly becoming one of the most salient barriers to progress. It’s our hope that the Fund provides not only a way for social sector organizations to fund high-impact, immediately-applicable data collection and labeling, but also a foundation from which changemakers can build a better future.

Image at top: A team from AI Challenge Grantee Wadhwani Institute for Artificial Intelligence in India is working with local farmers to manage pest damage to crop.

Connecting people to causes through $1 billion in Ad Grants

As of this week, eight million people have been infected with COVID-19, and additional crises are worsening in mental health, domestic violence and social stigma. Society is also reckoning with longstanding racial injustices, both in the U.S. and abroad.

Nonprofits are taking swift action to confront these challenges, but many are struggling to stay afloat with typical fundraising activities canceled due to social distancing. In fact, more than half have experienced a decline in donations since the COVID-19 outbreak. Further compounding these challenges, they’re seeing sharp increases in the demand for services, which makes fundraising and volunteering online especially critical.

To further support nonprofits this year, we’re pledging an additional $200 million in Ad Grants, for a total of $1 billion in 2020. Since 2003, Ad Grants has provided nonprofits with up to $10,000 per month in free Search ads to help them attract donors, recruit volunteers, and promote their missions. The increased funding will go toward nonprofits tackling pressing issues like COVID-19 response and recovery—especially in hard-hit developing economies—and fighting racial injustice around the world.

Supporting racial justice

Yesterday, Google announced more commitments to racial equity, building on $12 million in cash grants commitments from Google.org and $25 million in Ad Grants to advance racial justice. The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc, a premier legal organization fighting for racial justice, was one of the first to receive these additional Ad Grants. Over the past several weeks, they’ve experienced a significant uptick in donations through their Ad Grants account. Another grantee is the United Negro College Fund (UNCF), the largest scholarship provider for students of color in the U.S. Through Ad Grants, UNCF drove 5,000+ interactions with students in 2019, ranging from new student sign ups to newsletter subscriptions.

With additional Ad Grants and account management support, we hope to increase engagement for both organizations so they can fulfill their missions of building toward a more equitable society. In the coming weeks, we’ll also offer additional Ad Grants to 100+ other racial justice institutions across the globe.

Driving COVID-19 response and recovery

COVID-19 is expected to drive 50 million people around the globe into extreme poverty, and developing countries will be particularly impacted. For this reason, we’ll award additional Ad Grants to nonprofits serving vulnerable populations in developing economies such as South Africa, Kenya, Brazil, Mexico, India and Thailand. One example is Feed My City, an Indian nonprofit that has provided meal boxes for underprivileged families during the COVID-19 lockdown. Since mid April, they’ve raised enough funds through Ad Grants to feed nearly 1,000 families. We’ll also work with national and local organizations in the U.S. like the Houston Food Bank, which has seen a 50 percent uptick in individuals and families in need of food in the past three months. Using Ad Grants helped increase donations by 330 percent from pre-crisis levels, which led to the delivery of almost 400,000 pounds of food.

Improving access for all qualified nonprofits

To make it easier for qualified nonprofits to receive Ad Grants, we’ve reduced our application process from 14 steps to two steps and also expanded Ad Grants to sixteen new countries.

Organizations can register for a livestream training on July 27th from 9:00 - 10:00 AM PT or view the recording on theGoogle for Nonprofits YouTube channel two days after the event. Additional information on how to maximize your Ad Grants is also available here. We sincerely hope these incremental Ad Grants can help nonprofits connect with people who are searching for their causes, and we will continue to share their stories throughout the year.


Connecting people to causes through $1 billion in Ad Grants

As of this week, eight million people have been infected with COVID-19, and additional crises are worsening in mental health, domestic violence and social stigma. Society is also reckoning with longstanding racial injustices, both in the U.S. and abroad.

Nonprofits are taking swift action to confront these challenges, but many are struggling to stay afloat with typical fundraising activities canceled due to social distancing. In fact, more than half have experienced a decline in donations since the COVID-19 outbreak. Further compounding these challenges, they’re seeing sharp increases in the demand for services, which makes fundraising and volunteering online especially critical.

To further support nonprofits this year, we’re pledging an additional $200 million in Ad Grants, for a total of $1 billion in 2020. Since 2003, Ad Grants has provided nonprofits with up to $10,000 per month in free Search ads to help them attract donors, recruit volunteers, and promote their missions. The increased funding will go toward nonprofits tackling pressing issues like COVID-19 response and recovery—especially in hard-hit developing economies—and fighting racial injustice around the world.

Supporting racial justice

Yesterday, Google announced more commitments to racial equity, building on $12 million in cash grants commitments from Google.org and $25 million in Ad Grants to advance racial justice. The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc, a premier legal organization fighting for racial justice, was one of the first to receive these additional Ad Grants. Over the past several weeks, they’ve experienced a significant uptick in donations through their Ad Grants account. Another grantee is the United Negro College Fund (UNCF), the largest scholarship provider for students of color in the U.S. Through Ad Grants, UNCF drove 5,000+ interactions with students in 2019, ranging from new student sign ups to newsletter subscriptions.

With additional Ad Grants and account management support, we hope to increase engagement for both organizations so they can fulfill their missions of building toward a more equitable society. In the coming weeks, we’ll also offer additional Ad Grants to 100+ other racial justice institutions across the globe.

Driving COVID-19 response and recovery

COVID-19 is expected to drive 50 million people around the globe into extreme poverty, and developing countries will be particularly impacted. For this reason, we’ll award additional Ad Grants to nonprofits serving vulnerable populations in developing economies such as South Africa, Kenya, Brazil, Mexico, India and Thailand. One example is Feed My City, an Indian nonprofit that has provided meal boxes for underprivileged families during the COVID-19 lockdown. Since mid April, they’ve raised enough funds through Ad Grants to feed nearly 1,000 families. We’ll also work with national and local organizations in the U.S. like the Houston Food Bank, which has seen a 50 percent uptick in individuals and families in need of food in the past three months. Using Ad Grants helped increase donations by 330 percent from pre-crisis levels, which led to the delivery of almost 400,000 pounds of food.

Improving access for all qualified nonprofits

To make it easier for qualified nonprofits to receive Ad Grants, we’ve reduced our application process from 14 steps to two steps and also expanded Ad Grants to sixteen new countries.

Organizations can register for a livestream training on July 27th from 9:00 - 10:00 AM PT or view the recording on theGoogle for Nonprofits YouTube channel two days after the event. Additional information on how to maximize your Ad Grants is also available here. We sincerely hope these incremental Ad Grants can help nonprofits connect with people who are searching for their causes, and we will continue to share their stories throughout the year.


Connecting people to causes through $1 billion in Ad Grants

As of this week, eight million people have been infected with COVID-19, and additional crises are worsening in mental health, domestic violence and social stigma. Society is also reckoning with longstanding racial injustices, both in the U.S. and abroad.

Nonprofits are taking swift action to confront these challenges, but many are struggling to stay afloat with typical fundraising activities canceled due to social distancing. In fact, more than half have experienced a decline in donations since the COVID-19 outbreak. Further compounding these challenges, they’re seeing sharp increases in the demand for services, which makes fundraising and volunteering online especially critical.

To further support nonprofits this year, we’re pledging an additional $200 million in Ad Grants, for a total of $1 billion in 2020. Since 2003, Ad Grants has provided nonprofits with up to $10,000 per month in free Search ads to help them attract donors, recruit volunteers, and promote their missions. The increased funding will go toward nonprofits tackling pressing issues like COVID-19 response and recovery—especially in hard-hit developing economies—and fighting racial injustice around the world.

Supporting racial justice

Yesterday, Google announced more commitments to racial equity, building on $12 million in cash grants commitments from Google.org and $25 million in Ad Grants to advance racial justice. The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc, a premier legal organization fighting for racial justice, was one of the first to receive these additional Ad Grants. Over the past several weeks, they’ve experienced a significant uptick in donations through their Ad Grants account. Another grantee is the United Negro College Fund (UNCF), the largest scholarship provider for students of color in the U.S. Through Ad Grants, UNCF drove 5,000+ interactions with students in 2019, ranging from new student sign ups to newsletter subscriptions.

With additional Ad Grants and account management support, we hope to increase engagement for both organizations so they can fulfill their missions of building toward a more equitable society. In the coming weeks, we’ll also offer additional Ad Grants to 100+ other racial justice institutions across the globe.

Driving COVID-19 response and recovery

COVID-19 is expected to drive 50 million people around the globe into extreme poverty, and developing countries will be particularly impacted. For this reason, we’ll award additional Ad Grants to nonprofits serving vulnerable populations in developing economies such as South Africa, Kenya, Brazil, Mexico, India and Thailand. One example is Feed My City, an Indian nonprofit that has provided meal boxes for underprivileged families during the COVID-19 lockdown. Since mid April, they’ve raised enough funds through Ad Grants to feed nearly 1,000 families. We’ll also work with national and local organizations in the U.S. like the Houston Food Bank, which has seen a 50 percent uptick in individuals and families in need of food in the past three months. Using Ad Grants helped increase donations by 330 percent from pre-crisis levels, which led to the delivery of almost 400,000 pounds of food.

Improving access for all qualified nonprofits

To make it easier for qualified nonprofits to receive Ad Grants, we’ve reduced our application process from 14 steps to two steps and also expanded Ad Grants to sixteen new countries.

Organizations can register for a livestream training on July 27th from 9:00 - 10:00 AM PT or view the recording on theGoogle for Nonprofits YouTube channel two days after the event. Additional information on how to maximize your Ad Grants is also available here. We sincerely hope these incremental Ad Grants can help nonprofits connect with people who are searching for their causes, and we will continue to share their stories throughout the year.


Connecting people to causes through $1 billion in Ad Grants

As of this week, eight million people have been infected with COVID-19, and additional crises are worsening in mental health, domestic violence and social stigma. Society is also reckoning with longstanding racial injustices, both in the U.S. and abroad.

Nonprofits are taking swift action to confront these challenges, but many are struggling to stay afloat with typical fundraising activities canceled due to social distancing. In fact, more than half have experienced a decline in donations since the COVID-19 outbreak. Further compounding these challenges, they’re seeing sharp increases in the demand for services, which makes fundraising and volunteering online especially critical.

To further support nonprofits this year, we’re pledging an additional $200 million in Ad Grants, for a total of $1 billion in 2020. Since 2003, Ad Grants has provided nonprofits with up to $10,000 per month in free Search ads to help them attract donors, recruit volunteers, and promote their missions. The increased funding will go toward nonprofits tackling pressing issues like COVID-19 response and recovery—especially in hard-hit developing economies—and fighting racial injustice around the world.

Supporting racial justice

Yesterday, Google announced more commitments to racial equity, building on $12 million in cash grants commitments from Google.org and $25 million in Ad Grants to advance racial justice. The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc, a premier legal organization fighting for racial justice, was one of the first to receive these additional Ad Grants. Over the past several weeks, they’ve experienced a significant uptick in donations through their Ad Grants account. Another grantee is the United Negro College Fund (UNCF), the largest scholarship provider for students of color in the U.S. Through Ad Grants, UNCF drove 5,000+ interactions with students in 2019, ranging from new student sign ups to newsletter subscriptions.

With additional Ad Grants and account management support, we hope to increase engagement for both organizations so they can fulfill their missions of building toward a more equitable society. In the coming weeks, we’ll also offer additional Ad Grants to 100+ other racial justice institutions across the globe.

Driving COVID-19 response and recovery

COVID-19 is expected to drive 50 million people around the globe into extreme poverty, and developing countries will be particularly impacted. For this reason, we’ll award additional Ad Grants to nonprofits serving vulnerable populations in developing economies such as South Africa, Kenya, Brazil, Mexico, India and Thailand. One example is Feed My City, an Indian nonprofit that has provided meal boxes for underprivileged families during the COVID-19 lockdown. Since mid April, they’ve raised enough funds through Ad Grants to feed nearly 1,000 families. We’ll also work with national and local organizations in the U.S. like the Houston Food Bank, which has seen a 50 percent uptick in individuals and families in need of food in the past three months. Using Ad Grants helped increase donations by 330 percent from pre-crisis levels, which led to the delivery of almost 400,000 pounds of food.

Improving access for all qualified nonprofits

To make it easier for qualified nonprofits to receive Ad Grants, we’ve reduced our application process from 14 steps to two steps and also expanded Ad Grants to sixteen new countries.

Organizations can register for a livestream training on July 27th from 9:00 - 10:00 AM PT or view the recording on theGoogle for Nonprofits YouTube channel two days after the event. Additional information on how to maximize your Ad Grants is also available here. We sincerely hope these incremental Ad Grants can help nonprofits connect with people who are searching for their causes, and we will continue to share their stories throughout the year.