Google Ads for charities that keep the grant running

You apply through Google for Nonprofits, and Google's partner Goodstack checks that you are a registered charity in your country. Government bodies, hospitals and healthcare organisations, and schools are excluded; they have their own programmes or none at all. Once your Google for Nonprofits account is approved, you activate Ad Grants and get a separate Google Ads account for it.

Before you apply, your website has to be ready. Google expects a site on your own domain, with clear information about your mission and activities, that works on a phone and loads over a secure connection. A site that only asks for money with no explanation of the work is a common reason for a refusal. If your site needs work first, see Google Ads for small business for the basics of a landing page that converts.

Most grant accounts that stop working fail on the click-through rate. Google wants at least 5% of people who see your ads to click them, across the whole account, every month. Fall below that two months in a row and Google deactivates the account until you fix it and request reactivation.

That rule shapes how you build the account. Broad words like "charity" or "help" bring lots of impressions and few clicks, and they drag the rate down. Specific searches do the opposite: "volunteer with refugees in Leeds", "food bank near me", "donate a bike". Single-word keywords are not allowed, apart from your own brand and a few exceptions, and keywords with a quality score of 1 or 2 have to go.

The grant also requires at least two sitelinks, geo-targeting that fits your work, conversion tracking with at least one conversion a month, and Smart Bidding. Bids are capped at 2 dollars per click unless you use a conversion-based strategy, which is what we set up from the start. Every link gets UTM tags from the UTM builder, so Analytics shows what the grant brings next to your newsletter and social posts.

A charity rarely has one goal. You want volunteers, donors, people who need your service and sometimes partners. Each goal gets its own campaign, with its own words and its own page on your site.

Ad Grants only shows text ads in Google Search, below paid ads from advertisers who pay. On competitive searches, such as "donate to charity", your grant ads rarely show at all. And since October 2025, ads about political or social issues are no longer allowed in the EU on Google or Meta, which matters for UK charities that campaign across Europe. More on that in are political ads allowed in the EU.

If you need to show up on those competitive searches, or on YouTube and Display, a paid Google Ads account next to the grant is the way. It is a separate account with its own budget. Read is Google Ads free for how the paid side works, and the Google Ads cost guide for what a click costs.

Conversion tracking is a rule of the grant, but it is also how you prove the grant is worth the time. A donation, a volunteer sign-up, a call to your helpline and a downloaded guide all count, each with its own goal in Google Analytics 4. Set the tags up with consent, so your cookie banner works as it should; the cookie scanner shows what loads before someone agrees.

Grant ads are ordinary responsive search ads: up to 15 headlines and 4 descriptions that Google combines. Write them about the action you want, with the place and the result: "Volunteer at our Leeds food bank", "Free, confidential debt advice", "Give a bike a second life". Keep the claim factual: how many people you help is fine if it is on your site and true. For more ad patterns, see Google Ads examples.

Many charities start with the grant alone and add a small paid account for one season, such as a winter appeal. Keep the two accounts apart, with their own click-through rate and their own goals, and measure them in the same Analytics property so you see the whole picture. A landing page per appeal makes both work harder, and Google Tag Manager keeps the tags in one place.

• The click-through rate dropped after someone added broad keywords.
• Conversion tracking broke after a site update and nobody noticed for two months.
• Nobody logged in, so Google flagged the account as unmanaged.
• The website moved to a new domain without updating the ads.
• Keywords with a quality score of 1 or 2 stayed live.

Each one is easy to fix if you catch it in the monthly review. We check the account at the start of every month, before the rate for the month before is final.

We build the account with one campaign per goal, measurement first, and a monthly review that keeps the click-through rate above the line. The tracking comes before the first click, the way we put the Meta pixel behind consent, with Contact and Lead events, on the site of Park & Wash. Our Google Ads service covers the grant and, where it helps, a paid account next to it. If you run a charity and need software or a site as well, start at charities.