The Google Ad Grants Complete Course 2026

16/01/2026

My Google Ad Grants course for TechSoup starts on February 19, 2026. Over six weeks I'll guide you through the strategy and techniques to run a digital advertising campaign using Google's free ad budget for nonprofits.

What you'll learn:
—Best practice tips on building ad campaigns that get real-world results for your nonprofit;
—Current Ad Grants policies and compliance;
—New features including Performance Max campaigns and audience targeting methods;
—Why local nonprofits can put ads on Google Maps;
—How to expand ads' reach into AI overviews;
—How to set up conversion tracking in Google Analytics to power your ad campaigns, which is the trickiest technical challenge you'll face as an advertiser.

There will be plenty of opportunities to get your own questions answered and discuss your nonprofit's ad strategy. Join a cohort of learners for six live sessions + self-paced work.

Act fast to get $100 off with code ADGRANT100 (through January 20):

We want to help you effectively manage the Google Ad Grant for Nonprofits. With this grant, you can spend up to $120,000 next year in Google’s advertising dollars, all to help you multiply your digital impact. We’ve seen plenty of nonprofits max the potential offered...

16/01/2026

I just spent an hour trying to find examples of charity ads on Google Maps. I found plenty for charity shops including Oxfam, British Heart Foundation, Sue Ryder and a few others. But couldn't find a single one using a Google Ad Grant; all these ads were running out of paid accounts. I searched in the UK and US for many kinds of nonprofit, same story.

Seems that few Ad Grant holders have heard that they can put ads onto Google Maps, even though it's been possible to do so since December 2024 and was officially announced in June 2025.

Why so little uptake? Probably because in all that time there's never been an official announcement in the ads dashboard to say that this new feature was available. Hardly anyone knows about it.

I've been running ads on maps for a children's museum, and a community cafe, and a hiking charity. If you want visits to your location, this is an ideal way to achieve it. You can even see how many location visits that ads led to, so you'll know if it's effective. Got a chain of charity shops? Put ads for them on Maps for free.

I've made this lesson in my Google Ad Grants course a public preview, so you can watch the video and learn how it's done.

https://course.kingjason.co.uk/courses/google-ad-grant-complete-course-2024/lectures/60926022

If your nonprofit has put ads on Google Maps, please reply and share your experiences.

Learn to set up and optimizing a Google Ad Grant account, from beginner to advanced level

30/11/2025

My new Google Ad Grants course for TechSoup is open for registration. Sign up for six weekly sessions starting mid January.

Want to get more visibility for your ? Google Ad Grants can help you get your mission in front of new donors, volunteers, and community members.

Our upcoming course, How to Optimize the Google Ad Grant, will walk you through best practices so you can make the most of your $10,000/month ad credit. Includes six live sessions + self-paced work.

Get $100 off with code ADGRANT100 (through January 7): http://spr.ly/61857it8c

23/11/2025

New TechSoup course to learn Google Ad Grants, starting in January 2026.

My new course will take a group of learners through six weekly lessons. In between sessions you'll be able to practice building ad campaigns, and get support in the discussion forum.

We'll cover new techniques available in grant accounts like Performance Max, AI Max, and Google Maps ads. You'll learn how to keep the account in compliance following the very latest rules. We'll tackle conversion tracking, fundraising online with ads, and when to run paid ads.

Early birds save money when they signup with the promo code. Join us! Get $100 off with code ADGRANT100 through January 7: http://spr.ly/60487it8j

10/09/2024

Seeing a lot of Google Ad Grant suspensions lately. Not just that, but entire closures of Google for Nonprofits accounts.

When I've been able to see the websites, it's immediately obvious why. Cookie cutter sites on brand new domains, for nonprofits that have only been created recently. With either bland and generic text, or obviously fake information.

If you are approached by a company suggesting you can create a nonprofit to get an Ad Grant to benefit your business, don't do it. You'll be wasting your time and your money.

Google Ad Grants and Percent, the company that verifies nonprofit status, seem to be cracking down on Ad Grant fraud.

09/09/2024

Google has launched Performance Max ads for . This should be a good thing. But it's just going to cause confusion.

The wording says it reaches audiences across all Google. But it doesn't: it's only Search ads. It even lets you upload video (which won't get shown).

I hope Google fixes this immediately, before the sector gets completely confused. What message are nonprofits supposed to take from this? They will assume they have a powerful new tool, when in fact it's just the same old search ads in a new format.

Perhaps P-Max, even if it's still only Search ads, will be useful to some advertisers struggling to get impressions. Being keyword-less, it is at least a new approach.. but we already have DSA to do that.

This was a disappointing announcement. I hope at the very least Google clarifies to users that this is Search only. And I still hold out hope that one day P-Max in Ad Grants will enable the placement of your ads elsewhere than just Search: then it will be a truly useful tool.

P-Max is rolling out in Ad Grants accounts over the next few months. I just got access to my first account with P-Max, created a campaigns... and zero impressions four days later. Fingers crossed that's not going to be the usual experience.

I'll be testing P-Max across 20 accounts, and creating lessons for my Google Ad Grants course as soon as I've had the chance to see the results. Sign up for the course at https://course.kingjason.co.uk .

04/09/2024

Google Ads Grants just launched its biggest change ever, and it's an exciting one! The first new ad campaign type since the program began. The official announcement was made at today's Google.org Impact summit.

Here's the official announcement that Performance Max campaigns are rolling out in Google Ad Grants accounts and will become available over the next few months.

https://lnkd.in/emYhjDh3

P-Max could be a game-changer for nonprofits with Ad Grants. No more keywords; instead you choose themes and audience targeting, and the system decides when to show your ads. You write headlines and descriptions and add images within the ad.

As soon as I see P-Max in any of my client nonprofits' accounts, I'll put together a training video for my Google Ad Grants course, and publish it on YouTube. I've been using P-Max for a while in paid accounts, and am excited to see how it performs in Ad Grants.

If you see P-Max campaigns available and try it, please let me know what results you get.

My hope is this helps to counter one of the most common problems with the Ad Grants program: low impressions. But also that it enables to put out your message more easily with less effort. It isn't necessarily the right technique for all purposes: search ads will often be the best way to run certain ads because you have more control over the targeting and get more data.

I've been aware for several months this was coming but couldn't tell anyone. I don't know yet where ads will be placed, whether just in search results as is currently the case, or whether your ads can appear in maps or gmail or even YouTube. One of the big advantages of P-Max is that ads can appear in many places without having to create multiple campaigns, but at least initially the Ad Grant is likely to restrict where ads appear compared to a paid campaign. As soon as I find out, I'll let you know.

At the first Google.org Impact Summit, we’re announcing new AI tools nonprofits can use to create change.

02/08/2024

I guested on the podcast of Google Ads coach Jyllsaskingales to talk about the program for nonprofits. We busted common myths, shared insider tips, and discussed strategies to help you get the most out of your free ads. You can listen to the podcast episode here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-CWOLRtQqg .

If you'd like to learn to get results from your nonprofit's Google Ads Grant then sign up for my training course at https://course.kingjason.co.uk

If you work at a nonprofit, or with nonprofits, this is the episode you've been waiting for!Google Ads Coach Jyll Saskin Gales is joined by Google Ad Grants ...

02/07/2024

Google recently flagged all ads on a health nonprofit's hashtag account as "compromised site".

The web developer went into action and although they didn't find evidence of a specific hack or malware, they cleaned up a lot of issues on the website, hardened its security, and improved its loading speed.

We asked Google to check again and they were satisfied and removed the disapproved status. The screenshot below shows what happened next in the Google Ad Grant account. Note that it's one of the Legacy Ad Grant Pro accounts with four times the usual spend.

Immediately the ads were re-enabled, the account went up to full daily spend (blue line). It had been struggling for several months to use the full budget. But that's not the most dramatic improvement: look at the red line for conversion rate: it absolutely shot up. Bear in mind that we'd made no changes to how conversion tracking worked, so this change was solely caused by website improvements.

My analysis is that the slow, possibly compromised website was leading to low spend in the Ad Grant, and fixing those problems removed a barrier to spending the budget. Fixing website issues also meant that more people were able to successfully take actions on reaching the website, leading to more successful ad campaigns.

So if you manage a grant, make sure the website runs as fast and as smoothly and as securely as possible: it might make your life easier.

To learn more about managing Google Ad Grant accounts sign up for my course at https://course.kingjason.co.uk .

02/05/2024

I've been part of the Google Product Experts program for several years. PEs help people with questions about Google products in the official community forums. There are forums for Ads, Search, YouTube, Nest, Business Profile and many other products. If you have expertise in one of these products, why not join the program and help others? https://productexperts.withgoogle.com/

The Google Ads Community is one of the most active forums, and this week I achieved a Diamond badge in that community, which is the highest status in the program.

I mainly answer questions about Google Ad Grants, and also advise nonprofits using paid Google Ads accounts. Common questions include how to overcome low impressions, why grant applications get rejected, and rules and policy interpretations.

There is also a separate official Google Ad Grants forum, where I'd be happy to advise anyone who asks a question: https://support.google.com/grants/community

In other news, my new Google Ad Grants Complete Course is open and you can sign up here — http://course.kingjason.co.uk/ — The feedback I've had from students has been that it's really useful and it's certainly in-depth. Take a look at the curriculum and preview the free lessons before you buy. Coming this week: new lessons on integrating a donation platform and ad strategy to get donations.

Learn to set up and optimize your nonprofit's Google Ad Grant

29/03/2024

Sign up for my course to learn Google Ad Grants. Figure out how to wrangle Google Ads to get real-world results for your charity, using Google's free $329 per day advertising budget.

You can see the full curriculum and enroll at https://course.kingjason.co.uk

Meanwhile I'm working on new lessons about how to integrate the Fundraise Up donation platform into your nonprofit's website, how to connect it to Google Analytics, and how to use Google Ads to drive donations.

Learn to set up and optimize your nonprofit's Google Ad Grant