Google for Nonprofits is an excellent free resource for eligible nonprofits. The program provides organizations access to free versions of its tools, products, and tutorials. According to Google, “these tools can help nonprofits find new donors and volunteers, work more efficiently, and get supporters to take action.”
The program benefits include:
YouTube for Nonprofits
Video is an incredibly important and effective tool for nonprofit storytelling, donation appeals, testimonials, and saying thank you to supporters. With a YouTube channel, your nonprofit can easily upload, share and embed these videos. Nonprofits in Google’s program can additionally create “donation cards” to allow viewers to donate directly through videos or link to a specific campaign page. Your organization can also apply to shoot a professional video at a number of production studios around the globe.
KMVT 15 Silicon Valley Community Media is a TV station and media center that providing “media literacy education, hands-on training, and civic engagement for local residents”. The nonprofit has used Google Hangouts to conduct interviews worldwide and YouTube to engage its audience and expand its program.
Google Ad Grants
Nonprofits in this program receive $10,000 worth of text advertising per month on Google Search. Use this to drive more traffic to your organization’s website and campaigns.
Todo Mejora, “seek[ing] to ensure the wellbeing of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) youth through suicide and homophobic bullying prevention programs,” utilized Google Ad Grants to distribute a text ad for their organization on Google Search. This has led to increased traffic for their site and timely intervention for youth who are researching suicide online.
G Suite for Nonprofits
This is a version of the robust suite of apps that for-profit companies pay for. It is especially helpful if your nonprofit works with staff and volunteers in different locations.
The suite includes invaluable communication tools, such as domain-customized Gmail accounts and access to Google Hangouts, for video, chat and conference calls. The suite also includes Google Docs, which allows you to create and edit collaborative text documents, the integrated and collaborative Google Calendar, and 30GB of cloud-based storage on Google Drive. Your nonprofit can also contact 24/7 technical support for assistance with these apps.
Special Olympics World Games, “provid[ing] year-round sports training and host[ing] athletic competitions for children and adults with intellectual disabilities,” uses the G Suite to coordinate their volunteers, Ad Grants to drive traffic to their website, and Google Analytics to better understand engagement on their website.
Google Earth Outreach
With this tool, your nonprofit can utilize Google Earth and Google Maps to create custom maps to visualize your site locations and field work. You can also create maps for internal, restricted use that that show donor and community location data.
So what do you have to lose? Take advantage of these helpful, free tools and let us know what you think of them!
Is your nonprofit a part of the Google for Nonprofits program? Share your experience and advice with other nonprofits in the comments.
