Straight from the Google Checkout Team:
We’re writing to let you know that Google Checkout’s free transaction processing offer for non-profits has been extended until 2010. However, in an effort to bring more consistency to the eligibility guidelines for our non-profit offerings, only those non-profits who are also members of our Google Grants program will be eligible for free donation processing. All other non-profits will transition to Checkout’s standard fee structure on March 1, 2009.
If you’re a Google Grants recipient, please make sure to link your Grants account with Checkout by February 15, 2009 to continue to receive free transaction processing without interruption. Learn how to link your accounts:
http://checkout.google.com/support/sell/bin/answer.py?answer=72722If you’re not a Google Grants recipient, we strongly encourage you to learn more about the program and apply. Google Grants awards free AdWords advertising to non-profits who meet certain eligibility guidelines, and integrates with Google Checkout to help you increase your online fundraising. Plus, if you apply for Google Grants by March 1, 2009 and you’re accepted, we will retroactively credit you for any Checkout fees incurred while your
application was pending. Learn more about Google Grants:If your organization falls outside of our guidelines or decides not to apply for a Google Grant, we realize this news may come as a disappointment and hope that you’ll still find Checkout’s ease of use and competitive rates compelling reasons to keep using our product. You’ll be charged a low 2.0% plus $0.20 per transaction for all payment types (Visa, MasterCard, American Express, and Discover), and there are no monthly, setup, or gateway fees. Learn more about Google Checkout fees:
http://checkout.google.com/seller/fees.html
Please visit our Help Center or reply to this email if you have any additional questions. Thank you for using Google Checkout for Non-Profits.
Of course, I know you’re going to ask what the eligibility guidelines are. They are:
To be eligible for the Google Grants program, organizations must fit our eligibility criteria.
In the United States – Read our legal requirements.
Other countries/regions – We are currently accepting applications from eligible charitable organizations based in these areas.
If your country/region isn’t listed and you’d like to be notified via email should Google Grants launch in your country/region, please send us your contact information.
Beyond the legal requirements, organizations must also meet our policy guidelines to be considered for a Google Grant. When we consider your application to the program, we review not just the content included in your application, but we also closely review your website, as this is where users will be taken via your Google Grants ads. Please review the policy guidelines we consider when reviewing your application and website below.
Eligible nonprofits include, but are not limited to, the following focus areas:
- Animal rescue & conservation
- Arts
- Disaster & relief services
- Education
- Environment
- Health
- Science & technology
- Voluntarism &community outreach
- Youth advocacy & programs
Ineligible nonprofits include, but are not limited to, the following concentrations:
- Commercial non-profits
- Credit-counseling services
- Mutual membership benefits (networking, professional, alumni, and other membership organizations)
- Portals and directories
Be aware that any organization with the following components on site are not eligible for the program: political/lobbying content; religious content which proselytizes or discriminates on the basis of religion; Google AdSense; car/boat/real estate donation-focus; and entirely fee-based programs.
Google reserves the right to award advertising to any organization. Selections are made at Google’s sole discretion, and decisions regarding award recipients are final.
I think the upshot is that if you’re a direct service nonprofit, you’re still A-OK in Google’s books. If you don’t do direct service, you’ll still have to pay the fee. I find it odd that they exclude credit-counseling services specifically. Are they seen as not being a direct services organization too much in cahoots with funders who can pay (like banks)? Interesting. It’ll be interesting if they include socialmarkets in that mix. I’ll be finding out soon.
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I've heard that many of the non-profit credit counseling services engage in less-than-ethical practices and have higher-than-generally-accepted overhead (particularly salaries) as compared with the rest of the sector. No real source other than hearsay, and it's not 4:30 on Friday at work, so I'm not keen to do research on it right now.
Been following you for the pas few days. Great and relevant posts for the non-profit technologist. I run a program where we match up university student teams with non-profits who have just received AdWords grants. The social market idea sounds interesting and innovative. Hope you get it.
BTW, our educational non-profit (linked in the blog URL field) has a grant.
You think I should talk about how to use Google AdWords? My feeling is that that topic has been done to death but I guess not in a Google Grants context. I'm not (yet) a Google Grants recipient so I can't speak from experience. However, I do run Google AdWords for this blog and I can at least tell people how to arbitrage Google AdWords so that they still derive a profit from Google AdSense. Do you think people would be interested in that topic?
To say there's a wealth of for-profit information on AdWords is an understatement. With a grant though, arbitrage is denied you. In my experience, most small non-profits have no real understanding of how to present themselves in an AdWords context.
Directly speaking as to whether you should cover this, well, that's up to you. I was merely responding to the points you raised.
Thanks, Bud. I'll probably blog about Google Grants if I become a recipient myself. I can't imagine it's that different than the way I'm doing things now. If arbitrage is denied in a Google Grants situation, I think that's pretty reasonable. It just means that you had better have good funnels on your site to redirect users to your donation pages. I think nonprofits just may have problems grasping how keywords dictate the fate of Google search traffic. I guess I'll show them how to do competitive analysis on keywords that other nonprofits use.
Let me link to our case studies page as background for what I'm about to say:
http://michiganinnovators.org/interviews/series/e...
From a non-profit's perspective, our experience is that it's not just about competing with other non-profits but figuring out what it is you have to offer in a search setting. A key feature of search marketing is that it is driven by the searchers' expressed needs. Many non-profits lack constant market feedback and don't necessarily have a market discovery mechanism in place. A frequent big eye-opener for the non-profits we work with is matching mission with market-stated needs that were previously unknown to them.
Once that happens, monetization becomes easier. Of course, you may find yourself competing with commercial entities. Our Organization for Bat Conservation case study gives an example of that.
Bud, that's a seriously cool idea to post the results of your campaigns. I was wondering if you could post a chart from Google Analytics showing the difference in volume and quality of the traffic after the ad campaigns the students ran. Also, were there changes in PageRank as a result of the Adwords campaign? A list of keywords would also be nice. What's interesting is that the students were AdWords novices themselves so I think that gives nonprofits some hope that that the learning curve isn't too steep.
Seriously, the Development Director of the future needs to know all the basics of electronic fundraising and AdWords campaigning is definitely one of the future key competencies.
On the Google website as on March 2010, they still say "Free donation processing".
I think best way to receive online payments or donations is with Google Checkout. Many donors like to make recurring (monthly, annualy, etc.), payments, which you can do with Google Checkout, it's difficult to setup recurring donations on your own, but you can get it done for a reasonable fee at Alta Tech Solutions: http://www.altatechsolutions.com