Comments on: Google Checkout Still Free Until 2010 But Only For Google Grants Recipients

By: David

David — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 20:17:39 +0000

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: www.altatechsolutions.com

By: Allan Benamer

Allan Benamer — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 18:29:54 +0000

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.

By: Bud Gibson

Bud Gibson — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 16:31:39 +0000

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.

By: Allan Benamer

Allan Benamer — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 16:03:44 +0000

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.

By: Bud Gibson

Bud Gibson — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 13:08:00 +0000

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.

By: Allan Benamer

Allan Benamer — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 05:31:37 +0000

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?

By: Bud Gibson

Bud Gibson — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 16:24:54 +0000

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.

By: Jeff Stern

Jeff Stern — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 02:42:10 +0000

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.