Applying for the Google Ad Grant is more straightforward than most nonprofits expect, but the process has changed, and a lot of guides still describe a sequence that no longer exists. The most consequential change is this: you do not build a campaign before you apply, and you should not create a Google Ads account yourself for the Ad Grants activation process. Google's own activation guide is blunt about it. Here is the current path, in the order it actually happens.

Before you apply: what Google checks

Three things need to be true before you start. It is worth confirming all three now rather than discovering a gap partway through.

Charity status Google recognizes. In the United States that normally means your organization holds its own 501(c)(3) recognition. Group-exempt organizations can also qualify, but they have to supply their own EIN along with documentation showing their group exemption number. Local chapters or branches that do not have their own legal entity, and instead use a parent organization's tax exemption, apply using that parent's 501(c)(3) documentation. Fiscally sponsored organizations that have neither their own 501(c)(3) status nor coverage by a group exemption are not eligible.
A real website on HTTPS. Google expects a working site with substantial, mission-relevant content, served securely, that meets its website policies. This is checked independently of your charity status.
Willingness to accept Google's certifications. Nondiscrimination, and how your organization handles donations. Standard commitments for a nonprofit, but they are a real step in the application rather than a checkbox to skim.

Some categories are excluded outright: government entities, hospitals and healthcare organizations, and schools, academic institutions and universities. Schools and healthcare organizations may have separately eligible philanthropic or charitable arms; eligibility depends on the status of the applying entity.

Not sure where you stand? Try our free eligibility checker (a few plain questions, about sixty seconds, no email required) before you spend time on the full application.

If your program is school-affiliated, read this first

Google states plainly that schools, academic institutions and universities are not eligible for a Google for Nonprofits account. That single line stops a lot of sports programs before they check any further, and for some of them it shouldn't.

The same guidance carries an exception: philanthropic arms of educational organizations are eligible. So if your booster club, athletic foundation, or friends-of-the-program group is recognized as a charity in its own right, it is evaluated on its own status rather than the school's. Independently registered philanthropic foundations may qualify even though the institution they support does not. The question was never “are we connected to a school,” it is “does this entity hold charity status Google recognizes on its own.” Our eligibility guide works through that distinction in more detail.

Phase one: application and activation

Everything in this phase happens before you have an ads account of any kind. That is the part worth internalizing, because it is where outdated guides send people wrong.

Step 1: Get verified through Google for Nonprofits

Google for Nonprofits is the account the Ad Grant lives inside, so it is the first thing to create. Once you submit your details, Goodstack, Google's verification partner, reviews two separate things, and knowing that up front saves a round trip.

The first is your organization's charity status. For a US 501(c)(3) that typically means your EIN verification letter, which Goodstack recommends US applicants prioritize. The second, separate check is that you personally are associated with that organization. For that one, Goodstack accepts documents your organization produced (bylaws, board meeting minutes, a financial planning document, an employment or volunteer confirmation letter, a volunteer agreement, a certificate of service) alongside a bank statement in the organization's name. Submitting at least one organization document plus one bank document speeds up the review.

The document rules are specific, and one of them catches people out because it runs opposite to the instinct. Documents must be the original version with no redactions, in PDF format, showing your organization's legal name, and your full name where that applies, such as on an employment confirmation letter. Documents your organization produced must be signed. And they must be dated more than 30 days before the date of your claim or application. A letter written this morning to support today's application is the wrong document; Goodstack is looking for evidence of an established association, not a document created for the occasion. Bank statements have to be the original electronic version rather than a scan.

Most requests are reviewed within 3-5 business days. Goodstack may contact you from verifications@mail.goodstack.org for additional documentation, so check your email, including spam, in the days after applying. If you do not verify your email address, or your nonprofit does not confirm your association, or you do not upload requested documentation within 30 days, the application expires automatically. If you are rejected, you can request a re-review rather than starting over, which is worth doing before assuming the door is closed.

This is also where the school-affiliated question becomes concrete. If your booster club or athletic foundation does not hold its own recognized charity status, and you submit documentation tied to the school's or a fiscal sponsor's EIN instead, Goodstack cannot verify you independently on that basis. That is not a documentation problem you fix by resubmitting; it is an eligibility question you resolve by having your own recognition or a qualifying group exemption.

Step 2: Request Ad Grants activation

Once you have a verified Google for Nonprofits account, the Ad Grant is one of the products you can request from inside it. Before you do anything else, read Google's instruction on this, because it contradicts what most older walkthroughs say: “Do not create a Google Ads account at any time during the Google Ad Grants activation process. An account will be provided for you at the time of activation.”

Do not create an Ads account or enter credit-card information during activation. If you have already created one out of enthusiasm or by following a stale guide, that is the thing to stop building on. The activation sequence itself is short:

Confirm your website uses HTTPS and meets Google's website policies.
In Google for Nonprofits, select Get started under Google Ad Grants and enter the website your organization will use for the grant.
Watch the welcome video, which covers the program requirements and takes about five minutes, and confirm you have completed it.
Click Submit activation request.

That is the whole submission. There is no campaign to attach at this stage, and nothing here asks for a payment method.

Step 3: Wait for Google's decision

In Google's words, on receiving your activation request “we will begin our review process, which may take several business days. Once a decision is made, you will receive an email containing further instructions.”

There is nothing to build during this window, because there is not yet an Ad Grants account to build it in. As a practical matter, this is a good time to work on your website and to decide what a conversion means for your organization (a donation, a registration, a volunteer sign-up), since you will configure tracking for it a few steps from now. That sequencing advice is ours, not Google's: Google's own setup guide puts conversion tracking after campaign creation.

Phase two: setting up and running the account

Google's setup guide runs in three parts once you are approved: access the account, create a campaign, then set up conversion tracking. Compliance is the ongoing work that follows all three.

Step 4: Access the account Google provides

Approved organizations receive two further emails. As Google describes it, “the first will invite you to access your Ad Grants account” and “the second will invite you to accept your payments profile.”

The payments profile surprises people, because the whole point of the grant is that you are not paying. Accept it anyway: Google states that this is a requirement for account access, and that as a nonprofit organization you will not be charged. The distinction worth holding onto is that accepting the payments profile Google invites you to, on the account Google created, is a different thing from creating your own Google Ads account and entering a credit card. Do the first; still do not do the second.

Step 5: Create a compliant campaign

Google's campaign creation guide gives you two paths, and they are structured differently, so the choice comes first.

Performance Max is presented as the better option when you have specific conversion goals. It is built around an asset group rather than ad groups: you supply up to 15 headlines, 5 long headlines, one short description and 4 long descriptions, and Google assembles the ads. One caveat to weigh before choosing it: Google warns that Performance Max campaigns through Google Ad Grants may not be eligible to serve on all inventory.

Search is presented as the better option for more general goals, such as driving traffic to your website. It is built around ad groups, keywords and ads, which is the structure most Ad Grants guidance describes. If you take this path:

Keywords should match your programs and services, and your headlines should include at least one of them. Single keywords are not permitted under the mission-based policy, with exceptions including your own brand keywords, approved medical conditions and some other cases Google lists separately. Overly generic terms (Google's examples include “news” and “video”) have to be avoided. “Youth sports fundraising ideas” is more specific and expresses clearer intent than a single-word term, although final compliance also depends on its relevance to the organization, ad and landing page.
Deselect the search partners and Display Network options, which Google's setup guide calls out explicitly for Ad Grants Search campaigns.
Plan for at least 2 ad groups per campaign. The compliance guide asks you to create them “with a set of highly relevant and tightly knit keywords that align with the 2 associated ads and destination landing pages.” That phrasing is the only place a two-ad expectation survives, and the newer account-management policy lists account requirements without restating it, so treat writing more than one ad per ad group as strongly recommended rather than a separately enumerated threshold. All of this is Search-campaign guidance and does not translate to a Performance Max asset group.

Both paths share a few requirements:

At least 2 unique text sitelinks, pointing to specific pages rather than your homepage.
A combined daily budget of $329 USD or less across all campaigns. If you run multiple campaigns, their daily budgets must share that total rather than each campaign receiving $329.
Specific geo-targeting. The account-management policy requires location settings set “to show ads in locations where users will find your nonprofit's information and services useful.” For most sports nonprofits that is a town, county or league service area rather than the whole country.
Conversion-based Smart Bidding, for accounts created on or after April 22, 2019. Google requires those accounts to use conversion-based Smart bidding for all campaigns, unless they are using Smart campaigns. The qualifying strategies are Maximize conversions, Maximize conversion values, Target CPA and Target ROAS.

Step 6: Configure accurate conversion tracking

This is the third step of Google's setup guide, after creating a campaign. Google's conversion tracking guide covers monetary transactions, sign-ups, service users, leads, form submissions, key document downloads, and hotline or support line phone calls.

At least one conversion type must be set up as described, and while the account is active it must accrue at least 1 conversion per month to comply with the policy. This is also why deciding early what you intend to count is worth the thought: the bidding strategies the program requires are conversion-based, so they depend on this being configured and working.

Step 7: Maintain compliance

Getting the grant is one thing. Keeping it is another, and it is where organizations quietly lose it, usually through drift rather than any single dramatic mistake. The rules that carry ongoing obligations:

Maintain a 5% clickthrough rate. Ad Grants accounts that are not exclusively using Smart campaigns must maintain a 5% CTR each month, and failing to meet it for two consecutive months can result in temporary account deactivation.
Remove quality score 1 and 2 keywords. The mission-based policy requires keywords with a quality score of 1 or 2 to be paused or removed, rather than left to drag the account average down.
Keep applying the keyword rules. New keywords creep in as campaigns expand, and it is easy to add something generic months later without applying the same test you used on day one.
Keep conversions flowing. Conversion tracking is not a setup task. The account needs to keep producing at least one conversion a month for the tracking to mean anything.
Complete any required program survey. Google sends program surveys to the login email addresses on Ad Grants accounts and requires a thoughtful response to continue participating. Easy to miss in an inbox, and it is a condition of the program rather than a courtesy.
Hold the structure minimums. The sitelinks, geo-targeting and bidding requirements from step 5 are not launch conditions you clear once. They describe how the account has to look every month.

None of this is exotic, but it is ongoing work rather than a setup task you finish. An Ad Grant is a real advertising account that needs ongoing Ad Grant management. Regular management helps the organization use the available grant effectively while remaining compliant.

A few things people ask

How long does the whole process take? Goodstack reviews most verification requests within 3-5 business days. Google says the activation review “may take several business days” without committing to a figure. Google does not publish an end-to-end timeline, so treat those two windows as the only firm numbers and plan around your own readiness rather than a promised total.

Why does a free program ask for a payments profile? Because the account Google provides is a Google Ads account, and that is how those accounts are structured. Google states that accepting it is a requirement for account access and that as a nonprofit organization you will not be charged. It is still not an invitation to create your own paid account or enter card details during activation.

Can we lose the grant after we have had it a while? Yes. Two consecutive months below the 5% CTR threshold can lead to temporary deactivation, and the quality score, conversion tracking and survey requirements are all ongoing conditions rather than one-time checks.

Do we need a big budget or a big team to use this well? No, but you do need someone tending the account regularly. The advertising is free; the management time is the real cost.

Is the athletic-foundation route a loophole? No. Google's guidance says the philanthropic arms of educational organizations are eligible even though schools themselves are not. A foundation that holds recognized charity status is evaluated on that status, independently of the institution it supports.

That is the whole application, and what it takes to keep the account running once you are approved. If the compliance side sounds like more ongoing attention than you want to own, managing the Ad Grant properly for sports nonprofits is one of the things we do, and it starts with understanding what the Ad Grant is.

How to apply for the Google Ad Grant: a step-by-step guide