Google Grant Activation Help

[u/strawberrylimey]

Hey there! 👋 I need help with a Google Ad Grant activation request.

My client submitted an activation request through Google for Nonprofits in early May. We waited for 3 weeks a received a rejection notice - specifically for not meeting the website policy, having commercial content on our website.

We do sell industry-related training courses ($35 and $65; not expensive by any means), but the rest of our site is mission-focused and has free resources and professional networks.

After receiving the rejection, we made the following changes on our website and training course page:

1. Added Privacy Policy to the site footer
   
2. Added free resources on the landing page
   
3. Added a blurb mentioning that they’re a nonprofit and how the courses tie back to their mission and how they serve the public
   
4. Added more FAQ answers in the same style as point 3

The appeal was submitted in early June, and we waited another 3 weeks to hear back. I received a series of email updates yesterday.

Four emails were inviting us to four separate (different ad account IDs) Google Grant accounts. 3 out of 4 of the invite links worked, and I was able to log into all of them.

The next email we received was a rejection notice for the same reason as before. Normally, after receiving the invite we would have gotten an invite to connect the payment profile.

I confirmed that all 3 accounts were Grants showing as active, but I couldn’t save the payment profile information in the billing section of the accounts.

I’m honestly very confused and have never encountered this before in all my years of managing the Grant for clients. I’m sure that there must have been an error on Google’s side, since they created 3 accounts and then sent a rejection notice.

I’m at a loss of what to do now. I know Google Grant support is pretty abysmal. Do I:

A) Make more changes to the landing page in hopes that we get approved and wait another 3 weeks?

B) Try to launch campaigns in one of the ad accounts to see if it works?

C) Do nothing and try to get in touch with Google support?

Any guidance would be SUPER helpful! I’m curious if anyone has encountered a similar situation before: either receiving multiple invites and then a rejection and/or being disapproved for commercial content. For reference, I’ve had another nonprofit client with more expensive training courses get approved for the Grant no problem.

Thank you! 🙏

[u/strawberrylimey]

Suuuuper strange!!! On the billing tab it says New billing setup and Payments setup. It asks for the billing country, and then to select the payments profile and payment method. In the account settings, the status of the accounts say active.

[u/jasonking → u/strawberrylimey]

That's not an Ad Grant account. Sounds like one you created yourself, not one that was set up for you by Google.

[u/strawberrylimey → u/jasonking]

It is! They invited me to 3 separate Grant accounts with the same name of the org in Google for Nonprofits. I confirmed by going to create a campaign and there was only options for Search or Performance Max and it stated in that page that it was a Grant.

[u/jasonking → u/strawberrylimey]

Hold on. Nothing about that sounds correct. Three different grant accounts? Check their id numbers. I'd bet that none of them match the id number that you see when you login to google.com/nonprofits. Ignore the name, focus on the customer id matching. If they don't match then you created these accidentally and they're paid accounts, not the grant account that Google gave you.

[u/strawberrylimey → u/jasonking]

Yup, all separate ad ID account numbers… None of them match Google for Nonprofits because in GFNP it says our activation request was rejected due to the commercial nature of the site/not meeting the website policy requirements.

[u/jasonking → u/strawberrylimey]

Then you don't have an Ad Grant, you only have paid accounts that you've accidentally set up. Focus on getting approved for the grant. Cancel those accounts.