Charities that sell tickets, run a shop, or charge programme fees ask the same question: does that break the Ad Grant? Usually not. The rule is not about whether money changes hands — it is about whether the transaction serves the mission, and about what else is on the page.
What the policy actually prohibits
Google's website policy for Ad Grants is aimed at two things:
- Advertising revenue on your site. No AdSense, no display advertising, no sponsored placements on pages your grant ads point to.
- Commercial activity that is not in service of the mission. Selling as an end in itself, rather than as a way of doing the charitable work.
Note what is absent. There is no prohibition on charging, on e-commerce, or on generating earned income. A great many well-run charities do all three and keep their grants.
What is fine
- A theatre selling tickets. The performance is the mission.
- A shelter charging an adoption fee. The fee is part of responsible rehoming.
- A museum with a gift shop. Retail funding a public collection.
- Course or workshop fees where education is the charitable purpose.
- Charity shop pages, membership subscriptions, fundraising event entry.
- Selling a publication you produced as part of your work.
In each case the money supports the mission and the transaction is the charitable activity, or directly funds it.
What is not
- Any advertising network on the site. This one is absolute, and the most common cause of a website-policy rejection.
- Affiliate links. Commission-earning links to third-party retailers on the pages you advertise.
- Selling for a commercial partner. Pages that function as a storefront for somebody else's business.
- A site whose evident purpose is retail, with the charitable work relegated to a footer.
The reviewer's question: would a reasonable person landing on this page understand they are on a charity's website, or would they think they are on a shop? That is the whole test, and it is applied to the landing page, not to your accounts.
Where the money goes has to be visible
The policy expects the connection between the transaction and the mission to be apparent to a visitor, not merely true in your annual report. In practice that means:
- Say what the income funds, on the page where you take it. One sentence: "Every ticket funds a free place for a young person." That single line does more for a policy review than a page of governance detail elsewhere.
- Keep the charitable identity dominant. Your registration number, your mission statement, and your programmes should be visible from any commerce page.
- Do not let the shop become the homepage. If the first thing a visitor sees is a product grid, the balance is wrong.
The part specific to grant ads
Two constraints apply to the ads themselves, and they are separate from the website rules.
Every ad must point at your own domain. A ticketing campaign running ads straight to Eventbrite or a third-party donation platform breaches this even though the activity is legitimate. Send the ad to a page on your site that then links out.
The ad copy must not read as commercial advertising. "Shop Our Sale" is the wrong register for a grant ad. "Support Our Work — Every Purchase Funds A Meal" describes the same page and reads as what it is.
If you have advertising on your site today
Remove it before applying, or before a review finds it. Practically:
- Search your source for
adsbygoogle,googlesyndication, and your affiliate networks' domains. - Check the blog specifically. Sponsored posts and affiliate links accumulate there long after anyone remembers adding them.
- Check the footer and sidebar templates, which apply site-wide and are easy to miss.
- Corporate sponsor logos are fine — acknowledging a supporter is not advertising. A sponsor logo linking to a product page starts to look like it.
Trading subsidiaries
Larger charities often run commercial activity through a separate trading company that gifts profits back. That structure is well established and does not itself cause a problem — but the grant belongs to the charity, and the ads must point at the charity's domain and its charitable content.
If the trading arm has its own site, advertise the charity's site and link across. Running grant ads to the trading company's domain is the version that gets accounts suspended.
The short version
Earning money is allowed. Advertising for someone else is not. Keep the ad networks and affiliate links off entirely, keep the mission visible on every commerce page, point every ad at your own domain, and the rule stops being a constraint you have to think about.
The broader website requirements are in is your nonprofit eligible, and the full rulebook in the Ad Grant policy checklist.