Eligibility has three parts: your legal status, your country, and your website. Most organisations that get rejected fail on the website, which is also the only one of the three you can fix in a week.
1. Legal status
You need current, valid charitable status recognised by Google for Nonprofits in your country. In the United States that means active 501(c)(3) status. Elsewhere it is the equivalent national registration — a registered charity number, a recognised NGO registration, and so on.
"Current" is the operative word. Organisations whose registration lapsed, or that were automatically revoked for missed filings, will fail verification even though they still operate. Check your status before you apply, not after.
Who is excluded outright
- Government entities and organisations. Including agencies and departments, however charitable the work.
- Hospitals and medical groups. Health charities and research foundations are usually fine; the hospital itself is not.
- Schools, academic institutions and universities. These are excluded from Ad Grants, but there is a separate Google for Education programme. Affiliated philanthropic arms may still qualify.
2. Country
Google for Nonprofits operates in a specific list of countries, and the Ad Grant is available in most but not all of them. If your organisation is registered somewhere not on the list, there is no workaround — registering a shell entity elsewhere to qualify is a good way to lose the grant permanently when it is discovered.
Check the current country list on Google's own support pages before doing anything else. It changes.
3. The website — where most applications die
This is the part within your control, and the part most organisations underestimate.
- You must own the domain. A page on a fiscal sponsor's site, a Facebook page, or a free subdomain will not do.
- HTTPS is required. Not optional, not "we'll add it later".
- No commercial advertising. No AdSense, no display ads, no affiliate links on the pages you advertise.
- A clear description of the mission. A reviewer has to be able to tell what the organisation does within a few seconds.
- Substantial content. A one-page site with a logo and an email address gets rejected.
- Working links and no broken pages. Reviewers do click.
The five pages Google expects to find: a mission or about page, a programmes or services page, a donate page, a privacy policy, and a contact page. Missing any of these is one of the most common rejection reasons we see.
What eligibility does not require
A few myths worth clearing:
- You do not need existing Google Ads experience.
- You do not need to spend your own money first. The grant is not a match.
- You do not need a minimum size or budget. A two-person charity is as eligible as a national one.
- You do not need to be new. Organisations that had a grant years ago and lost it can reapply.
Selling things and the commercial activity rule
Charities that sell tickets, run a shop or charge programme fees ask about this constantly. Commercial activity is allowed where it plainly serves the mission — a theatre selling tickets, a shelter charging an adoption fee, a museum with a gift shop. What is not allowed is advertising that reads as a commercial business, or a site whose main purpose is selling.
If in doubt, the question a reviewer asks is: would a reasonable person look at this page and see a charity, or a shop?
Checking before you apply
- Confirm your charity registration is active and the legal name matches your documents.
- Confirm your country is supported.
- Load your website on a phone. HTTPS? Mission obvious? Donate page present? Privacy policy?
- Search your own site for AdSense or affiliate code.
- Only then start the Google for Nonprofits application.
The application itself, including Goodstack verification, is covered in how we handle the application.
If you are not eligible
Say so early rather than spending months on it. Organisations excluded by type — government, hospitals, most schools — will not become eligible by rewording the website. Paid search on a small budget, or Meta, will usually serve them better than a rejected application, and we will tell you that on the call rather than take a setup fee for something that cannot be approved.