2017
One Step Beyond
Nonprofit Sector
Human Services
Year
Scope of Work
- Website Design & Development
- Google Ad Grant Management
Giving Season and Google Ad Grants: One Step Beyond Success
Expecting the unexpected is familiar territory at the nonprofit One Step Beyond, Inc. (OSBI). Most parents never expect to have a child with an intellectual disability, which is why one part of OSBI’s mission is to help parents navigate governmental and medical agencies. OSBI itself never expected to expand to 6 locations from its early beginning as a program for one family’s daughter, Dylan, and her classmates. And growing a nonprofit comes with its own unexpected learning: during the recent giving season, OSBI discovered with help from Elevation that they could increase traffic to their website by not actually mentioning #GivingTuesday by name. This is just one example of OSBI’s use of digital marketing resources for their communication strategy, which has helped them to grow the number of program participants from 16 to over 600.
In 7 Months of Working Together…
800
Increase in funding from Google's Grant
10
Increase in site traffic from Google Ads
Help with the Google Ad Grant for Nonprofits
OSBI uses the Google Ad Grant to increase the organization’s visibility for families searching for resources, volunteers, and donors. This web grant offers free advertising for nonprofits and has now become the third-highest source of new visitors to One Step Beyond’s website, more than the traffic from all social media. Having a paid search presence also helps drive their organic traffic.
The grant is an amazing resource year-round, but has particular impact for #GivingTuesday and the last month of the tax year. For the giving season, Elevation designed ads that would capitalize on search intent, brand awareness, and Calls-To-Action to donate. The campaign also made use of Google Ad extensions including call-outs, structured snippets, and sitelinks to build credibility and help users find the information most relevant to them.
While the campaign’s ultimate goal was to boost donations, success was possible only because interested donors could easily find the information they sought on OSBI’s web page. Different individuals want to see different information before making a donation, for example:
For corporate donors and business sponsors, financial information is a priority, and OSBI also makes this information readily accessible on their website:
By working with specialists in nonprofit digital marketing, OSBI has achieved a website that promotes their vision and facilitates stakeholders’ involvement and investment. Even with prior experience using digital marketing strategies, OSBI experienced a 10-fold increase in click-through rate and increased their grant allocation by 800% in seven months with the help of Elevation as their charity advertising and marketing partner. Future campaigns will focus on building name recognition and awareness of OSBI’s programming for the cities in Arizona where OSBI is opening new centers.
One Step Beyond: Engaging the Community
Beyond being a channel for donations, OSBI’s website is also a hub for engaging with their community. They’ve gone digital with many of their initiatives to make it easy for as many people as possible to participate.
One innovative way that OSBI is involving family members of program participants is by asking them to nominate employees of the month. This initiative allows beneficiaries of OSBI’s programming to give back and express their gratitude, and also helps employees to know that their hard work is enormously appreciated.
About the Google Ad Grant
The Google Ads Grant donates up to 10k per month in free advertising on Google’s search engine. It is one of the few widely available technology grants for nonprofits that covers operating and overhead costs. While schools, government organizations and medical institutions are ineligible, the grant is for churches and most 501(c)(3)’s. For more things to know before applying for Google Grant eligibility, check out our Quick Guide to Google Ad Grants.