Google Grants, an organization managed by a team of Google employees spread throughout the globe, including some 1,000 part-time volunteers, is celebrating its fifth anniversary as a group devoted to providing non-profits in some 16 countries with free AdWords advertising. Cynthia of the Google Grants collaborative wrote on the division’s blog that “the combined value of the clicks accrued by grantee advertisers on Google is approximately $273.3 million.”
Not a bad chunk of change saved. Of course, the financial “loss” taken by Google for not requesting remuneration from registered non-profits, stretched over the course of the last five years, seems easily manageable amid billions in annual returns. Still, it is nonetheless a meaningful bargain for the world of non-profits to be given an effective, global advertising network through which to promote themselves cost-free.