Google for Nonprofits Blog

Take Your Social Strategy To The Next Level With Learn With Google Hangouts And Webinars

Thursday, November 1, 2012

Over the next few weeks, we’re offering four opportunities to learn more about Google+ for your business. We kick off with a Learn with Google Hangout on Air with bestselling author +Chris Brogan on November 5th at 10am PT / 1pm ET. Chris will cover tactics for successful social marketing and discuss his new book, “Google+ for Business: How Google's Social Network Changes Everything.” RSVP for the Hangout on the Google+ Event page.
Learn Chris’s recipes for how to grow and engage your Google+ community to build your brand and drive your business’s visibility and conversions. Hear about Chris’s own experiences helping companies succeed in their content marketing and social projects. Chris Brogan is a New York Times bestselling author, CEO of Human Business Works, and advises companies on marketing, business strategy, communications and more.

If you have a question for Chris, leave your question as a comment on the Google+ Event.

Boost your success with Google+

Want to learn more about using Google+ for your business? Sign up for our Learn with Google webinars. Here are some great upcoming webinars to help you get the most out of social for your business:

Social that Adds Up: Performance and Measurement (Thurs, Nov 8, 10am PT / 1pm ET)

Supercharge your Social Media Initiatives with Video (Wed, Nov 14, 10am PT / 1pm ET)

Building a Digital Brand with Google+ (Thurs, Dec 6, 10am PT / 1pm ET)

Announcing The Winners Of 2012 Google Earth Outreach Developer Grants

Thursday, November 1, 2012

(Cross posted from Geo Developer Blog)
In 2011, Google Earth Outreach launched a new program to fund nonprofits that want to create cutting-edge maps for public good. Today, we’re excited to announce the winners of the 2012 Google Earth Outreach Developer Grants program. We’ve selected eight nonprofit organizations, listed below, that have presented a compelling ideas for a new map or mapping technology that will make a positive impact on the world. Each winner received a grant to support the technical development of their map. The winners include:

The Royal Canadian Geographical Society - A Developing World: a Maps API application containing UN Human Development Index data

Clinton Health Access Initiative - Getting to Zero in Southern Africa: A Temporal and Spatial Map of Malaria Progress

SamSamWater Foundation - Rainwater Harvesting Tool: Calculate Your Drinking Water using Google Maps

Wild South - Cherokee Trails: Google Earth tours, a map, and an Android app documenting Cherokee Indian geography and the struggle of the Cherokee to remain in their homeland.

Internews -Change of States Map: a Maps API application documenting local impacts and adaptations to climate change in the US.

Vanishing Worlds Foundation / World Oral Literature Project / Language Landscape - Language Landscape: an Extensible Model for Mapping Language Dynamics

the Jane Goodall Institute - Community-based Forest & Wildlife Monitoring: Scaling Up and Sharing Dynamically Generated Maps

Atlantic Public Media - Monarch Migration: a Google Earth Tour

Work is already in progress on each of the projects, so check back on our Developer Grants page in the coming months to see these maps come to life, and to explore maps created by last year’s grantees.

Watch this video to see an example of a Google Earth Tour made possible by the 2011 Developer Grants program is the Arctic Tern Migration, created by the Atlantic Public Media. We’re very excited about the organizations that were funded this year, and we wish to thank these hardworking organizations who are improving conditions for people and the planet.
Posted by Tanya Birch, Google Earth Outreach
*These organizations were funded through the Google Inc. Charitable Giving Fund at the Tides Foundation.

Meet the Google for Nonprofits Team

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Have you ever wondered who is behind the content you see on the Google for Nonprofits blog, our Google+ page or our monthly newsletter? In an effort to personalize our communications and give a face to Google for Nonprofits, we’ll meet a few members of our team in their own words.

1. Andrea Xu, Social Media Manager
“My name is Andrea Xu and I manage social media for Google for Nonprofits. I am privileged to communicate with this awesome community every day through [our] Google+ page. I love learning about the creative ways nonprofits are using Google tools to promote their cause. I am originally from Chicago area, and recently moved to the Bay Area. Since moving, I miss deep dish pizza, but have a newfound love for hiking!”

2. Katie Kellogg, Blog Manager
“I coordinate with our Google teams to post relevant information and write original content. Being at the intersection of technology and non-profits, our team gets to equip people and organizations with tools to help them change the world. I'm perpetually honored to be a part of Google for Nonprofits. A fun fact about me is I've been to all the Disney theme parks, except for one.”

3. Tory Voight, Newsletter Manager
“I interview various Nonprofits and Googlers, and research relevant Google updates for our content. It's split into four sections: 'By the way', 'What's new', 'Tools in action' and 'Ask an Expert'. I always learn something new with each month's work!

Growing up, I received support from Nonprofits - anything from food when my family couldn't afford it, or a mentor that helped me believe in myself. Those opportunities shaped me into the person I am now. As a G4NP 20%er, this is my small way of giving back to such outstanding organizations.

Believing in work-life balance, I'm attempting to surf mornings in Pacifica and work on my oil paintings at night. In my former life, I dairy farmed and taught snowboarding in Vermont. I love being outdoors, so feel right at home in the Bay Area.“

4. Leslie Hernandez Dinneen, Product Marketing Manager
“I have always loved nonprofit organizations - started volunteering when I was seven. I love Google for Nonprofits because our program is all about helping nonprofits use Google's technology tools to further their mission.

Before I was a Googler, I spent a year in Argentina interviewing ~12 Argentine human rights organizations for a research fellowship."

Want to stay connected with our team and Google for Nonprofit’s content? Make sure to keep reading out blog, follow us on Google+ and sign-up for our newsletter.
Posted by Katie Kellogg, Google for Nonprofits team

Grow Your Gifts Recap: Seven Steps To Success

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Are you ready for the end-of-year philanthropic season? Over the last few weeks, we’ve explored some of our favorite tips and best practices through the Grow Your Gifts series to help you make the most of this giving season. If you missed any of our posts, check out our seven steps to success, recapping the entire series:

Understand online giving trends: Online giving is growing and online donors give more than offline donors, according to a Blackbaud report. Get the full story from two of our favorite giving reports from Blackbaud and M+R Research Labs and NTEN.

Know your seasonality: Almost 35% of 2011 online giving happened in October through December, according to a Blackbaud giving report. Are you seeing the same trends? You can see exactly what your seasonality looks like with new Google Trends (formerly Google Insights for Search).

Optimize your AdWords campaigns: To get your Google AdWords and Google Grants campaigns ready to reach people searching on Google.com, make sure you add new keywords, social extensions and sitelinks.

Make donation emails more effective: Email donations made up 35% of online giving in 2011, according to the eNonprofit Benchmarks Study. To create the strongest impact, add videos and images that can tell your story visually and hyperlinks to social media to showcase your community.

Use donor information wisely: Turning one-time donors into active and on-giving givers can often be a challenge, so understanding personal giving trends is important in helping communicate with and persuade those donors. Google Spreadsheets and filters can help you organize and sort data, and sharing Google Calendars can help your team coordinate on different mailings and communications.

Save time with the Google for Nonprofits template bundle: Google Docs is a great way to organize information and create communications. So, to get you started, we’ve provided templates for donor thank-you cards, donor mailing labels, event invitations, RSVPS and newsletters.

Accept donations with Google Wallet: Allow donors to make online gifts quickly and easily with Google Wallet. Just make sure you sign up for a Google merchant account, identify yourself as an IRS certified 501(c)3 and begin collecting donations.

We’re excited to see how you this information helps you make the biggest impact over the next few months. If you have any tips to share, let us and the Google for Nonprofit community know on our Google+ page.

Posted by Katie Kellogg, Google for Nonprofits team

Google Maps Coordinate Grants for Nonprofits

Thursday, October 11, 2012

Google Earth Outreach is happy to announce the latest offering in our Grants program: Google Maps Coordinate. Google Maps Coordinate is a workforce management tool that allows organizations to quickly and easily assign jobs to field workers, improving operational efficiency and communication. Coordinate lets a dispatcher team have real-time visibility into the locations of the field workers, and they can send job assignments directly to their mobile devices. In the field, mobile workers can accept jobs, add relevant information to each job assignment, keep their dispatchers updated, and work more efficiently knowing where all the other field workers are.

We’re looking forward to helping nonprofits use Google Maps Coordinate to do things like deploy urban forestry teams, urban car-sharing services, or mobile health workers to conduct surveys in villages. The Android Google Maps Coordinate app enables complete offline job access, so you can accept, check-in, and complete jobs include any notes on the job offline. Your updates will sync as soon as you’re back online.

Learn more about how Google Maps Coordinate works. Eligible nonprofits in the U.S., U.K. and Canada are welcome to apply for a Google Maps Coordinate grant today.

Posted by Tanya Birch, Google Earth Outreach

Grow Your Gifts: Increase Online Donations With Google Wallet

Tuesday, October 9, 2012

We know that donors are weary of a cumbersome payment process requiring them to fill out personal and payment information, often leading them to abandon donating altogether. However, adding streamlined donation channels to your website can be confusing. As we rapidly approach the major season of giving, we want to give you more information about effective tools you can use to accept donations for your non-profit.

Google Wallet allows you to quickly and easily collect donations on your website. Today, we want to share with you three easy steps your non-profit can take to start accepting donations using Google Wallet:

Sign up for a Google merchant account: With a merchant account, you can track all donations and control all your donation settings from one place. Just make sure you identify yourself as a non-profit by matching your federal EIN with your federal Non-Profit Tax ID number when you set-up your account.

Identify yourself as an IRS certified 501(c)3: To enable the use of embeddable buttons on your website, you’ll need to identify yourself as an IRS certified 501(c)3. You can do this by going to the Settings tab and identify your primary product type as “Non-Profit” (IRS certified 501c3).

Start collecting donations: You’ll need to add the donation button on your website to allow your donors to start giving. Under the Tools tab, you’ll find “Donation buttons.” Copy and paste the source code to your site and begin processing your donations.

It really is as easy as 1-2-3!

Donors simply click the donate button, sign-in and make a contribution. It’s a streamlined process that makes it quick and easy to donate. Google Wallet does all the work to make sure credit card information is safe and secure, so you have time to focus on other things, like using YouTube and other tools to communicate with your donors. If you’re ready to start collecting through your website or online channel, there is no better time to start than now. Sign up for a merchant account today to get started.

Posted by Nikhil Sheel, Google Wallet team

Win Moments that Matter with Learn with Google Webinars

Thursday, October 4, 2012

(Cross posted from the Inside AdWords blog)
As we’re nearing the end of 2012, we’ve all got business goals to meet. Some of you might even be prepping for your busiest season. Today, we’re announcing our next series of Learn with Google webinars, which will arm you with the tools you need to get the most out of your holiday ad dollars. We’ve got a special series on remarketing as well as a few holiday-specific strategies to help you navigate the season successfully. Over the next couple of months, 20 webinars will teach you tips and how-to’s to help make the web work for your business.

Check out the full schedule of webinars below:

10/16 [Search] Drive Traffic to your Locations with your Online Campaigns

10/18 [Video] TrueView Video Advertising Strategies for the Holidays

10/23 [Mobile] Understanding your App Users with Google Analytics

10/24 [Research] Real-Time Insights with Google Consumer Surveys

10/25 [Display] Remarketing Series: Getting Started with Remarketing

10/30 [YouTube] TrueView Video Advertising for Agencies

10/31 [Social] Social Media Best Practices for a Successful Holiday Season

11/01 [Video] Optimizing TrueView Video Ad Campaigns

11/02 [Analytics] Attribution Modeling for Digital Success

11/06 [Video] YouTube Analytics for Advertisers

11/07 [Video] Remarketing Series: YouTube and Video Remarketing

11/08 [Social] How to Make your Google+ Marketing More Accountable

11/13 [Analytics] Getting Started with Google Tag Manager

11/14 [Social] Supercharge your Social Media Initiatives with Video

11/15 [Display] Remarketing Series: Getting Started with the New Remarketing Tag

11/27 [Display] Remarketing Series: Getting Started with Similar Audiences

11/29 [Mobile] New Research: How to Win on the Third Screen

12/05 [Mobile] Capturing the Full Value of Mobile with Click-to-Call and Call Metrics

12/06 [Social] Building a Digital Brand with Google+

12/12 [Analytics] Remarketing Series: Remarketing with Google Analytics

All webinars are at 10 PT/ 1 ET.

Visit our webinar page to register for any of the sessions and to access past webinars on-demand. You can also stay up-to-date on the schedule by adding our Learn with Google Webinar calendar to your own Google calendar to automatically see upcoming webinars.

Learn with Google is a program to help businesses succeed through winning moments that matter, enabling better decisions and constantly innovating. We hope that you’ll use these best practices and how-to’s to maximize the impact of digital and grow your business. We’re looking forward to seeing you at an upcoming session!Posted by Erin Molnar, Marketing Coordinator

Grow Your Gifts: Google Doc Template Bundle

Monday, October 1, 2012

We’ve mentioned several uses of Google Docs to help you stay organized and communicate with your donors, volunteers and team members. Today, we’re going to share a few Google Doc templates our team has created for you to do just that.

Donor thank-you cards: Remind your supporters that their contributions make a difference. You can print these cards, fold in half, and include a personal greeting inside. Use with the 'Donor Mailing Labels’ template (below) to print out fun address labels for your envelopes.

Donor mailing labels: Add your donors’ names and addresses and print these out using label paper for encouraging and decorative mailing labels.

Event invitations: Add your event details to this template and email to your supporters. Be sure to embed a link to the RSVP form (below)!

Event RSVP: Stay organized by collecting RSVPs for your event online. Embed this form or email it to your invitees. Guests simply fill out the form with their information. Best of all, your attendee list will be organized in one spot, a Google Spreadsheet.

Newsletter templates: Email newsletters are a great way to stay in touch with your supporters and donors. Whether you send weekly, monthly or quarterly newsletters, be sure to include breaking news about your organization and give supporters a peek inside the operations, with volunteer anecdotes and a note from your leader. Check our three different templates: here, here or here.

Do you have any Google Doc templates that you use to stay organized and communicate with your donors and advocates? If so, please share them with us on our Google+ page. Make sure you join us later this week as we wrap up our Grow Your Gifts series with some great insights on Google Wallet.
Posted by Katie Kellogg, Google for Nonprofits team

Insights into what the world is searching for -- the new Google Trends

Thursday, September 27, 2012

(Cross posted from the Inside Search Blog)

Since we launched Google Trends and Google Insights for Search, we’ve seen millions of people using Trends to keep up with trending interests online, and a range of journalists, businesses and researchers around the world using Insights for Search to compare the popularity of search terms over time and across regions. We have made steady improvements over time, most recently revamping our Hot Searches list to provide richer context for breakout searches.Now we are merging Insights for Search into Google Trends, wrapping it all up in a clean new interface to give you a clearer view of what’s on the world’s mind. The new Google Trends now includes features from both products and makes it easier and more intuitive to dig into the data. We’ve updated the line chart and map using HTML5 based Google Chart Tools so you can now load the page on your mobile devices, visualize the results without scrolling, and get Hot Searches not just for the U.S., but also India, Japan, and Singapore. So, what exactly can you learn about people’s interests from Google Trends? A few of our recent favorites:

[beach] and [snow] are just about inverse throughout the year

West Virginia leads the US in searches for spooky things (play around at the bottom left!)

Interest in [red hot chili peppers] shifted around Europe this summer as the band toured there -- see this time-lapse map:

We’ve seen so many examples of insights gleaned from Trends, from the Oscars to the Super Bowl; from shopping to elections; from our yearly Google Zeitgeist summary to the many we’ve found around the web. Google Trends data can be used to better understand global trends -- identifying health trends such as in flu trends, nowcasting in economics, and studies on the predictability of search trends. And it has been used in many scientific articles across disciplines. There’s so much in this data for journalists, academics, and anybody who’s curious about the world to explore, and we’d love to see what you find. Email us your favorites at trends-stories@google.com.
Posted by Yossi Matias, Senior Engineering Director in Search, Head of Israel R&D Center

Grow Your Gifts: Making the Most of Donor Information

Tuesday, September 25, 2012

In our recent blog posts, we saw how to use AdWords to bring in new donors and learned a few tricks to make emails more effective in attracting donations from people already familiar with your cause. However, monetary donations aren’t the only valuable resources your donors provide — information on personal giving trends can help you understand your community better and turn one-time donors into active and on-going givers.
Today, we’re going to look at a few ways Google Docs and Calendar can help you organize the information you collect when people donate and better use that information going forward. Here are our top three tips:

1. Track more information in Google Spreadsheets: You can use Google Spreadsheets to easily create, share and edit spreadsheets online. Beyond keeping names, addresses and phone numbers of your donors, it’s helpful to track the donation type (one time gift/monthly/yearly), amount given and the date of gift.

According to a tip by Blackbaud, tracking the date of a donor's gift can help provide you with better insights about when your donor is in the mood to give or when it is feasible for them to do so, making it psychologically easier for them to give if you ask for another donation at the same time in future months. Check out the full article here for more information.

2. Use filters to sort your data: With large amounts of information, it can be tricky to organize or segment what you have. Using Google’s Filter feature, you can see a more digestible view of your data by hiding information that you temporarily want to take out of view. Filters are especially useful when you want to organize communications or mailings. You can use this feature on one or multiple columns in your Google Spreadsheet.

So if we want to create a filter for people who donated the first of the month (a likely payday), we would select the column the holds that information, then select Filter from the Tools menu and put a check mark next to all dates that are correspond to the first of the month. Using this filtered data, we can create mailing lists in seconds.

You can also use filters to target volunteers. If you have an event coming up in a specific geographic area, you could filter for the city or zip code your donors live in, then enabling you to email all donors that live in the area of your upcoming event and ask for volunteers or attendees.

To learn more about creating custom filters, check out these instructions.

3. Use shared Calendars to ask on time: Once you know when you want to communicate with different segments of donors, it can be helpful to create events on your calendar to remind you when to send those communications.

If multiple people handle mailings, you can create a new shared calendar. A shared calendar can be viewed and/or edited by anyone who you give access to. By using shared calendars for donor communications, you can create events to remind your team to send out emails, letters, etc. to specific groups or filtered segments. All you’ll need to do is create new calendar, add your events and then share it with your team.

We are excited to see how your donations and organizations grow using these tips and we'd love for you to share any of your donor information best practices with us on our Google+ page. Join us again later this week when we share our favorite bundle of Google Docs templates designed just for non-profits.

Posted by Katie Kellogg, Google for Nonprofits team

For Nonprofits Blog

Take Your Social Strategy To The Next Level With Learn With Google Hangouts And Webinars

Announcing The Winners Of 2012 Google Earth Outreach Developer Grants

Meet the Google for Nonprofits Team

Grow Your Gifts Recap: Seven Steps To Success

Google Maps Coordinate Grants for Nonprofits

Grow Your Gifts: Increase Online Donations With Google Wallet

Win Moments that Matter with Learn with Google Webinars

Grow Your Gifts: Google Doc Template Bundle

Insights into what the world is searching for -- the new Google Trends

Grow Your Gifts: Making the Most of Donor Information

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