Google Ads for Nonprofits: How to Write Ad Grants Ads and Sitelinks

Google Ads for nonprofits usually means Google Ad Grants: free search ads, written as responsive search ads, with at least 2 ads per ad group and at least 2 sitelinks. The ads that earn the grant's required 5% click-through rate repeat the searcher's own words in the first headline and promise exactly what the landing page delivers.

This guide covers the limits, the Ad Grants structure rules, how to write headlines and descriptions, and how to write sitelinks, using a real campaign as the example. If you haven't picked keywords yet, start with Google Ad Grants keywords.

The limits

Google's responsive search ads page sets these, as of October 2026:

Part	Minimum	Maximum	Length limit
Headlines	3	15	30 characters each
Descriptions	2	4	90 characters each
Display path fields	0	2	15 characters each

Characters include spaces and punctuation. In double-width languages such as Korean, Japanese and Chinese, every character counts as 2. Google assembles up to 3 headlines and 2 descriptions per impression, in combinations it tests, so each line has to make sense on its own and next to any other.

Google's Ad Grants tips page adds that there's "a limit of 3 enabled responsive search ads per ad group".

How many ads per ad group: what Google actually says

This is less tidy than most guides make it sound. As of October 2026:

• The Ad Grants compliance guide requires at least 2 ad groups per campaign, with keywords that align with "the 2 associated ads and destination landing pages".
• The same Ad Grants tips page says "It's recommended to have one responsive search ad per ad group" with Good or Excellent Ad Strength.
• Google's general responsive search ads page recommends "at least 2 responsive search ads (RSA)" with Good or Excellent Ad Strength per ad group.

Our reading: build 2 per ad group. That matches the compliance guide's wording and stays under the limit of 3. It also gives you a comparison: if one ad's click-through rate is clearly worse after a few weeks, rewrite it.

Headlines: the searcher's words first

The single biggest lever on click-through rate is whether the ad says what was searched. Compare, for the search "how to start a food pantry":

Headline	Characters	Why
How to Start a Food Pantry	26	Repeats the search; the searcher sees their question answered
Welcome to Hope Community Center	32	Too long, and says nothing about the question

A pattern that works for 11 to 15 headlines:

1. 2 to 4 question headlines in the searcher's words, one per main keyword in the ad group.
2. 2 to 3 promise headlines: what the page gives them ("13 Ways to Start", "A 5-Word Method").
3. 2 to 3 offer headlines: what's free, what format, what language.
4. 1 brand headline: your organization's name, so the ad is clearly from you.

Avoid claims you can't back up. If a page says "13 ways", the headline can say 13; it can't say "the best way".

A worked example from SENT (ES)

Storyline, the nonprofit that runs alongside NonProfitSaver, posted a Spanish campaign called SENT (ES) on 23 October 2026: 4 ad groups, 8 responsive search ads (2 per group), and 4 sitelinks. Here is one ad in the "Cómo evangelizar" ad group, which lands on an article of gospel conversation starters.

Headlines (11): Cómo Compartir el Evangelio (27 characters), Empieza una Conversación, Ejemplos Para Tu Primera Vez, Comparte Tu Fe Con Sencillez, Evangelismo Personal, No Tienes Que Ir Lejos, Tu Campo Misionero Está Cerca (29), Herramienta Gratis: SENT (24), Gratis en Español, Desafío de 30 Días, De Storyline Missions.

Descriptions (4): for example "13 maneras de iniciar una conversación sobre el evangelio, con ejemplos reales." (79 characters, under the 90 limit).

Paths: evangelizar / ejemplos, so the ad shows a readable address.

How the pieces map to the pattern above:

• Question headlines use the ad group's keywords ("Cómo Compartir el Evangelio", "Evangelismo Personal").
• Promise headlines come from the page ("Ejemplos Para Tu Primera Vez").
• Offer headlines say what is free and in what language.
• The brand headline is last ("De Storyline Missions").
• The second ad in the group leads with a different keyword ("Cómo Evangelizar") and different descriptions, so the two ads are genuinely different.

The six shared headlines (from "No Tienes Que Ir Lejos" onward) appear in every ad in the campaign. That keeps the offer consistent; the first five headlines are what make each ad specific to its group.

We can't tell you yet how these ads perform. The campaign is days old, and we won't describe results we don't have.

Pinning: use it sparingly

Google's responsive search ads page says pinning "isn't recommended for most advertisers and can affect ad strength". Headline position 3 and description position 2 aren't guaranteed to show, so anything that must appear every time goes in headline position 1, headline position 2 or description position 1. If you do pin, Google suggests 2 or 3 options per pinned position.

Storyline pinned one headline to position 1 in one of its English ads, to test a specific opening line against the unpinned version. The Spanish ads are unpinned.

Descriptions

Each description is up to 90 characters and should stand alone. Four jobs, one per description:

1. Say what the page gives them, concretely.
2. Say who it's for or where it starts.
3. Say what they'll learn or do.
4. Say what's free and how to get it.

Don't repeat the headline word for word. Do repeat the keyword once if it fits naturally.

Sitelinks

Ad Grants requires "at least 2 unique sitelink ad assets" (program policies, as of October 2026). Google's sitelink assets page says:

• Sitelink text is limited to 25 characters in most languages (12 in double-width languages).
• You need at least 2 sitelinks for any to show; ads can show up to 6 on desktop and up to 8 on mobile.
• Google recommends at least 6 sitelinks with descriptions for high-volume ad groups, and says descriptions "don't reduce the number of links that can show".

Google's sitelink page doesn't state a character limit for the two description lines. Third-party guides commonly cite 35 characters per line; we couldn't confirm that on a Google page, so our builder keeps each line to 35 to be safe.

SENT (ES)'s four sitelinks:

Link text	Characters	Line 1	Line 2
Prueba SENT Gratis	18	Desafío de 30 días	En español, con videos doblados
Tu Campo Misionero	18	Empieza con tu gente cercana	Familia, amigos, vecinos
Cómo Evangelizar	16	13 maneras de empezar	Con ejemplos reales
Guía a Alguien a Cristo	23	El método de las 5 palabras	Qué decir y cómo decirlo

Each points to a different page. That is what "unique" should mean in practice: four reasons to click, not four links to the homepage.

Checks before you post

• Every headline 30 characters or fewer, every description 90 or fewer, paths 15 or fewer.
• No duplicate headlines within one ad (we had to remove one before Storyline's first campaign import would post).
• 2 ads per ad group, and each ad's first headlines match that group's keywords.
• At least 2 sitelinks, each to a different page.
• Every claim in the ad is on the landing page. More on choosing that page: Ad Grants landing pages.

With or without the kit

You can write and check all of this in a spreadsheet with a character-count column. Our Google Ad Grants Kit ($97 once, early access; sales haven't opened yet) includes a campaign builder that refuses an ad over the limits, a duplicate headline, an ad group with fewer than 2 ads or a campaign with fewer than 2 sitelinks, and writes the file you paste into Google Ads Editor. Plain about our interest: it's our paid product, and Google's free help pages above cover every rule.