The First Google Grants Day in the Netherlands

In November, the Benelux Google Grants team had the pleasure to welcome more than 30 different non-profit organizations at the first ever Google Grants Day in Amsterdam. The attendees were a mix of existing grantees and non-profit organizations that were new to the Grants program. The day kicked off with a series of workshops and ended on a high note with insights into different aspects of online marketing from our 3 speakers.

The workshops for our existing grantees began with a hands-on optimization session, where grantees got the chance to brainstorm with our AdWords specialists on how to maximize their Google Grant to meet their organization’s mission and goals. This was followed by a session on how to create exposure and awareness through YouTube and a workshop on how non-profit organizations can get the most valuable information out of Google Analytics.


For the organizations new to the Grants program there was a special surprise: we made sure that they would leave the Amsterdam office as the proud owners of new and shiny Google Grants accounts! During their sessions these non-profits got the chance to set up their account, get acquainted with the AdWords interface and learn all about basic optimization. Suffice to say that these new grantees left the Grants Day happily surprised and extremely content.


After these product-focused and practical workshops, the speaker sessions offered the grantees a chance to think about online marketing from a broader point of view. Topics covered by speakers from Google ranged from Search Engine Optimization and Google Webmaster tools to Google Earth Outreach and the work that Google does through Google.org such as Google Crisis Response. Then, Jeroen den Tex, Chief Marketing Officer at Red Cross the Netherlands, enlightened us with insights into how the Red Cross puts the online landscape to good use.

Following the speaker session, the grantees had the opportunity to get to know their fellow grantees while enjoying a bite to eat. We were happy to learn that our grantees found it very useful to be able to share advice and best practices with other grantees, and we hope that this will encourage valuable collaboration between non-profits in the future!

Overall, the attendees were very eager to learn more about Google Grants and Google for Non-Profits products and tools. We would like to thank all the grantees for attending and all the Googlers for helping us to make this day a huge success! We hope to repeat this in 2011!

Posted by Anne-Christine Polet, DCS Benelux