Google Ad Grants in 2026: Performance Max, AI Max and the Rules That Still Apply

Google Ad Grants still gives eligible nonprofits up to $10,000 a month in free Search advertising, but the campaigns inside a grant account have changed. Performance Max is now a campaign type grantees can choose, and it can place ads on Google Maps. The compliance rules that decide whether an account stays active have not changed to match.

That gap matters to the agencies and in-house teams who run these accounts. Google’s official help pages confirm Performance Max for grantees. They say nothing about AI Max, and nothing about whether this year’s automatic upgrades apply to grant accounts. This piece walks through who qualifies, the rules that still get accounts deactivated, what Performance Max adds, what is and is not confirmed about AI Max, and a monthly checklist.

The short version: treat the grant account like any other Search account when checking for AI Max, because Google has named no exception for it. Keep the 5% click-through rate, conversion and structure rules on a monthly calendar. Consider Performance Max if the organization serves people in a physical place. And plan any Dynamic Search Ads move before January 2027.

What Google Ad Grants gives a nonprofit in 2026

The core offer is unchanged. Google’s help page on budgets states: "All Google Ad Grants accounts are limited to a monthly budget of $10,000 USD, which equates to a daily budget of $329 USD." That daily figure is the ceiling across all campaigns combined, not per campaign.

The grant pays for ads on Google’s own properties. Historically that meant Search results only. Since mid-2025 it also includes Maps placements, through Performance Max. The ads are not a discount on paid advertising. They run in a separate account under program rules that paid accounts do not have.

Google puts the program’s scale at more than 14 billion visits to nonprofit websites over its 20-plus years. That is Google’s own figure, from a June 2025 Google.org post.

Reaching that ceiling depends on ad quality and relevance, which the program rules police closely. That is why the compliance rules below deserve as much attention as the new campaign types. This is the third post in our Marketing in the AI Age series, which covers how AI-built ad formats changed where small teams’ ads run.

Who qualifies for Google Ad Grants, and who does not

Eligibility runs through Google for Nonprofits. According to Google’s eligibility page, an organization must be registered as a charity in a listed country or region. It must also be verified by Goodstack, Google’s validation partner, and accept the program’s additional terms.

In the United States, that means 501(c)(3) status, or group exemption through a 501(c)(3) central organization. Fiscally sponsored groups without their own 501(c)(3) status are not eligible in the US.

Three exclusions matter for readers who serve the public sector and education:

• Government entities: not eligible. A city parks department cannot apply.
• Hospitals and health care organizations: not eligible. Their charitable arms or foundations can be.
• Schools, colleges and universities: not eligible. Their philanthropic arms can be.

So a university cannot hold a grant, but its foundation might. An agency serving a college should point the conversation at the advancement office, not the admissions team. The ads would then promote the foundation’s mission, not enrollment.

Associations vary. A trade association organized under a different part of the tax code does not meet the 501(c)(3) test. Its related charitable foundation may.

The Google Ad Grants compliance rules that still decide everything

The rules live in Google’s Ad Grants policy compliance guide. As read on September 29, 2026, the guide does not mention Performance Max, AI Max, broad match or Dynamic Search Ads. The rules apply as written.

The single-word ban has three exceptions: your own brand, approved medical conditions and documented exceptions. Generic terms the guide lists as examples include "free videos" and "today’s news."

The CTR rule is measured across the whole account. One weak campaign can pull everything down.

Bidding, location and activity rules in Google Ad Grants

A second Google page, the account management policy, adds rules the compliance guide does not repeat.

Accounts need proper location settings, so ads show only where the nonprofit’s information and services are useful. A food bank should target its service area. A national museum can target more broadly.

On bidding, the policy says accounts created on or after April 22, 2019 must use conversion-based Smart Bidding for all campaigns. Google’s budgets page recommends Maximize conversion value when you track a donation, purchase or membership fee. It recommends Maximize conversions for other goals.

The budgets page also says you can begin with Maximize clicks to gather initial data. That reads differently from the policy page. If the account was created after April 2019, follow the policy and confirm with Google support before using Maximize clicks.

The policy also states that an account in violation "is subject to automatic suspension without notification." Do not count on a warning email.

Performance Max is now a Google Ad Grants campaign type

The largest product change is Performance Max. Google’s create a campaign help page for grantees now offers two campaign types: Performance Max and Search.

Google frames the choice by goal. Performance Max is the option "when you have specific conversion goals." Search suits "more general goals, such as driving traffic to your website."

In June 2025, Google.org extended grant ads to Google Maps. The announcement by Maggie Johnson, who leads Google.org, said Ad Grants can run on eligible Maps placements through Performance Max at no cost. Ads can appear beside, above or below search results on Maps, including in the Maps app.

Google has not published a start date for Performance Max itself in grant accounts. The June 2025 post already referred to Performance Max Ad Grants campaigns, so "by mid-2025" is as precise as the official record allows.

A video on Google’s nonprofit community pages, posted by a Google Ad Grants Certified Professional named Jason, fills in the practical side. He says Performance Max ads in a grant account "can currently appear in Search results and Google Maps." He also says a Performance Max campaign can sometimes spend more easily than a Search campaign. He is a community expert, not Google staff.

When Performance Max fits a nonprofit, and when Search still does

Only Performance Max reaches Maps in a grant account. Another community video on Google’s nonprofit help site puts it directly: "Only a Performance Max campaign can put ads onto Google Maps, not a Search campaign."

That makes the choice fairly clear for some missions.

Performance Max has a cost in control. The system chooses placements and combines your assets. In a paid account that tradeoff is common. In a grant account it runs into the rules above, because every campaign still counts toward the account’s 5% CTR and conversion totals.

Two practical steps help. Give Performance Max a clear conversion goal that reflects a real action, such as a volunteer sign-up. And watch the account-level CTR for the first two months after launch, since two low months in a row is the deactivation trigger.

AI Max and Google Ad Grants: shown, not confirmed

AI Max is the harder question. It is Google’s set of three features for Search campaigns: search term matching, text customization and final URL expansion. Our explainer on what AI Max for Search does covers each one.

Google’s nonprofit community does show AI Max in grant accounts. A community video titled "AI Max in Google Ad Grants" describes it as a relatively new feature in grant Search campaigns. The page says it can help campaigns spend more easily and get more impressions and clicks. It lists putting ads into AI Overviews among its effects. The page shows no author or date.

That leaves agencies with open questions. Does broader matching raise spend but lower CTR? Does final URL expansion send grant clicks to pages that do not serve the mission? Google has not said how the 5% rule interacts with either.

If AI Max shows up in a grant campaign, test it on one campaign first. Keep final URL expansion off unless the site’s page structure is clean.

The September 2026 upgrade and Google Ad Grants accounts

On September 1, 2026, Google began automatically moving some Search campaigns into AI Max. According to the Google Ads Developer Blog post of August 12, 2026, the upgrade covered Search campaigns using campaign-level broad match or standalone automatically created assets. The rollout ran progressively through September.

The post names no exception for Google Ad Grants accounts. It also does not say grant accounts are included. We found no Google statement either way.

So check each grant Search campaign directly:

1. Open the campaign settings and look for AI Max.
2. If it is on, note which features are active: search term matching, text customization, final URL expansion.
3. Compare the campaign’s CTR and search terms for September against August.
4. Check that conversions still register at the level the account needs.

A campaign that never used campaign-level broad match or automatically created assets should not have been moved. If it shows AI Max anyway, someone opted in, or the grant account behaves differently than paid accounts. Either way, write it down.

The same quiet-change pattern showed up in August with limited ad serving, which Google now applies across Google Ads.

Dynamic Search Ads in grant accounts before 2027

Dynamic Search Ads are next. The June 11, 2026 developer blog post gives two dates. Creating new Dynamic Search Ads ends in January 2027. Automatic migration begins in February 2027.

According to the same post, remaining campaigns move to Performance Max or to AI-powered Search campaigns. Google does not say which grant accounts get which, and it names no Ad Grants exception.

Some grant accounts use Dynamic Search Ads to cover large sites without writing keywords for every page. If yours does, plan the move yourself before January. Choose between a Search campaign with AI Max and a Performance Max campaign based on the account’s goals, not on what the migration picks.

Whichever you choose, check the new campaign against the compliance table in its first month. A migrated campaign still has to meet the 2 ad group and 2 sitelink rules.

Conversion tracking that holds up in Google Ad Grants

Performance Max, Smart Bidding and AI Max all depend on conversion data. In a grant account, conversions are also a compliance rule. That makes tracking quality the foundation of everything above.

The compliance guide asks for conversion rates that reflect meaningful actions. A page view or a scroll does not qualify. A donation, a volunteer sign-up, an event registration or a newsletter sign-up usually does.

Three habits keep tracking honest:

• Pick actions that match the mission. A marketing funnel helps decide which step counts as a conversion.
• Check the measurement setup. Our guide to what changed in Google Analytics 4 covers event-based tracking.
• Account for consent. Sites with cookie banners lose conversion data without Google Consent Mode v2 configured correctly.

A very high conversion rate is also a warning sign. The compliance guide says rates should be realistic and reflect meaningful actions. An unusually high rate often means the tracking counts something too easy.

A monthly Google Ad Grants checklist

Run this in the first week of each month, before the prior month’s numbers go stale:

1. Account CTR for last month is 5% or higher. If not, find the campaigns pulling it down.
2. At least 1 conversion was recorded, and the conversion rate looks realistic.
3. Every campaign has at least 2 ad groups. The account has at least 2 sitelink assets.
4. No keyword has a quality score of 1 or 2. No single-word or generic keywords outside the exceptions.
5. Location settings still match where the organization serves people.
6. Each Search campaign’s AI Max status is recorded, with any change since last month.
7. Performance Max campaigns are checked for Maps and Search delivery against their conversion goal.
8. Any Dynamic Search Ads campaign has a migration date before January 2027.
9. The annual program survey is on the calendar.

Keep the checklist with the account notes. If Google deactivates the account, a dated record of compliance makes the reinstatement conversation shorter.

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