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Comment by vaughanhedges | Hacker News Reader

I am on the board of a non profit.

We have a Google Grant, but none of us has the marketing expertise to set up an effective campaign (ineffective we are pretty good at).

We have unsuccessfully tried to recruit SEM's as volunteers through Craiglist, Volunteer Match, and contacting local marketing professors (we don't have the money to hire anyone).

Does anyone have any suggestions how we can get help with this?

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I'd recruit someone that is learning SEM, and just let them have a blast with your account (it is free, right?). It is hard to learn SEM without an account, and the only way to create an effective campaign is to spend a lot of time and try many different things.

IMO, for most organizations Google Grants is a waste of time. SEM is a useless tool for building "awareness", which is what most organizations try to achieve with Google Grants.

I used to work for adCenter support and you can always call them up to help you with some basics of PPC and running a good advertising campaign. Google now has a phone number so I hear, so they also might be of some assistance. Also, if your monthly budget is $500 or more you can get an 'optimization specialist' (buzzwords I never cared for) to work with you for up to 45 days on getting a campaign up and running (it's a free service).

Unfortunately all that won't help you much with finding an SEM, but if need be it'll allow you to effectively self-manage.

My recommendation is to go on LinkedIn and search for people you might be connected to who are working at a large advertising agency. Most of the large agencies pick a few non-profits to work with pro-bono in a consultative role. If you have a grant to provide the media budget, hopefully you can solicit some manpower from someone with a connection to your cause. If you want to, send me a DM on Twitter (see my profile) about your organization, and I'll see if I it makes sense to put it in the hands of someone in my org.

Hey something on HN I can actually help with haha. Now I won't build entire campaigns for you, but if you have specific questions, send me a pm or email and i'll try to help. I've been working in SEM for almost two years now since college, so I feel like I have a pretty good handle on it.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. How do I pm or email you? I just updated my profile.

Hmm I was under the impression my email was public. Here it is: jczhang@ucla.edu

Oh yeah, the "email" field isn't public, it's just for HN admins. If you want your email to be public, put it in your "about" box.

You should add the e-mail to your profile so users can contact and help you.

I want to contact you. Please share some information. thanks

Hi vaughanhedges, If you still need some help, let me know. My agency works with several Google Grant clients and we also offer discounted rates for nonprofits. http://www.kinseystreet.com

Contact me and I will see what we can work out.

Have you explored http://catchafire.org/ ? They have an interesting volunteering model. I've seen them demo in the past and was impressed.

You should checkout the 'Pop Grants' at ROI Pop ( http://roipop.com ). We specialize in PPC campaign management for nonprofits.

Try contacting the people behind that blog and other blogs related to the subject.

I'll help you out. Drop me an email to discuss

All good ideas. Thanks so much.

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