Special Olympics World Games

Special Olympics provides year-round sports training and hosts athletic competitions for children and adults with intellectual disabilities.Through their work, participating athletes find opportunities to develop physical fitness, demonstrate courage, and participate in a sharing of gifts with the global community.

Operation Size

Medium

Sector

Human Services

Objectives

Drive traffic to your website

Get subscribers

Goals Engage with audience

Measure your websites' effectiveness

Raise Awareness

Product

Google Workspace for Nonprofits

Google Ad Grants

YouTube Nonprofit Program

Photo Credit

Special Olympics

Website

https://www.specialolympics.org/

Challenge

At the 2015 World Games in Los Angeles, 6,500 athletes from 165 countries competed in 25 different sports, demonstrating the true meaning of courage, joy, and determination.

In order to launch this massive event, it was necessary to quickly organize 30,000 volunteers, 500,000 spectators, and tens of millions of dollars in donations.

Story

To make the 2015 World Games successful, Special Olympics leveraged Google Workspace to coordinate their volunteers. They also used Ad Grants to engage viewers online, taking advantage of Google Analytics to better understand their target audience.

“Our mission of awareness that leads to acceptance and inclusion means getting in front of as many eyeballs as possible with these great stories. Google was able to help us both figure out who we’re talking to but also get a global audience to be able to get those messages out.”

Patrick McClenahan, President & CEO, 2015 Special Olympics World Games

Impact

Their Ad Grants campaign generated 44% of new users to the Special Olympics site, and drove half of their new subscriber signups.

Google Analytics also gave them a clear understanding of overall site behavior, and allowed them to measure the amount and sources of engagement they were generating.

And access to the YouTube Space in Los Angeles helped them create engaging video content on a very limited budget, driving even more awareness for their cause.

Discover how other organizations use Google for Nonprofits to make an impact.