Rawhide Boys Ranch says Google search results are hurting donations

Vehicle donations to the Rawhide Boys Ranch — a key source of revenue for the New Londonbased nonprofit — have declined sharply now that other agencies are showing up in Rawhide’s Google search results.

People who use Google to learn how to donate their clunker to Rawhide are finding organizations like carsfor veterans.org and Kars4Kids in their top search returns. Those agencies and others have set up their online presence and advertising so the search term “Rawhide vehicle donations” directs customers to their sites, Rawhide says.

And that’s cost Rawhide an estimated 500 donations so far this year, said Aaron Geitner, director of Rawhide’s vehicle donation program. Rawhide receives about 11,000 vehicles a year.

“It’s very unfortunate, it’s very sad,” Geitner said of the lost donations. “Basically, this is the heart of Rawhide.”

The decline in donations is primarily from people in the greater Milwaukee area, Rawhide said.

Wednesday night, a Google search for “Rawhide vehicle donations” turned up the veterans and kids sites at the top of the search results, marked as advertising. Results for Rawhide were further down.

On Thursday morning, the search “Rawhide vehicle donations” yielded a couple of paid ads on top of the results. The top one was for Rawhide. No. 2 was for Teen Challenge, a nonprofit with a Milwaukee operation at 5301 N. 91st St. that’s not affiliated with Rawhide.

Teen Challenge is using Google advertising to connect with people who want to donate a car, said John Baker, the staff member responsible for the online ads. He said Teen Challenge is doing nothing wrong.

“We in no way target Rawhide in any way in our ad,” he said. “Rawhide is mistaken in saying we’re coming after their cars.”

Baker said, “This is an issue with the Google search, not with us.”

Geitner said Rawhide lawyers have attempted to contact nonprofits that they believe are using the “Rawhide” search terms.

“Last week there were four other agencies who were doing this,” he said. After being contacted by Rawhide “two removed (the search terms) immediately.” Rawhide filed a complaint with Google against the other two agencies.

Rawhide serves about 5,000 youths a year through a variety of residential programs and outpatient counseling clinics. The group says 83% of the proceeds from vehicle donations are used to fund those programs.