Employer gift-matching programs enable fundraising organizations to forge corporate partnerships while making the most of individual donor support. Thanks to these key benefits and more, maximizing matching gifts fundraising is one of the best ways to increase nonprofit revenue on multiple levels.
Impactful corporate philanthropy initiatives like matching gifts allow donors to take a hands-on role in their employer’s charitable giving. When a company offers to match gifts, they promise a matching donation (typically at a 1:1 ratio) in response to an employee making a contribution to a qualifying organization.
Unfortunately, many nonprofits are letting potential donation matches slip through the cracks because they lack a strategy for this funding source. In this guide, we’ll share four tried-and-true ways that nonprofits like yours can elevate your fundraising efforts to better engage individual and corporate supporters.
Specifically, we suggest that you:
- Inform donors about matching gift programs.
- Emphasize the increased impact of matching gifts.
- Provide donors with company-specific guidelines.
- Leverage automated donor follow-ups and reminders.
There’s no better time to begin making the most of matching gifts than the present. And your upcoming spring fundraising efforts offer an excellent opportunity to begin incorporating these practices!
Let’s dive in with our first tip.
1. Inform donors about corporate matching gift programs.
Fundraising research reports that over 78% of the 26 million matching gift-eligible donors are completely unaware that their employers match charitable donations. As an unfortunate result, an estimated $4 to $7 billion in unclaimed matching gift funds are left on the table each year.
This means that one of the main reasons why donors fail to submit is simply a lack of awareness. This is the first step in solving the problem is implementing strategic supporter communication.
That said, we recommend promoting matching gift fundraising opportunities far and wide—including, but not limited to:
- Across your website
- On social media
- In email blasts
- Within fundraising appeals
- During the donation experience
The more ways you share information with donors, the more acquainted they’ll feel with these programs. And the more willing they’ll be to request a match for their own gifts when the time comes.
2. Emphasize the increased impact of matching gifts.
One of the most significant benefits of corporate matching gift programs is the doubled impact on a range of charitable missions. Donors requesting company matches for their initial gifts get to see their own dollars being stretched further for a cause they are clearly passionate about. At the same time, nonprofits receive bonus donations that enable them to do more, even with a limited donor base.
As you aim to increase matching gift participation among your donors, one of the best things you can do is strategically highlight the multiplied mission impact with examples, stories, and figures.
For instance, let’s compare the two matching gift appeals you might send:
- “Your employer might match your donation. Find out if you’re eligible here!”
- “Your gift of $50 helped us provide loving families for 10 unhomed pets. See if you can save 10 more furry friends without reaching back into your wallet! Find out if your employer will match your donation here.”
The latter messaging is significantly more compelling than the former—and is more likely to produce positive results. Just plug in your own nonprofit mission and adjust your communications to reflect the concrete benefits that additional gifts can have on your cause!
3. Provide donors with company-specific guidelines.
Every company that matches gifts does so with a unique set of guidelines. Some employers will match just about any donation from any employee to any nonprofit. Others have more narrow criteria that must be met in order to qualify for a corporate match.
The way that employees/donors determine if their gift is eligible is through pre-determined matching gift guidelines that include:
- Donation minimums and maximums
- Match ratios
- Qualifying types of employees
- Qualifying types of nonprofits
- Submission deadlines
- Match request forms
When you communicate these types of matching gift program criteria to donors, you allow them to quickly request a match on your organization’s behalf without a ton of personal research required. Otherwise, employees may have to search through pages and pages of employment contracts and benefit information or even reach out to a human resources representative. The more work that’s being asked of each individual to secure a match, the less likely they are to complete the entire matching process so you can collect your additional donation.
Luckily, the easiest way to do this is by providing nonprofit supporters with access to a matching gift company database. And for Giveffect customers, we offer a simple integration with Double the Donation. This integration adds the corporate matching lookup as part of the donation checkout flow. It only takes a supporter one additional second to start the matching process. This innovative tool prompts users to conduct a streamlined search of the company they work for, automatically populating the above guidelines specific to each company!
Once your organization gains access to this tool, you can embed it in multiple prominently-trafficked locations across your nonprofit website to ensure donors come across the resource. We recommend including your database search tool within your online donation forms, confirmation pages, dedicated matching gift web page, and more.
4. Leverage automated donor follow-ups.
Following up with donors post-transaction is one of the best ways to communicate your appreciation for their gift while informing or reminding them about available matching gift opportunities. But managing follow-up emails manually can be extremely time-consuming, especially with limited resources and manpower.
And that’s where automation comes in! Leveraging automated matching gift messaging allows organizations to:
- Save fundraising teams time, effort, and resources
- Ensure no matching gift donors fall through the cracks
- Focus on the highest-value opportunities
- Establish strategically timed email cadences
Benefitting from matching gift automation involves first equipping your fundraising team with the right software—and Giveffect offers the best solution for doing so. Luckily, the Giveffect platform seamlessly integrates with the industry-leading matching gift software 360MatchPro by Double the Donation.
Thanks to the technology partnership, getting started with these innovative tools is easy as can be—and donors will receive the most targeted, timely, and actionable matching gift appeals possible.
Ready to jump into matching gift fundraising? These simple tips offer the best way to do so. By providing baseline knowledge of corporate matching gifts, highlighting the mission impact of matching gift participation, simplifying the request process, and following up with donors post-transaction, you’ll be sure to grab more available corporate dollars than ever before.
See how easy it is to set up:
And since donors love partaking in their employers’ gift-matching programs, you certainly don’t want to wait any longer. Best of luck!
Schedule your demo today to learn how easy it is to increase your nonprofit’s revenue with corporate matching!
This article was originally published on February 17, 2022. We’ve since updated to reflect platform and partnership updates.