Encouraging Matching Gifts Featuring Peer-to-Peer events

Guest Post: Encouraging Matching Gifts During Peer-to-Peer Events

Peer-to-peer events are great moneymakers. If you use matching gifts, your peer-to-peer event can raise even more funds for your nonprofit. Wondering how you can get your participants involved with a matching gift campaign during your peer-to-peer event? Read on for tips from Qgiv on how to successfully integrate matching gifts into your fundraising event.

Market matching gifts on event pages

One simple way to encourage matching gifts during your peer-to-peer event is to ask for them on your event page. Highlight matching gifts as a strategy that makes donations go further. Many of your supporters may not know what matching gifts are. Devote some space on your page to define matching gifts and explain how participants can apply for a match.

If your nonprofit secured a matching gift pledge from a major donor, your board, or from a foundation offering matching gifts, tell your visitors to take advantage of the match! Most matching gift pledges specify gifts are matched to a specific dollar amount. Don’t leave money on the table. Instead, make sure everyone who visits your event page knows that by making a gift, they’re making twice the impact!

If you use Double the Donation to help donors search for matching gift opportunities, embed the search bar on your event page. Be sure to place it somewhere that encourages your visitors to use it. You may even want the matching gift search to appear on multiple pages. Within Qgiv’s peer-to-peer tools, for instance, you could display the search bar on your main event page, on participant fundraising pages, and on the transaction details page if donors gave without searching for a match before submitting their gift. Qgiv even offers an integration with Double the Donation that embeds the matching search widget on donation forms so donors can easily search for a match during the giving process.

Junior Achievement of Chicago uses the Double the Donation 360MatchPro and Qgiv integration to display a matching gift search on their peer-to-peer donation forms.

Incentivize matching gifts

Encouraging donors to put in extra effort to support your nonprofit sometimes takes a bit of bribery (the harmless and rewarding kind!). Incentivizing your matching gift campaign can encourage more matching gifts. Within your peer-to-peer event, you can offer incentives that provide a handicap to teams if your event is a competition. Or you could offer an exclusive prize to participants who successfully match their gifts. Enticing donors to make matching gifts can be a great strategy to boost the number of matching gifts applied for during your event. The trick is knowing what incentives will motivate your donors.

Event-specific incentives

  • Special shout outs during the event
  • An advantage in a competitive peer-to-peer event
  • A digital badge displayed on their participant fundraising page
  • Exclusive event merchandise for gift matches
  • Prizes customized with the nonprofit’s branding and logo
  • An after party for top donors and donors who made matching gifts

Generalized matching gift incentives

  • Invitations to future special events (non-fundraisers)
  • A shout out in your nonprofit’s donor newsletter
  • Membership in an exclusive giving society
  • A phone call from the CEO thanking the donor for applying for a gift match

Think about your audience and what would motivate them to make a matched gift. Make the incentive relevant to your event and your supporters.

Make matching gift searches easy

One of the simplest ways to encourage matching gifts for your peer-to-peer event is making the process easy. If your donor has to put in a lot of legwork calling their Human Resources Department, printing out their receipt, and setting up a meeting to verify their donation and request a match, they’re not going to be as likely to apply for the match. Instead, simplify the process as much as possible by making the search for matching gifts easy.

Searching for your company on Double the Donation’s platform is a quick and easy way for employees to find their employer and get the details on applying for a match. Embedding their search tool on your event page makes that process even easier.

Donors can find their employer and then start the matching gift application directly after making their donation. Making a matching gift search the last step in the event donation process can help increase the odds your donors will search for their company and go through the steps of applying for the match.

Recruit fundraisers from companies with matching gifts programs

If you want matching gifts to be a focal point of your peer-to-peer event, it helps to recruit participants whose companies have a gift matching program. Because you can’t guarantee each participant works for an eligible company when they register, recruit local companies that offer gift matches and encourage their employees to participate. If you’re unsure which companies to approach, search for their matching gift programs on the Double the Donation platform.

Instead of hoping that your participants will work for companies with a corporate philanthropy department, pit local companies against one another for your peer-to-peer event. This strategy can be tricky to execute but has the potential to pay off. Set up meetings with each company to discuss partnering together for your event. Explain the format of the event and, most importantly, how participation will benefit the companies involved.

Once you’ve managed to get several companies on board, finish planning your event and open registration and donations. Encourage employees from each company to donate and apply for gift matches through their company’s matching gift program. Honor the company that raises the most money with a top fundraising company award!

To further incentivize giving, ask your CEO if they’d be willing to take part in an activity like a pie in the face if their employees raise the most money for the event. Marketing the event as an opportunity to slightly embarrass your boss for charity can garner more employee participation.

City Year Philadelphia did a great job of marketing their Pie for Progress campaign.

Plan for this with the CEO rather than surprise them with it. You’ll want to make sure whoever “wins” is okay with the incentive their employees are working toward.

Conclusion

You can make peer-to-peer event donations go further by incorporating a matching gift campaign. Just make sure your campaign is highly visible and easy for participants. Further increase the odds of participants matching gifts by incentivizing gift matches with prizes and recruiting participants from companies with matching gift programs. Above all, following matching gift best practices to make the most of your matching gifts program.


This post was contributed by Shay Lessman at Qgiv. Shay is a writer and editor with a passion for helping nonprofit organizations succeed. He has experience in fundraising communications and has written several successful grants. He is also a proud pet parent of two very naughty dogs. When he’s not working at Qgiv, he can usually be found writing poetry, playing games, or listening to podcasts.

A.K.A. New Media raisin Adds Double the Donation to Peer-to-Peer Fundraisers for Greater Gift Matching Opportunities

A.K.A New Media is excited to share that raisin®, a product of A.K.A New Media, has released a pledge page integration with Double the Donation. Double the Donation is the leading provider of matching gift and volunteer grant solutions to nonprofits and educational institutions.

This duo previously had a donation form integration, but this new enhancement has allowed nonprofits to harness matching gift power for both donation forms and pledge pages. The seamless, built-in integration with Double the Donation ensures that no matching gift opportunity for a peer-to-peer fundraiser falls through the cracks in either the U.S. or Canada.

“The Double the Donation and donation form integration showed us the expansive fundraising power of matching gifts,” said Assadour Kirijian, CEO & Executive Creative Director of A.K.A. New Media, Inc. “We know that this success will extend into our pledge pages. That is why we’re proud to expand our Double the Donation partnership to include peer-to-peer fundraising campaigns.”

With $4-7 billion left on the table from US-based corporate matching gift programs alone, nonprofit organizations worldwide are missing out. The reason is simple: 78% of match-eligible donors don’t know that their employer offers to match their charitable contributions.

“The Double the Donation pledge page integration will be groundbreaking for peer-to-peer fundraisers,” said Adam Weinger, President of Double the Donation. “We’re able to automate the matching gift process so that nonprofits can increase matching gifts without any extra time or effort, making it the easiest and most effective way to double or even triple matching gift revenue.”

The Double the Donation integration with raisin tackles this gap in donor awareness of matching gifts. Donors giving through a raisin donation form or pledge page integrated with Double the Donation are presented with multiple opportunities to discover their matching gift eligibility and to take the next steps to get their gifts matched.

This header image states: "Activate in seconds and start raising more from matching gifts"

Activate in Seconds and Start Raising More from Matching Gifts!

Double the Donation can be easily activated with the raisin platform to begin your gift-matching experience. Users can now add this powerful gift-matching tool to both their standard donation forms and their pledge pages to maximize gift-matching revenue. There is no additional cost to include this feature on both forms, so whether you are in the standard donation space or P2P, you can be sure to capitalize on this valuable feature.

If you already have a Double the Donation account, simply enter your API keys within raisin to activate the integration. If you would like to create a new Double the Donation account, contact your raisin account manager to obtain these API key credentials.

For your pledge or multi-pledge module, you can navigate to “Sponsorship Levels,” where you will see the Double the Donation – Double the Donation option. You can check the box here that enables corporate gift matching to harness all of the matching benefits for your raisin pledge pages.

This image shows the "Sponsorship Levels" option to activate 360MatchPro on pledge pages.

The activation process is simple and streamlined!

It’s that simple! The Double the Donation integration will now appear on your pledge forms. Donors can search for their company’s name, and then receive a message like this one:

Matching opportunities are displayed strategically on raisin pledge forms integrated with 360MatchPro.

Matching opportunities are displayed strategically on raisin donation forms integrated with Double the Donation .

Double the Donation then uses automated identification tools to collect matching gift eligibility and drive matches to completion – resulting in more contributions for your organization.

Looking to learn more? Check out our in-depth integration guide to get started!

Drive More Matching Gifts to Completion with Double the Donation!

 

Double the Donation has many valuable features to make sure you are getting the most out of gift matching contributions.

This valuable integration will:

  • Identify more matching gift revenue opportunities: Double the Donation enables you to automatically collect matching gift eligibility from donors using email domains, within donation forms, on confirmation screens, or by email. The more matching gift opportunities Double the Donation discovers and shares with donors, the more matching gift requests your donors will successfully submit.
  • Drive more matches to completion, from form submission to corporate payment: Direct donors immediately to their matching gift forms after the donation process is complete. Then, provide the right information to the right donors at the right time with custom emails based on match eligibility. Target follow-ups drive more completed submissions than ever before, bringing exponentially more matching gift checks from companies through your door.
  • Reallocate your time from routine follow-up to your top opportunities: Your time is valuable, so why spend it chasing small dollar-value matching gifts? Let Double the Donation automate your matching gift outreach while flagging your highest-value opportunities, allowing your team to personalize follow-ups to the most valuable match-eligible donations. Rest easy knowing that Double the Donation can handle the rest.

How Double the Donation tools drive value

We recommend checking out this process in action. Visit the Double the Donation Personalized Demo Page to schedule a discussion. These sessions are tailored to your organization’s needs, and they demonstrate the ease and effectiveness of integrating Double the Donation with raisin.


About Raisin: The raisin platform makes online fundraising easy. Make use of powerful mobile forward fundraising, state-of-the-art integrations, a user-friendly interface, and intuitive setup to raise more quickly and simply. Raisin launched in 2006, and it continues its ongoing commitment to excellence in innovation and an ongoing pursuit to continually be more mobile, more open and more social. To learn more about the Raisin platform, check out their website at https://www.akaraisin.com/

About Double the Donation: Automate your matching gift fundraising with the industry-leading solution from Double the Donation. The Double the Donation platform provides nonprofits with tools to identify match-eligible donors, drive matches to completion, and gain actionable insights. Double the Donation integrates directly into donation forms, CRMs, social fundraising software, and other nonprofit technology solutions to capture employment information and follow up appropriately with donors about matching gifts. To learn more, visit https://doublethedonation.com/get-a-demo/