Read Matching Gift Buy-In: How to Spark Team-Wide Engagement

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Matching Gift Buy-In: How to Spark Team-Wide Engagement by Double the Donation

Learn how to secure support for matching gifts across your organization! In this downloadable eBook, we will:

  • Discuss the ever-growing importance of buy-in
  • Explain strategies to secure leadership support
  • Provide tips on how to secure staff support
  • Offer examples of data to share with your team
  • And so much more!

Click this link or the image below to download Matching Gift Buy-In: How to Spark Team-Wide Engagement!

Custom Donations Selects 360MatchPro by Double the Donation at Matching Gifts Software Provider

Custom Donations Selects 360MatchPro by Double the Donation as Matching Gifts Software Provider

Custom Donations and Double the Donation are thrilled to announce a new technical integration partnership. Through this unification, Custom Donation users can grow their gift matching revenue with 360MatchPro by Double the Donation, the leading provider of matching gift solutions to nonprofits and educational institutions.

Alongside Custom Donations donation tools, 360MatchPro automates the gift matching process and drives matching submissions to completion. The joint solution will help nonprofits take advantage of the $4-7 billion in matching gifts that go unclaimed each year.

“360MatchPro is an impressive gift matching tool that greatly simplifies the process,” said Michael Smith, Founder and CEO of Custom Donations. “Through their extensive gift matching research, Double the Donation is able to connect donors to their matching gift programs and help them to complete matching requests. At Custom Donations, we pride ourselves in creating easy software systems to increase revenue, and we are so excited to give our clients the opportunity to use the best gift matching software on the market.”

360MatchPro identifies gift matching opportunities directly from the donation form. Then, using automated outreach, it educates donors and provides them with easy methods to submit a matching gift request. This results in substantially higher matching gift revenue without unnecessary work for the organization or donor.

“Custom Donations provides impressive fundraising tools for their clients, and we are very happy to add gift matching to their list of features,” said Adam Weinger, President of Double the Donation. “Through our automated software system, organizations can expect to magnify gift matching revenue without chasing down matching gift requests. This will certainly help organizations take advantage of the billions of dollars in matching gifts that are missed out on every year.”

The integration between Custom Donations and 360MatchPro is seamless and simple, and it can help close the donor awareness gap that causes organizations to miss out on matching gift contributions.

 

Activate in Seconds and Start Raising More From Matching Gifts

Activate in Seconds and Start Raising More From Matching Gifts!

360MatchPro works alongside Custom Donations to take your gift matching revenue to the next level. Follow along with these steps to learn about the simple setup process.

First, log on to your Custom Donations platform. Then, navigate to your “Account” page and scroll to the “Integrations” heading. Once you select “Double the Donation”, you can enter your account credentials.

 

Custom Donations - API Key Page

 

Then, toggle on the gift matching feature on your individual donation forms and voila! That is all that it takes to take advantage of employer gift matching!

Once this integration is enabled, you will see a search bar appear on your donation forms. This search bar is simple and streamlined, so it will not distract from the donor giving process.

 

Custom Donations - with 360MatchPro Tool

 

Donors can then search for their employer to discover their own gift matching program. As the user types, a drop down menu will appear giving company suggestions, making it unlikely that the donor will enter a misspelled or incorrect employer name.

After completing the form, the 360MatchPro tool scans an extensive database of matching gift programs to determine donor eligibility. With 20,000 company names, this source is the most comprehensive and up-to-date database of employer matching gift programs. It is consistently updated by a dedicated team of researchers who gather information from community relations departments, industry peers, matching gift program administrators and more to ensure accurate information.

The tool will send customizable emails to notify donors of their match-eligible status. These messages can be configured to contain important matching gift guidelines and direct links to matching gift submission pages.

This process is automated so you can save time while growing gift matching revenue, making this integration a match made in fundraising heaven.

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

Drive More Matches to Completion with 360MatchPro

Drive More Matching Gifts to Completion with 360MatchPro!

360MatchPro uses powerful tools to fuels your fundraising strategies.

With this solution you can:

  • Identify more matching gift revenue opportunities: 360MatchPro 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 360MatchPro 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 360MatchPro 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 360MatchPro can handle the rest.

This image displays the features of the software integration.

 

Ready to learn more or get started? Schedule a personalized demo to see how 360MatchPro can fit your organization’s needs and drive donations through company gift matching.


About Custom Donations: Build customized forms that embed directly and securely into your website so that you can accept directed giving, recurring gifts, allow donors to cover your fees and launch new forms with ease. This platform turns giving into a seamless, branded experience so that you can welcome ongoing donations with a swift and secure giving system that is completely tailored to the needs of your organization. This can all come from within your own website, so that you can retain donors without third party interference. To learn more, visit: https://www.customdonations.com/

About Double the Donation: Automate your matching gift fundraising with the industry-leading solution from Double the Donation. The 360MatchPro platform provides nonprofits with tools to identify match-eligible donors, drive matches to completion, and gain actionable insights. 360MatchPro 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://360matchpro.com/demo-request/

Learn about matching gifts for affiliates and chapters with Double the Donation!

Matching Gifts: A Complete Guide for Affiliates and Chapters

See how 360MatchPro can help you with matching gifts for affiliates and chapters.

Matching gifts are hard enough for grassroots and other small organizations to handle, but when you throw in a complex structure that includes several chapters, it becomes immensely more sophisticated—unless you consolidate the process!

In short, consolidating matching gifts involves all chapters or affiliates following a central strategy for securing and handling these funds. While full consolidation may not be feasible for all organizations, the more you can systematize the process, the better!

Here at Double the Donation, we’ve worked with thousands of nonprofits and have seen all different types of organizational structures. We’re familiar with the pros and cons of each when it comes to defining matching gift procedures and understand that it’s tough to find a perfect solution for every organization. Based on this experience and the conversations we’ve had, we strongly believe in centralizing matching gifts.

In this article, we’ll discuss the step-by-step process for standardization, the benefits of doing so, and common pain points (with actionable solutions!) many organizations that follow this model face. When leveraged correctly, these tips have the power to transform your fundraising strategy organization-wide.

Make the most of the information shared here to reflect on your organization’s performance and enhance your strategies. In no time, you’ll be well on your way to creating a foolproof and standardized strategy, sparking team-wide engagement, and securing more matching gifts.

We’ll take a closer look into the following:

  1. Consolidating the Process
  2. Common Barriers Affiliates Face and Actionable Solutions
  3. Benefits of Matching Gift Standardization
  4. Concluding Thoughts

Let’s dive in.

The first step to get matching gifts for affiliates and chapters is to consolidate the process.

Consolidating the Process

Step 1: Assess Your Current Situation.

Knowing where to start can be difficult—especially if you’re brand new to the limitless world of matching gifts. Before you can create an end-to-end solution customized to your nonprofit, you need to know exactly where you currently stand. That is, how does the process currently look for your nonprofit? Is it based on one common solution, or have you left each chapter to its own devices?

Part of getting matching gifts for affiliates and chapters is assessing your current situation.

Determining how your matching gift strategy is currently structured and how you’d like it to be structured early on is the key first step. 

Let’s take a look at 3 common approaches (plus an approach that combines elements of each), some considerations for each, and next steps to successfully implement an effective approach:

Considerations Next Steps
Fully Centralized
  • Robustness of National Office
  • A more consistent donor experience
  • Easier to create buy-in across the organization
  • Better visibility and reporting
  • Challenging for local staff to assist donors when they reach out
  • Local chapters lose visibility unless reporting is done well
  • Identify ownership.
  • Determine the model that best fits your organization.
  • Evaluate current processes and tools.
  • Create a process and timeline for transitioning.
  • Communicate changes and create staff buy-in.
  • Continue to improve the donor experience and drive matching gift revenue.
Centralized by Region
  • Continuity and coordination of Regional Offices
  • A more consistent donor experience
  • Easier to create buy-in across the organization
  • Better visibility and reporting
  • Challenging for local staff to assist donors when they reach out
  • Local chapters lose visibility unless reporting is done well
Fully Independent by Chapters
  • Staff is able to best accommodate individual requests or situations from staff members
  • Difficult to create a consistent donor experience across the organization
  • Difficult to create reporting that can be helpful for the whole organization
  • Ability to provide reporting for individual chapters only
  • Difficult to evaluate matching gifts as an organization

What works for one organization might not work for another. Choose an approach that suits your unique needs. It’s important to note that not every organization has a clear-cut approach. To create a strategy that’s tailored to your team’s needs, you might choose to take elements of each and blend them instead.

No matter your decision, your primary goal should be consolidation. Whether that’s on a national level or on a regional level largely depends on your organization’s needs. However, the more defined and centralized your process is, the less room there is for error and confusion.

Streamline the process across the board, and you’ll be well on your way to gaining organization-wide approval.

Step 2: Develop an Action Plan.

Here comes the most time-intensive part: creating an all-inclusive solution that works across the board, from your largest chapters to the smallest ones. 

Headquarters should align the process for affiliates. However, this may lead to some resistance if chapters feel as if they have no say in the matter. So that each affiliate feels as though its voice is heard, assemble a team of affiliate representatives and national representatives. Then, hold a video or phone conference to discuss an organization-wide process.

If you expect anyone to jump on board, you’ll need to plan it from end-to-end. Any gaps could lead to skepticism and doubt in the soundness of your proposed plan. Walk through each of the following questions so that you can create a solution that works across all chapters:

Questions to Ask Next Steps
Understanding Current Processes
  • Who is responsible for growing matching gift revenue at your organization? Is it an individual from headquarters, a combined team of individuals across the organization, or individuals at the affiliate level?
  • How will you grow your matching gift revenue as part of the standardization process?
  • What does your current matching gift process look like? Are there any examples you can follow internally?
  • What does a great matching gift donor persona look like for your organization?
  • Having a designated staff member who owns matching gifts increases the amount that staff members know about matching gifts, allowing you to quickly gain approval and secure matching gifts in a timely manner.
  • Create a matching gift process and follow that process to completion.
  • Look at your current matching gift process and find the drop off for matches so that you can improve those issues.
  • Identify your top and ideal matching gift companies, and work towards creating a donor base of employees who work at those businesses. 
Putting a Team in Place
  • How many staff members will you need for matching gifts? Does this include part-time employees, full-time employees, seasonal employees, or a combination?
  • Who will handle the transition and management of portals?
  • Who will answer donor questions for matching gifts? Will this be centralized or at the chapter level? Will your donor support team be involved in any way? 
  • Find out the volume of matching gifts you have, and base your team on the volume.
  • Pick one team to maintain and handle all portals. Then, have every chapter/affiliate send all portal information to the designated team.
  • Decide what best works for your team. Having a centralized support team ensures the process that’s been laid out will not vary.
Optimizing the Lifecycle
  • Who will handle the verification process for matches?
  • What will the transition process look like?
  • The verification process should be handled by one team—ideally the support team.
  • Centralize your matching gift process. Having one location handle all things matching gifts ensures the process is consistently driven to completion.
Operational Processes
  • What will be the organization-wide revenue goal? If you’re unsure of how much you’re currently raising through matching gifts, your first goal should be to capture that data so you can accurately measure your matching gift growth.  
  • What about individual chapters’ revenue goals? Are the chapter goals set by nationals or each chapter?
  • What does a great matching gift donor persona look like for your organization?
  • Similarly, what does a great matching gift company look like for your organization?
  • Find out the total amount raised in matching gifts for the previous year and improve from there.
  • Find out your organization’s process for revenue goals, whether that’s chapter-based or at the national level.
  • Set goals for what percentage of matching gifts your organization would like to obtain.

Once you’ve solidified the plan from end to end, lay it out in front of your affiliates. The more information you provide them, the better. This makes for a wider chance that each chapter will adopt the new processes.

Step 3: Continue the Conversation.

Each of your chapters or affiliates has successfully adopted the new procedures. Wonderful! 

The conversation doesn’t have to stop just because you’ve fixed the process, though. In fact, once you’ve standardized the process, that’s when you can facilitate strategic conversations about matching gifts. From here, you can grow your strategy to new heights and focus it more on your mission!

To maintain an open line of communication, meet with your team of representatives on a regular basis. Keep the table open for discussion by welcoming new ideas. Initiate an effective conversation by coming prepared with potential topic ideas, including:

  • Reviewing and improving the donor journey
  • Optimizing portals and portal management
  • Creating consistent training for staff and fundraisers

From here, determine how you can quicken the process and maximize efficiency. As you learn what works best, you can refine your strategies and streamline the process even further. Whatever you do, don’t stop discussing matching gifts

Learn the problems and solutions that solution matching gifts for affiliates and chapters.

Common Barriers Affiliates Face and Solutions

While each chapter or affiliate may have its own set of unique challenges, there are several common pain points that most encounter. Instead of going in blindly, take time to read up on them now, so you can face them with confidence as they arise.

A common problem with matching gifts for affiliates and chapters is an inconsistent donor experience.Problem: Inconsistent Donor Experience 

Arguably, the most significant barrier affiliates face is an inconsistent donor experience across the entire organization.

From varying donation forms to different corporate giving vendors to a lack of internal matching gift support, the donor experience can vary widely from chapter to chapter and across the organization as a whole. Overall, this creates a fractured donor experience across the nonprofit. 

What it all boils down to is that if donors have a difficult time submitting their donations (and therefore their matches), then they may not donate or submit matches in the future—or even finish submitting their initial contribution in the first place. 

Primary Solution: Ensure Identification and Follow-Up.

With centralized matching gift procedures, you’ll need to ensure that individual chapters and affiliates are following through with proper identification and follow-up communications. Set clear guidelines. Then, employ the use of software to streamline the process and make sure no opportunities are missed. The right software will automatically identify match-eligible individuals and conduct the necessary follow-up. 

From here, you’ll also want to designate an employee (or even a team) to handle all donor-related matching gift questions. Ensure your staff is well-versed on matching gifts prior to sending them out in the field so that your efforts don’t go to waste. Matching gift knowledge enables staff to facilitate conversations with donors and to create deeper, long-lasting relationships with them.

Secondary Solution: Improve Back-End Processes.

Regardless of how proficient you may be in matching gifts, software can aid your team and streamline the process further. With features like automated match identification via email domain screening, no match-eligible donor will get swept under the rug. It can do the legwork for you by guiding donors through the process and minimizing confusability.

By making sure that the back-end process is taken care of, donors won’t get frustrated, making it substantially easier to drive their matches to completion and keep them around.

A common problem with matching gifts for affiliates and chapters is infrastructure limitations.Problem: Infrastructure Limitations

While infrastructure works to expand your mission and reach new audiences, it can put limitations on matching gift standardization. Chances are, there hasn’t been anyone who’s taken ownership of outlining the struggles your organization faces. Ultimately, not tightening up your strategy allows things to fall through the cracks.

On that same note, organizations often see a lot of turnover in the markets. Staffing changes are inevitable. However, this can be a major hindrance to consolidation and matching gifts as a whole. 

Solution: Align the Process for Affiliates.

Start by appointing someone to keep your organization on track from a compliance standpoint. Do you have an affiliate who has a great process for matching gifts? If so, bring them to the table and help them share their knowledge across your organization. 

Once an owner is selected, chapters or affiliates may need leadership to define the process for them. You can choose to follow the affiliate’s process or create a more holistic approach across the organization. In any case, designate specific individuals to head the process at each chapter, and outline the role from end-to-end. 

Specifically, you’ll need to define each candidate’s responsibilities and give them the resources they need to complete the job. For instance, you may consider creating templates for common questions donors may ask. This way, you can ensure they’re properly trained and well-prepared. Ultimately, this gives each chapter a matching gift professional instead of requiring every single team member to master the process.

On the staff turnover front, you’ll need to ensure ownership is crystal clear in order to combat it. In the event those who are trained leave the organization, you’ll need to have a set plan in place. When staff members do leave, make sure they create comprehensive instructions and information for their successor. It’s important to have a clear process for where login information should be stored and to ensure outstanding donor communication gets completed. 

A common problem with matching gifts for affiliates and chapters is getting everyone on board.Problem: Getting Everyone on Board

All too often, a nonprofit’s national headquarters struggles to get the entire team on board with any organization-wide solutions. With matching gifts in particular, headquarters usually faces a lack of focus among staff members. 

Team members also must balance competing priorities, making it difficult to determine where matching gifts fall. Worst of all, organizations often face staff members who have a lack of motivation to learn based on how seemingly difficult matching gifts may seem from a beginner’s perspective.

However, if you want to secure every last matching gift dollar possible, you need everyone on board to the fullest extent.

Solution: Frame Standardization in a Positive Light.

Culture flows from the top to the bottom. To inculcate a healthy culture of matching gifts, it’s imperative that the top management complies. If the top management is on the same page, it’ll make it easier to execute the solution organization-wide. The idea of consolidation can be sold to top management by highlighting its key benefits. To strengthen your pitch, show how the returns on efforts outweigh the investment. 

Then, when proposing the resolution to chapters and affiliates, do the same by covering chapter-specific benefits. Harp on the positives so you can spark motivation. For starters, instead of telling them they’re losing access to portals, frame it so that chapters see they’ll save hours of work (so long as it’s handled at the national level). Do the legwork for them, so they’ll be much more likely to comply.

Learn about the benefits of standardization of matching gifts for affiliates and chapters.

Benefits of Matching Gift Standardization

While we’ve touched on the benefits of matching gift consolidation, let’s look at them more in-depth. If you’re struggling to get buy-in from each chapter, you can leverage these benefits to create a case for support and convey the true impact of standardization!

Increased Revenue from Matching Gifts

Matching gifts in and of themselves are wonderful revenue sources. But what if you could boost these funds even further?

Consolidation can lead to a bump in revenue as more consistent processes are put in place. Instead of leaving chapters to their own devices, organization-wide strategies ensure that no opportunities are missed. For instance, matching identification and screening becomes easier with consistent data. You’ll more easily identify top donors and companies as well as outstanding matches. With streamlined processes, your staff may have additional time to follow up on these matches to help drive them to completion.

Plus, streamlining the process enables chapters to set aspirational goals beyond what they could’ve originally imagined. Defining goals sparks motivation and gives affiliates something to work toward. Then, when matching gifts start to hit their revenue line, that’s when affiliates and chapters truly get excited and start promoting them, boosting revenue even further! Once you have that enthusiasm, help staff determine the best ways to promote matching gifts to continue to create a consistent donor experience.

In short, the quicker the process is and the more matches you identify, the more revenue each chapter can secure!

Improved Donor Engagement

With your understanding of corporate philanthropy, you likely recognize that matching gifts are a great donor engagement tool. After all, these programs can potentially double (sometimes even triple) the gifts your donors are already making without making them reach back into their wallets. 

Some chapters may focus on matching gifts, while others may be more focused on different revenue streams. Rocky, inconsistent processes from chapter to chapter can interrupt the donor experience, though.

Defining and consolidating the back-end processes at headquarters enables you to avoid this altogether. For one, the donor experience is more consistent across the board, as previously touched on. By designating an individual or a team per organization to handle all matching-gift-related inquiries, donors will have a central resource for all their questions. 

You can also create follow-up processes to drive additional matches to completion. Ultimately, this helps donors to complete the process with minimal hassle and enables your organization to form much more meaningful relationships with them.

Financial Tracking 

Financial tracking and reconciliation across an entire organization are challenging without a standardized process. By centralizing all the financial work at headquarters, you ensure data is consistent and much easier to handle. Walk through these questions to solidify your financial tracking methods:

Questions to Ask Considerations
Bookkeeping
  • How will you handle anonymous matches?
  • How will you record offline donations from third party vendors?
  • Will anonymous donation matches be allocated to a chapter or a national bucket?
  • Are payroll donations and matches from the company being placed into your system?  
Crediting
  • Do you have a separate line item for matching gifts, or are matches included in budgets for other areas?
  • Will you credit matches for fundraising credit? If so, when will you credit donors?
  • How should reallocations occur?
  • Where should funds be disbursed (affiliates or nationals)?
  • How will matches impact bookkeeping and fundraising goals?
  • Are you able to credit matches for fundraising credit? Will you trust and verify, or will you trust exclusively to extend credit?
  • Does reallocation of matching funds work for your organization? If so, where in the matching gift process does this happen?
  • Will having a centralized matching gift process help with reallocation, or will it create additional work? Consider how matches are recorded.
Financial Goal
  • Do affiliates have matching gift goals?
  • Do individual staff have matching gift goals?
  • What is your matching gift revenue increased year over year?
  • How will setting a matching gift goal affect affiliates?
  • What benefit will come from staff trying to meet individual goals? Are there pitfalls to creating individual matching gift goals?
  • Has there been an increase in matching gifts? If so, what contributed to that increase? Consider your reporting abilities and any gaps.

Regardless of your approach, consolidating the financial tracking process enables you to go above and beyond your revenue goals, which makes it a crucial point to leverage when creating buy-in.

These are our concluding thoughts on matching gifts for affiliates and chapters.

Concluding Thoughts

There’s no magical formula for matching gifts, but consolidation in addition to other best practices certainly has something to do with it. Without smart processes in place, we often find it difficult to move beyond day-to-day operations and start executing long-term solutions. However, having the proper organization in place can mean the difference between being a nonprofit that thrives with matching gifts and one that simply survives.

Remember, success is defined by your ability to learn from past mistakes, grow, and move forward with bulletproof strategies. Start by analyzing your current situation and defining a plan for where you’d like to be. Then, by keeping the conversation going, you can consolidate the process further, focus on tying in your mission, and maximize matching gifts throughout your entire organization—no matter how many chapters you have.

Overall, standardization is truly a culture change. It requires complete buy-in and a general passion for matching gifts. These suggestions serve as a great start for accomplishing this. They’re an opportunity to see where your matching gift process is—and more importantly—where it could be if leaders use these insights to their advantage when consolidating the process. 

We hope that you’ll take these insightful suggestions with you and attempt to incorporate them into your strategies. By doing so, you’ll streamline and simplify the process for both chapters and donors, which will ultimately lead to stronger support and a boost in matching gifts overall. Best of luck!

About Double the Donation

At Double the Donation, our mission is to help nonprofits increase fundraising from corporate giving programs. Our services make receiving matching gifts and volunteer grants quick and easy. By partnering with our expert team, nonprofit organizations can focus on what’s truly important: serving their core missions—whether that’s education, community enrichment, scientific research, or charitable giving. 

Regardless of your mission, our team of professionals and our robust matching gift platform will help you consolidate and streamline the process from start to finish.

Author: Adam Weinger

Adam Weinger is one of the leading experts on corporate giving programs.

He’s the president of Double the Donation, a company that helps organizations raise more money from employee matching gift and volunteer grant programs. The company partners with nonprofits of all shapes and sizes, including arts and cultural organizations, hospitals, educational institutions, and community-based organizations.

See how 360MatchPro can help you with matching gifts for affiliates and chapters.

Learn how to improve the donor journey with matching gifts and Double the Donation!

Improving the Donor Journey with Matching Gifts

See how 360MatchPro can improve the donor journey with matching gifts!

Matching gifts have the power to transform your nonprofit’s fundraising strategy, whether you’re just getting started with fundraising or you’re already well-established in the space. They’re a great way to boost funds and spark donor engagement. After all, why wouldn’t donors want to double or even triple their philanthropic impact without reaching back into their own pockets? 

Well, to start, donors face seemingly insurmountable barriers, which can substantially demotivate them. Commonly, donors encounter a general lack of knowledge. This often includes figuring out where they can find their employers’ guidelines and how they can determine their eligibility from there. These obstacles become considerably more challenging if your staff doesn’t have the necessary matching gift knowledge to fill in the gaps for donors (or simply doesn’t make a conscious effort in promoting the opportunity).

Overall, the answer is simple: nonprofits don’t optimize the entire donor experience. 

Often, nonprofits focus only on the processing side of the donor experience, not the donor journey itself. However, the journey plays a major role in whether or not you secure the match. Even if it does expand their impact, why would a donor go through the hassle of completing a match if they have to blindly navigate the process with little-to-no guidance?

In order to ignite motivation in match-eligible donors, you need to get rid of the outside perspective and focus on their point of view. That is, what does their journey look like? Do they understand the matching gift process? Is your nonprofit giving them all the resources they need to complete their matches, or are they unsure of what all they need to do? 

These are the questions your nonprofit should already be thinking about, and if you’re not, it’s about time you do.

In this guide, we’ll take a look at how exactly you can improve the donor journey with matching gifts. Prioritizing their experience is the only surefire way to secure the maximum amount of matches possible, after all. By making sure your donors feel valued, they’ll be much more motivated to complete the match process.

From the initial donation to follow-up, your team needs to streamline the donor journey with matching gifts. Doing so is crucial to fulfilling your matching gift potential. In this article, we’ll cover the exact steps for accomplishing this. Together, we’ll create a bulletproof plan for securing your portion of the $4-7 billion in matching gift funds that goes unclaimed each year.

Here’s a strategic guide for creating a positive experience for matching gift donors:

  1. Step 1: A Donor Makes a Gift
  2. Step 2: The Nonprofit Conducts Outreach
  3. Step 3: The Match is Verified
  4. Step 4: Define the Post Matching Gift Process
  5. Bonus: Assessing Your Organization’s Donor Experience
  6. Concluding Thoughts

Improving the donor journey involves understanding the matching gift lifecycle.

Let’s get started!

Step 1 to improving the donor journey involves the donor making a gift.

Donor Journey Step 1: A Donor Makes a Gift.

The moment a prospect decides to make a philanthropic impact on your cause is the moment the donor journey begins. Neglecting to take charge of matching gifts from the start creates poor motivation for the rest of the process for everyone involved.

To learn how to effectively build up (and maintain) donors’ momentum, let’s dive into the immediate next steps for your team to take after a gift is made.

Consider the Online and Offline Donation Processes

Organizations of all sizes have multiple revenue streams. Each comes with a unique experience, but overall, each donation method can be divided into two main categories: online and offline. 

For your team to be well-equipped in guiding donors through the matching gift process, you’ll need to understand each perspective in full. Let’s take a look at the process flow for an online match-eligible donor compared to that of an offline match-eligible donor. We’ll provide some key takeaways below.

This is the process for improving the online donor journey.


This is the process flow for improving the offline donor journey.

These processes are somewhat complex, so let’s take a look at a few crucial takeaways:

  • During the online experience, the donor is prompted to research their eligibility at the time of making a donation.
  • The offline experience requires manual data entry in your CRM, while employer data flows automatically into Double the Donation’s tools.
  • In both processes, Double the Donation’s tools streamline the research process and provide you with unique outreach strategies.

While most online donations occur through your digital donation form, there are several avenues which offline donors use to contribute. Because of this, you should be prepared with an actionable plan for efficiently incorporating matching gifts in your existing offline processes. For instance, your team may want to:

  • Create inserts for your direct mail campaigns.
  • Highlight matching gifts in major and planned giving conversations.
  • Provide a knowledgeable team member’s contact information when hosting in-person fundraisers like text-to-give campaigns.

While the bulk of your donations may come from online avenues, offline support is just as crucial to your organization’s success. By doing everything you can to increase awareness among all donors, you’ll be much more likely to secure the support you need.

Determine Eligibility

Considering that 84% of donors say they’re more likely to donate if a match is offered, donors should be able to research their eligibility prior to hitting submit. If you’ve invested in an employer search tool like Double the Donation, your donation process is an opportune momentum to make use of it. After all, making a gift is when donor engagement is at its peak, so you’ll want to do everything you can to proactively market matching gifts at this time.

As soon as your donor submits a donation, they should be greeted with more helpful resources to determine their eligibility. This could be anything from a helpful overview of matching gift programs to step-by-step instructions. Simply updating the confirmation screen to reference matching gifts can drive results for your team. Take a look at this example from the Cat Rescue Club:

Here's an example of how to use resources to improve the donor journey with matching gifts.

Without a dedicated tool directly embedded in your website, donors will be forced to research their employers’ match programs on their own. Ultimately, this will only send them away from your site which interrupts the donation process. This can be detrimental, because prospects are much more likely to get distracted and forget about completing their donation. Plus, locating guidelines can be a hassle for donors, leaving them frustrated if they’re not given some sort of guidance. 

To help, add a streamlined search tool on the donation form and then also present all the forms, guidelines, and instructions post-donation. By giving them exactly what they need to research their eligibility, they’ll be much more likely to do so. 

Here's another example of how to use resources to improve the donor journey with matching gifts.

Donors who are unsure of the matching gift process altogether may need a bit more guidance. That is, your team may need to determine their eligibility for them. Smaller organizations may benefit from researching with a dedicated search tool, but researching every donor’s eligibility may be out of reach for many nonprofits. This is where email domain screening comes in handy. 

With the assistance of a robust matching gift platform, your data will flow seamlessly into your match identification system the moment a donor submits their gift. Take this data and use it to evolve your follow-up messaging. For instance, you can screen donors based on email domains to identify more match-eligible donors. This can result in a 1% increase in total revenue

Then, streamline the process even further with automation, so no matching gift prospects go unnoticed. Offline donations will still need to be put in manually, but the less manual labor, the better!

Especially for larger organizations, automated identification can substantially boost your efforts and ensure that you’re cultivating relationships with all match-eligible donors, regardless of how they donated. Take the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society for example. With 360MatchPro by Double the Donation, they’ve grown their matching gift revenue by over $3.4 million!

Step 2 to improving the donor journey with matching gifts is conducting outreach.

Donor Journey Step 2: The Nonprofit Conducts Outreach.

In the nonprofit sector, time means everything. To maximize the use of your team’s time, create guidelines surrounding which donors receive what outreach at what time. Here’s what we suggest for each (and remember to adjust based on your organization’s needs).

Follow-Up Emails

Thanks to robust matching gift tools, email outreach is automated. In other words, every single one of your donors should be receiving follow up emails encouraging them to research their eligibility.

Set up a consistent follow-up schedule to let donors know you truly care about them completing the process. So you can understand the type of schedule your team should implement, let’s take a look at 360MatchPro’s automated follow-up procedures:

  1. Donors whose eligibility cannot be determined are sent an email prompting them to search their employer using the search tool. Our automated emails have a tracking code that captures the search results and updates your database. Donors in this category receive one follow-up email.
  2. Donors who are identified via the search tool or via email screening receive three reminder emails. By default, these emails are sent out:
    1. Immediately after the donation is made
    2. 3 days after the donation is made
    3. One month after the donation is made

By implementing some sort of follow-up schedule like the one indicated above, your team will effectively show your match-eligible donors how much you appreciate their additional support. If you don’t have software that tracks this information, determine which segment of your donor base would best benefit from follow-up messaging based on existing data and available team time. 

For the best results, send a dedicated email that clearly highlights that a donor’s gift may be eligible to be doubled. Keep in mind that a simple reminder can go a long way when it comes to cultivation. Take a look at this eye-catching email from the Cat Rescue Club:

Here's an email that helps improve the donor journey with matching gifts.

Direct Mail

While automated email outreach can be a great first step, direct mail strategies can help your organization’s messaging stand out to recipients among the countless other communications in their inbox. It’s also a good idea to send direct mailings as a follow-up to your mid-sized and higher value donations to better communicate your gratitude.

Consider the following types of mailings you might send to promote matching gifts to supporters:

  • Full-size marketing and communication packages
  • Fundraising postcards
  • Paper inserts within other direct mail materials

Regardless of the type of direct mail you choose to leverage, a few best practices remain the same. These tried-and-true tips can help simplify the matching gift process for both you and your donors:

  • Personalize your matching gift letters as much as possible. Include references to the donor’s name (or preferred nickname), most recent donation information, and employer within your letter. This shows the recipient that the message was carefully crafted just for them, which will make them more inclined to follow through.
  • Make suggested next steps clear and easy. Once you have your donor’s attention with your matching gift mailing, how do they know what action they should take? Ensure your calls to action are prominent and easy to follow—such as a short, simple URL or QR code directing the user to your searchable employer database.
  • Invest in high-quality materials for a professional look and feel. Donors will be more likely to take your message seriously when it’s clear that you put the effort into creating a visually appealing material of the highest quality.

Luckily, all of these practices are easy to follow when you work with a dedicated direct mail fundraising platform such as GivingMail. Plus, you can save your team time and money that can be reallocated into your mission and maximize top matching gift prospects.

Phone Calls

Human-to-human interaction is more meaningful than an email. With this type of outreach, you should be more selective. It takes only a few minutes to type up an email (and no time at all with an automated reminder system), but a phone call will take up several minutes of your team’s time—several minutes that could be better spent cultivating relationships with high-value matching gift donors. 

To narrow down your list, only call those who are strong prospects. Doing this enables your team to:

  • Communicate on a deeper level and develop relationships with high-value donors.
  • Provide assistance to those who may be confused about the matching gift process.
  • Conduct quick follow-up with donors who are much more likely to submit matches.

As you get started, you may wonder how exactly to determine which donors your team should reach out to and which should only receive automated communications. To aid in the selection process, create criteria such as the following:

  • Minimum donation amount. What do you consider to be the minimum valuable donation amount to follow up on? Many organizations set a minimum donation of $50 before they reach out, but this varies widely from organization to organization. Either choose to set this minimum based on the donation amount or the match amount since different employers offer different match ratios.
  • Donor Eligibility. Are you able to determine if their employer offers a matching gift program? Further, are they eligible for their employer’s program? If not, it may not be worth your organization’s time to chase the match.
  • Nonprofit Eligibility. Is your nonprofit eligible for the employer’s program? If not, take note for future reference and spend time cultivating other strong match-eligible prospects. This way, you don’t waste time reaching out to donors whose employers won’t match donations made to your organization.

So that you have an actionable example to follow, let’s look into some sample data from the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. They set specific requirements for reaching out via phone call, which included a minimum donation amount and the organization’s eligibility for employers’ matching gift programs.

After applying a $250 minimum threshold to all donations, their list of 2,300 donors was brought down to 240. After applying some additional criteria concerning their organization’s eligibility, the number of potential match-eligible donations was brought down to 217. In other words, they reached out to a fraction of the original donors by locating their top available matches and ensuring they didn’t spend time chasing nonexistent opportunities.

Once you’ve put criteria like that in place, your team will need to prepare for the outbound calls. A script is a fantastic way to accomplish this! If you’re already doing follow-up outreach to select donors, it could be as easy as asking them if they have any questions about the matching gift process. A simple question may be all you need to initiate a conversation with some donors!

While all matching gift donors are important, it can be worthwhile going the extra mile to express appreciation to those who contribute substantially more than others.

Step 3 to improving the donor journey with matching gifts is verifying the match.

Donor Journey Step 3: The Match is Verified.

While the most challenging part of securing matching gift funds is encouraging donors to complete the process, don’t forget about your nonprofit’s role. After a donor completes a matching gift request, a substantial portion of the responsibility is shifted over to your team. 

It’s up to you to drive the verification process to completion, so your donors’ hard work to submit their matches doesn’t go to waste.

This may seem like a simple step. After all, all your team needs to do is tell the company, “Yes, your employee did in fact make a donation to our organization, and we meet your company’s eligibility requirements.” However, verification is easier said than done.

Whether it’s managing thousands of portal logins or allocating matches back to donors, the verification process can be tricky. However, it’s a vital step in the match process, and if your team doesn’t understand it in full, it can disrupt the process for donors. Ultimately, this may mean the difference in whether or not you actually secure the funds. 

If you don’t have set processes in place around matching gift verification, it might be time to consider creating some. Streamlining your verification process means you’ll be able to verify gifts more quickly, which creates a better overall donor experience.

A great place to start is by familiarizing yourself with the corporate giving platforms you may encounter during verification. Many companies outsource their matching gift programs to these third-party software providers. There are about 10 major corporate giving platforms that work with corporations, and organizations must use these portals to verify the donations and disbursement of funds. 

Since you’ll be dealing directly with these vendors, it’s important to understand the requirements for each. Let’s take a closer look at 3 of the most widely-used platforms:

Familiarize yourself with these widely used platforms so you can improve the donor journey with matching gifts.

While this part of the process depends substantially on your team, there is a way you can improve the donor’s perspective. You should give them every piece of information and form they need, whether that’s through helpful resources or through one-on-one conversations.

Make sure your team is up-to-speed on the guidelines for each major vendor. Your dedicated matching gift page can be as much of a resource for staff as it is for donors—especially if you have a search tool at your disposal. For one, this ensures you won’t overlook a single matching gift dollar. It also enables you to quickly answer donors’ questions about these systems as they arise. When your team can help them navigate any obstacles they’ve encountered, they won’t feel as though they’ve been left to fend for themselves.

Whatever you do, do not forget to verify the gift. This is the final step before receiving a check, and the last thing you want to do is slip up and miss out on the match! Fortunately, more and more companies are moving to matching gift processes that don’t require nonprofit verification!

Best Practice: Present matching gift information immediately after a donation is made on the donation confirmation screen and via separate matching gift email.

Step 4 of improving the donor journey is determining the post matching gift process.

Donor Journey Step 4: Define the Post Matching Gift Process.

So you’ve secured the match and received the check. Great! The process doesn’t end here though. Remember, it’s a lifecycle, so it’s an ongoing process. 

You’ve done all you can to streamline the process for matching gift donors, and they’ll appreciate it. However, you need to stay front of mind if you plan on continuing to secure these funds. Cultivation is the final piece to the puzzle, so don’t leave it up to chance. Instead, define the post matching gift process for your organization. 

While the key is revenue growth, defining your post matching gift process can take your strategies to the next level. It’s important to note that this is entirely optional but can prove beneficial over time. 

Whether post-matching-gift outreach is done upon verification or after the check is received differs between organizations and depends on your unique needs. Define the optimal time for your organization, so you’ll be consistent and not let anything fall through the cracks. Let’s take a look at a few common elements of any effective post matching gift strategy.

Thank Your Donors.

This should go without saying, but it bears repeating: always thank your donors—especially your matching gift donors!

Today’s technology enables automated communication, meaning your team doesn’t have to do anything more than customize a template to express gratitude for a match. For your high-value matching gift donors, you’ll want to manually reach out to say thank you though. After all, nothing replaces the authenticity of personalized outreach.

Every dollar counts, but manual outreach for all matching gift donors simply isn’t feasible for most organizations. What constitutes a high-value matching gift donor varies from organization to organization, so you’ll first need to determine the threshold for your nonprofit, whether it’s $50, $500, or $5,000. This will make it much easier to organize communications and determine which matching gift donors will receive manual outreach and which will receive automated emails.

Outreach for high-level donors could come from the Executive Direct (ED), a Director of Development or relevant program the donor contributed to, a Board member, or other senior leadership staff. The acknowledgments they could use to effectively convey gratitude may include:

  • Handwritten Letters
  • Personalized Emails
  • Phone Calls
  • Postcards

Depending on your team’s processes and availability, you could all go out or select a combination of a couple acknowledgement techniques.

In any case, remember that people want to be thanked in the way they gave. Whether it’s through direct mail or online, make sure to proactively contact them the same way they donated. They’ll recognize and appreciate the fact that you’re taking their preferences into account.

Send Well-Timed Solicitation.

Sending matching gift solicitation during special dates often produces results. Well-timed communication can serve as a simple yet powerful reminder for many donors.

To help determine the best dates for your organization, keep in mind that matching gift deadlines usually fall under one of two types:

  1. Within a set number of months — A company may choose to stipulate how many months it will fulfill a match up to. For instance, this could be 3, 6, or even 12 months following the initial donation.
  2. By the end of the calendar year — Employees must submit their match request within the same calendar year that the donation is made. Some companies may offer an extended grace period of one or two months.

At Double the Donation, we recommend that you conduct this outreach as soon as possible. Around 95% of our clients send the first matching gift message within 24 hours, then follow-up within 7 days. Automating communication and follow-up in a timely manner is crucial.

An additional period to conduct outreach is toward the end of the year. Many company submission deadlines are around this time, and creating a dedicated strategy for mass outreach can encourage donors to submit their requests. 

This is an optimal time to connect with donors, and 360MatchPro makes it easy to send simple (yet effective) reminders with the end-of-year email stream. When you enable the automated stream, one end-of-year email will be sent to donors who fulfill the following criteria:

  1. The donor identified that they work for a company with a matching gift program.
  2. The donor hasn’t identified that they’ve submitted a matching gift request.
  3. The donation was made between January 1st and November 30th of the current year.

Best of all, it honors the email blacklist, sending limits, and company exclusions. All you need to do is enable it and select a date for the emails to be triggered. This eliminates the need for manual outreach and delivers value directly to match-eligible donors.

Use automated emails to improve the donor journey with matching gifts.

Bonus Idea: To hone in on your high-value donors, ask your matching gift coordinator to focus on your top 25 matching gift opportunities. Then, conduct targeted outbound calling in order to launch you toward your year-end goals. Remember, a simple reminder can go a long way.

Time permitted, you can expand your organization-wide solicitation beyond year-end. Consider other events, drives, or funds your organization has throughout the year. Then, try adding matching gift language prior to, during, or after these events as well. 

When experimenting, if you see a lift using one particular tactic, this might incentivize your team to put out solicitations during other key times.

Another way to improve the donor journey with matching gifts is to assess your organization's donor experience.

Bonus: Assessing Your Organization’s Donor Experience

So you’ve outlined your entire donor journey. You’re pretty confident that the experience is positive and effectively encourages matching gift donors to submit matches again, but how do you know for sure?

Determining where there’s dropoff in the process can point to areas of improvement in the donor journey. Let’s take a look at a few actionable steps for doing so, so your team can easily refine the donor journey with matching gifts.

Designate a Matching Gift Owner at Your Organization.

If you haven’t already designated a staff member who owns matching gifts, consider assigning one to take care of all your organization’s matching gift needs. 

This individual should be in charge of the entire process, including all outreach. Task them with conducting appropriate follow up and gathering feedback. Once they’ve gathered this input, don’t just let that information sit there! Do something with it! 

Having someone responsible for this enables you to act on the feedback your donors provide, and implementing the suggested changes conveys to matching gift donors that your team values them.

Best Practice: Not only should this individual be fully educated on the matching gift process, but they should also understand how to navigate your matching gift database and automation tools.

Assess Your Website’s Matching Gift Visibility.

Online fundraising is ever-growing and is increasingly important for nonprofits across the board. In other words, your website serves as a fantastic resource for promoting matching gifts!

Attempt to take the view of the average user who may be curious about matching gifts. Then, walk through your website. Specifically, you’ll want to assess the degree of matching gift visibility by asking yourself the following questions:

  • Do you have a dedicated matching gift page?
  • Is your matching gift page visible in your navigation?
  • Is your matching gift page easily found via the search feature?
  • Do you have information about matching gifts on your Ways to Give page?
  • Do you have a matching gift search tool embedded above the fold on your matching gift page?
  • Are you giving donors step-by-step instructions for completing their match requests?

By increasing visibility across your website, you’ll increase awareness as a whole and improve the likelihood that match-eligible donors will complete their matches.

Best Practice: If you’re unsure of where to start in this process, go through the above steps for other organizations’ websites. Compare their matching gift visibility with yours, so you can refine your strategy and improve the donor journey all-around.

Assess Your Online and Offline Donation Process.

To take your assessment one step further, walk through your donation process step by step. When reviewing your online donation process, answer these questions:

  • Are you mentioning matching gifts in your direct mail outreach?
  • Are you providing links to your dedicated matching gift page?
  • Are you capturing or asking for employer information for offline donations?
  • Are you following up with donors via email?
  • Are you conducting personalized outreach via phone?

Once you’ve optimized your offline donation process, shift your focus to the online donation process. Specifically, you’ll need to answer the following key questions:

  • Is your matching gift tool embedded in your donation page?
  • Do you provide your matching gift search tool post-transaction?
  • Are you capturing and storing matching gifts based on donor records captured via your search tool?
  • Are you following up with donors via email?
  • Are you conducting personalized outreach via phone to any of your donors?

Best Practice: Nearly half of all nonprofit website traffic comes from mobile and tablet users. Because of this, you’ll want to consider the matching gift process for mobile donors. How much information do they have to rifle through to complete the process? To start, limit text and images on matching gift appeals as much as possible without sacrificing value.

These are our concluding thoughts on how to improve the donor journey with matching gifts.

Concluding Thoughts

We hope that you’ve found the information within this guide insightful and helpful for improving your nonprofit’s donor journey. Whether or not your matching gift donor’s experience is positive or negative can be the defining factor in whether or not you secure future matches. In fact, it may even determine if you ever receive a matching gift in the first place.

Creating a positive experience is easier said than done, though. It takes a full understanding of the matching gift process from start to finish and requires you to put yourself in your donor’s shoes. From the moment someone makes a gift to the moment you follow up, your team must proactively prioritize and improve the donor experience.

Above all, remember that donors are the backbone of your organization. If you want to keep them around, you need to do everything you can to optimize their time and support. By leveraging the tips presented in this guide, you’ll be off to a great start! 

From here, consider these actionable next steps to take back to your team:

Step 1: Consider your current donation processes.

Step 2: Talk about matching gifts with your donors and proactively follow up.

Step 3: Streamline your verification processes.

Step 4: Continue to engage with match-eligible donors outside of solely matching gifts.

Now that you’re well-versed in what a positive donor journey looks like with matching gifts, feel free to share your newfound knowledge with your team. Go into it with enthusiasm and you’re sure to improve the donor journey in no time!

About Double the Donation

At Double the Donation, our mission is to help nonprofits increase fundraising from corporate giving programs. Our services make receiving matching gifts and volunteer grants quick and easy. By partnering with our expert team, nonprofit organizations can focus on what’s truly important: serving their core missions—whether that’s education, community enrichment, scientific research, or charitable giving. 

Regardless of your mission, our team of professionals and our robust matching gift platform will help you to improve the donor experience all-around.

Author: Adam Weinger

Adam Weinger is one of the leading experts on corporate giving programs.

He’s the president of Double the Donation, a company that helps organizations raise more money from employee matching gift and volunteer grant programs. The company partners with nonprofits of all shapes and sizes, including arts and cultural organizations, hospitals, educational institutions, and community-based organizations.

See how 360MatchPro can improve the donor journey with matching gifts!

Matching gift buy-in across your organization is crucial, and this guide can help you achieve it!

Matching Gift Buy-In: How to Spark Team-Wide Engagement

Generate more revenue and encourage matching gift buy-in with Double the Donation!

As more companies develop philanthropic giving initiatives, the buzz around matching gifts continues to grow and for good reason. For nonprofit organizations, every dollar counts, and matching gifts are a straightforward, easy way to skyrocket funds.

Once they get past the initial lack of knowledge, most nonprofit fundraisers have no issues getting donors motivated and submitting their matching gift requests. The real issue lies with getting your organization’s leadership and staff on board from the get-go.

Team members may not initially see the value of matching gifts. They may think their efforts are better spent elsewhere. But as you probably know, matching gifts are a goldmine and can truly add up with a proactive team (hence why you’re reading this). If you want to secure every last matching gift dollar possible, you need everyone on board and promoting matching gifts to donors. It’s up to you to clear the gap and build the momentum needed to generate team-wide engagement.

From leadership to staff, rallying up organization-wide support is crucial to fulfilling your matching gift potential. In this article, we’ll cover exactly what you need to accomplish this, from easy ways to educate your team on the process to data you can use to convey the importance of matching gifts. Together, we’ll create an end-to-end plan for securing your portion of the $4-7 billion in matching gift funds that goes unclaimed each year.

Here’s a guide for securing support for matching gifts across your organization:

  1. Getting Your Organization On Board with Matching Gifts
  2. Data to Share with Your Team
  3. Concluding Thoughts

Let’s get started!

Matching gift buy-in involves getting your organization on board with matching gifts.

Getting Your Organization On Board with Matching Gifts

Securing Leadership Support

Securing support is easier said than done, but without doing so, any outreach efforts will fall flat. You’ll see a small percentage of matches fulfilled at best. If you fall under this category, take a top-down approach by shifting your focus to leadership. 

In almost all cases, leadership buy-in is difficult to acquire. However, you need to get those who are in control to see the value of matching gifts. Attaining support from these powerful individuals gives you the momentum you need to get the entire organization motivated for matching gifts. This is because these individuals can advocate for matching gifts and quickly spread the word to their subordinates.

So this begs the question: how exactly do you secure leadership support?

Considering that many nonprofits are stuck at the mixed buy-in stage and often struggle to get full support, building momentum takes a targeted, proactive approach. Here are great starting points for honing in on high-powered individuals within your organization:

Leverage internal data.

Instead of simply talking about the difference matching gifts can make, show them. Humans are visual learners; they prefer to see the potential instead of relying on verbal promises. 

In an eye-catching format, display the following organization-specific data:

  • Amount of Match-Eligible Donations vs. Actual Submitted Matches
  • Total Revenue Raised from Matched Donations
  • Number of Donors who Work for Companies that Offer Matching Gifts

A visual format is much more engaging than straight statistics—no matter how impressive those numbers may be. Double the Donation offers a great format for displaying key data points in a visually-engaging way. Below, you’ll see an example of what a customer would see when logging into the Double the Donation platform. Notice how it presents the data in an easy-to-understand and concise way with visuals that physically show matching gift growth over time:

Use visuals to present data to boost matching gift buy-in across your organization.

This is just a fraction of the data you should be sharing with your leadership. Jump ahead to see additional types of key data points that can help you illustrate your matching gift potential.

Spend time thinking about matching gifts.

If you’re concerned with the amount of time needed to develop a matching gift strategy, start small. The amount of time necessary for optimizing your strategy is minuscule compared to the amount of matching gifts you could be receiving. All it takes is 3 hours a month.

Matching gifts are not a one-and-done sort of deal. Rather, you need to constantly develop your strategy. Each month, return to these core components, and add on as you see fit:

  • Which donors are eligible but haven’t submitted their matches yet? Reach out and drive these matches to completion.
  • What are the top companies where your donors work that don’t have matching gift programs? Initiate a conversation with them.
  • How can you foster deeper relationships with companies that have several donors who have submitted matching gifts to your organization? 

Once you’ve fallen into a routine of consistently evaluating and improving your strategy, urge your leadership to do the same. The more time you spend thinking about matching gifts, the more refined and effective your strategies will be.

Have meetings with leadership.

15-minute-long meetings are all you need to get your message across. By respecting leadership’s time, they’ll be much more likely to line up a meeting in the first place, even if they’re uncertain or misinformed about your organization’s matching gift potential.

However, you have to make sure you effectively convey your message and generate a sense of urgency in that limited time period. After all, they’re taking time out of their busy days to meet with you, so make it count. 

When planning for these meetings, take an education-based approach, because chances are, your leadership has minimal (if any) knowledge of matching gifts. Develop a presentation that spells out the basics and then looks at the long-term influence and expectations for your own organization. You’ll want to prepare actionable talking points to facilitate effective conversations.

For example, what’s your organization’s existing matching gift revenue compared to its true matching gift potential? Leverage the idea that between 5-10% of individual contributions are matching gift eligible, meaning you can substantially stretch donors’ dollars and improve retention. You can also use what other organizations are doing as a benchmark. This can help you make the case for matching gifts, from a best practice standpoint. Ultimately, you should harp on the benefits of matching gifts, so you can rally up support sooner rather than later.

After completing the initial one-on-one meetings, join quarterly meetings to keep the conversation going. You can provide updates on impact and matching gift growth within your nonprofit. Then, lead into ways your leadership (and organization as a whole) can improve its efforts. This could be anything from developing your marketing strategy to improving data collection. 

For instance, a great way to convey growth is by identifying top matching gift opportunities in addition to incomplete matches, and then tallying up the total amount of revenue. Numbers speak volumes and can serve as an effective incentive for pursuing these opportunities.

Numbers speak volumes when it comes to increasing matching gift buy-in at your nonprofit.

Securing Staff Support

Once you have leadership on board, you can transition your efforts to target the entire staff. Fostering a culture and mindset of matching gifts throughout your organization requires time and effort, but the results are undoubtedly worth it. 

Leadership will need to take a proactive approach when spreading the word to team members. Otherwise, you won’t build enough momentum to fulfill your potential.

Start by determining which specific staff roles to target in order to build momentum around matching gifts. Then, you can build your efforts out from there. Depending on your approach, tailor your efforts to target:

  • Individuals Heading Campaigns and Events. Present the potential matching gift revenue you’re facing with specific fundraisers. This way, they’ll be sure to advertise matching gifts across their communications with attendees.
  • The Finance Team. To maintain accurate data, your finance team will need to track and report on matching gifts. From the total matching gift revenue to match-eligible companies within your system, you can pinpoint areas where you’re falling short with your finance team’s assistance. Read on to learn about KPIs they should track.
  • The Marketing Team. Marketing matching gifts across all communications maximizes visibility. Your marketing team is consistently conducting outreach, so ensure that those individuals are aware of the benefits that come with matching gifts. From direct mail to emails to social media, they’ll be much more likely to incorporate effective appeals in their outreach to donors when they understand the potential benefits.

As with any strategy, tailor your approach to your own organization’s structure and needs. For instance, higher education institutions will need their advancement team on board while some nonprofits may need support from their IT team.

By getting these individuals motivated for corporate giving, you’ll at least begin to generate some buzz around matching gifts. Let’s take a look at specific strategies for doing so:

Educate them via resources.

Creating resources on matching gifts can generate long-term value for your organization. Better yet, save some time by using these resources developed by the experts at Double the Donation.

You can disperse these throughout your organization to quickly spread the word. When you put the information right in front of staff, they’ll be more likely to engage than if you urged them to conduct their own research. Plus, when they’re well-versed on the ins-and-outs of matching gifts, they’ll be able to answer any questions donors may have.

Incorporate matching gifts into onboarding.

As you refine your strategies, begin training new employees on the matching gift process. This way, they’ll be educated from the get-go. Refresh your memory and feel free to share the following steps with your team as an introduction to the process:

Familiarize your staff with the matching gift process to boost matching gift buy-in at your nonprofit.

Depending on your own organization, here are just a few options for getting staff members up-to-speed on matching gifts:

  • One-Pagers. Explain the process of matching gifts and display some key data to drive your points home. This gives new employees (as well as current ones) a document to reference throughout their time at your organization.
  • Calls or Meetings. Speaking one-on-one allows staff members to ask any questions they may have. Make sure you (or whoever is conducting the training) is well-versed on matching gifts prior to the call or meeting.
  • Webinars. Some individuals learn better with a hybrid approach. That is, they prefer presentations that are accompanied by visuals. A webinar is a great way to reach these team members and ensure they’re confident in their matching gift knowledge.

The above are only a few suggestions for adding matching gifts to your training. Adjust your approach depending on the team members to produce the greatest results.

Remember, educating staff is only half the battle. The other half is ensuring they implement the best practices. By developing specific matching gift training, you can accomplish both of these crucial tasks as quickly as possible.

Improving the Process

As you’ve learned, developing an effective strategy is not a one-and-done deal. Rather, it’s an ongoing process. As time passes, you’ll need to refine your efforts in order to acquire optimal results and maintain support. To aid you in the process, consider the following key ideas:

Create a matching gift team.

One of the best ways to generate support is to give individuals personal responsibility in growing your strategies. Instead of relying on every individual to develop their own approach, assign specific individuals to a matching gift team. The more individuals you get involved, the greater the opportunities. You’ll gain a range of perspectives and can optimize your approach to the fullest extent. 

However, don’t overload the team with too many members. Rather, take representatives from across the entire organization and consolidate them into one group. Then, task them with the following responsibilities:

  • Develop a matching gift plan.
  • Determine a budget for matching gift outreach.
  • Evaluate marketing opportunities.
  • Determine information to provide to donors.
  • Evaluate reported metrics.

These are just a handful of the responsibilities you should assign to your matching gift team and should serve as a great starting point. As your experience grows, allow the team to adapt its approach. Encouraging select team members to become experts in matching gifts helps you extend your reach in as little time as possible.

Standardize the process organization-wide.

Your organization’s structure plays a crucial role when creating buy-in. The larger your organization, the more difficult it becomes to get and keep everyone engaged—especially when you’re dealing with multiple chapters.

To start, decide on the process you wish to use. Then, reach out to staff to implement the plan across the board. This ensures there are no gaps in your strategies. To advance your efforts, present matching gifts as an untapped revenue source from donations you’re already receiving.

Share data with your team to increase matching gift buy-in at your nonprofit.

Data to Share With Your Team

Nothing speaks louder than numbers. Presenting the benefits of matching gifts may not be enough to get staff and leadership on board unless you have data to back up your claims. Let’s take a look at some of the data you can share with your team in order to get them on board with matching gifts.

General Matching Gift Data

As you get started developing your strategy, you may not be tracking organization-specific data. While specific KPIs will make the largest impact, you can illustrate the bigger picture with general data.

Put the following statistics in front of team members to shed light on the untapped potential that matching gifts present:

Key Matching Gift Statistics

Put these statistics in front of team members to shed light on the untapped potential that matching gifts present, so you can achieve matching gift buy-in.

Promoting Matching Gifts

Matching gift buy-in statistic: Sending matching gift reminder emails within 24 hours of a donation results in a 53% open rate, and using multiple approaches to identify match-eligible donors results in 77% more identified match-eligible donations.

Data Nonprofits Should Consider

Sure, the above statistics are great for conveying the bigger picture of matching gifts, but what about your own organization? What do you stand to gain? How can you pinpoint exact numbers when you’re unsure of where to start?

When refining your strategies, there is a variety of data you should track. Track these 8 key metrics and put them in front of your team to create buy-in:

  1. The number of matching donations
  2. Total revenue raised from matched donations
  3. The number of match-eligible donors from this year who did not submit
  4. The value of the matching gifts for this year’s donors who did not submit
  5. The number of match-eligible donors from last year who did not submit
  6. The value of the matching gifts for last year’s donors who did not submit
  7. Percentage of donations that included matched donations
  8. Percentage of total revenue raised from matched donations

No matter where you are in building your processes, data can help you build a case for increasing your organization’s focus on matching gifts. With overviews of your data, your organization will quickly be able to see where you’re succeeding and where you have room for improvement. 

Conveying the significance of matching gifts can be difficult, but displaying specific data (especially in a visual format) may be just what you need to get leadership on board. 

Pro Tip: Tracking data can be difficult, but you need to know where you currently stand in order to optimize your strategies. Use software like 360MatchPro to automate the process.

These are our concluding thoughts on how to create buy-in for matching gifts.

Concluding Thoughts

We hope that you’ve found the information within this guide insightful and helpful in creating buy-in for matching gifts. Corporate giving—matching gifts especially—represents a major revenue opportunity for organizations. The point that defines success is whether or not you ignite organization-wide motivation. 

Sparking team-wide engagement is no easy feat, though. Many nonprofit professionals don’t quite see its value and may even consider it a waste of time due to wide-spread misinformation. Because of this, advocating for a cultural shift in mindset to matching gifts requires a hands-on plan of attack. 

Whether you take a top-down approach or a bottom-up approach, make sure you’re emphasizing the benefits of matching gifts, made easier with data. By expressing enthusiasm and leveraging the tips presented in this guide, you’ll start to gain traction and boost awareness across your organization. With a bit of persistence, you’ll generate the support you need to maximize your revenue potential in no time!

About Double the Donation

At Double the Donation, our mission is to help nonprofits increase fundraising from corporate giving programs. Our services make receiving matching gifts and volunteer grants quick and easy. By partnering with our expert team, nonprofit organizations can focus on what’s truly important: serving their core missions—whether that’s education, community enrichment, scientific research, or charitable giving. 

Author: Adam Weinger

Adam Weinger is one of the leading experts on corporate giving programs.

He’s the president of Double the Donation, a company that helps organizations raise more money from employee matching gift and volunteer grant programs. The company partners with nonprofits of all shapes and sizes, including arts and cultural organizations, hospitals, educational institutions, and community-based organizations.

Generate more revenue and encourage matching gift buy-in with Double the Donation!

Marketing Your Matching Gifts Program

78% of donors whose employers will match their donations have no idea their gifts could count for double. That means your organization could be missing out on hundreds (or thousands!) of dollars in matched gifts. What steps can you take to let your donors know about potential matches?

There are a few ways you can tell your donors about potential matches and encourage them to submit them to their employers. Here are some simple ways to spread the word!

Include a note in your appeal

One of the most powerful places to place information you want donors to see is in the post-script of a letter or email. Next time you send an appeal, try including a short post-script encouraging donors to give and to submit that gift for a match. You’ll want to include a little instruction on how to do so! Keep it brief, pointed, and descriptive so donors get the message without detracting from your appeal.

Here’s what it could look like:

P.S. As our community adapts to the COVID-19 pandemic, more and more families rely on donors like you to keep our food bank’s shelves stocked. A gift of just $15.75 will feed a family of four for a week! Visit ourwebsite.com/donate to feed a family today!

P.P.S. Do you want to make an even bigger difference? Use the plugin on our donation page to see if your employer will match your gift! A few seconds and a couple of clicks could make your gift go twice as far.

A simple one- or two-sentence note in your appeal could encourage donors to double their gift—and their impact. Give it a shot during your next campaign and see what happens!

Brother Wolf Animal Rescue started off their Giving Tuesday Now email with matching gift information.

Highlight your matching gifts program on social media

The idea of plugging your matching gifts program on your social media channels might initially sound like a bad idea. Donors generally look at a nonprofit’s social channels for updates about their work, impact reports, stories from clients, and information about upcoming events and campaigns. Is there really a good way to promote your matching gifts program?

Yes! You just have to make it appealing to your donors. Instead of talking about how important matching gifts are to your organization, focus on showing donors how much good they can do in the world by submitting their gifts for a match. Donors give because they want to make a difference; if you can show them that they can double their impact in just a few seconds, they’ll be more likely to give.

Here’s how (and how not) to plug your matching program in a social post:

Weaker: Every month, our organization provides groceries to hundreds of local families. We rely on support from donors in our community to make that happen! If you’re interested in supporting our organization as we keep our food pantry full, please donate at the link below. You can even use the matching gifts tool on the page to see if you can double your donation!

Stronger: You know how important community is, especially during times like these. When you support our food bank, you’re doing more than just donating—you’re feeding hungry families! Now, you can double your gift in just a few seconds. Use the matching gift tool on our donation page to see if your employer will match your gift. Just a few clicks can provide twice the food to your community! 

A few simple changes to the copy can make a big difference! Instead of posting about your organization and your new tool, try talking about your donors and how they can make a bigger difference in the world without spending extra money. They’ll be more inspired to give!

San Francisco City Impact created eye-catching images to promote gift matching on their social media channels.

Add some (subtle) details to your donation form

Online shopping, bill payment, and other transactions are more common by the day. While that means people are increasingly comfortable donating online, it also means donors are on autopilot when they’re making a gift. Some may even use tools that auto-fill common forms like personal information and payment methods. That means they’re more likely not to look at each area of your form, including your matching gifts tool.

Try catching your donors’ attention by drawing their eyes to your matching gifts plugin. You could do this a few ways:

  • Add a few words about matching gifts to the top of your donation form
  • Update the matching gifts title and description with friendly, eye-catching copy
  • Add a line or two of copy above the plugin and consider making the text a contrasting (but complementary!) color

You could also try adding your matching gifts plugin to your confirmation page! That will give donors the option to submit their gift to their employer even if they missed it during the donation process.

Some online donation platforms, like Qgiv, have integrations with matching gift services like Double the Donation so you can simply toggle on the service and provide a way for donors to find and initiate matching gifts with their employers right on your donation form.

Merit School of Music uses the Qgiv and Double the Donation integration on their main online donation form.

Caption: Merit School of Music uses the Qgiv and Double the Donation integration on their main online donation form.

Conclusion

Anything you can do to draw more attention to your matching gifts campaign and encourage donors to use your matching tools is a bonus! The more your donors are aware of matching options, the more likely they are to use them. That means more revenue for you and more satisfaction for your donors! Try including matching information in your appeals, highlighting your matching gifts tools on your social media posts, and use subtle design elements to draw attention to your matching plugin or integration on your donation form. And be patient! It takes time for donors to change their donation behaviors and patterns—give them matching tools, gently encourage their use, and keep an eye on your bottom line. Your donors are passionate about the work you do—they’ll start using those tools soon!


This blog post was contributed by Abby Jarvis from Qgiv. Abby Jarvis is the Nonprofit Education Manager at Qgiv, a company dedicated to building powerful online fundraising tools that empower nonprofits to thrive and grow. In her 7 years at Qgiv, Abby has become passionate about studying industry best practices, learning how they can help nonprofits be more effective, and sharing that information with fundraisers. When she’s not teaching fundraising workshops at Qgiv’s Fundraising Labs or at conferences, she chairs the fundraising committee on a nonprofit board in her hometown of Lakeland, Florida.

Double the Donation and Totem announce a new partnership!

Totem Insights Chooses 360MatchPro by Double the Donation for Exclusive Matching Gifts Integrated Solution

Double the Donation is proud to announce an exclusive partnership with Totem Insights, a six-in-one supporter engagement platform, with an integration of the 360MatchPro matching gifts solution into the Totem donation management fundraising platform. The integration provides nonprofits with the ability to engage with and receive matching gift funds from the over 26 million individuals who work for companies with matching gift programs. 

“Here at Totem, we are always seeking to create more efficient and streamlined experiences for donors by continuously releasing new features that make our donor management system even more robust,” said Alan Wei, CEO and Co-Founder of Totem Insights. “With the understanding that donors are more likely to give if their donation is matched, we believe that the 360MatchPro by Double the Donation integration achieves the goal of providing a better donor experience while helping nonprofits increase their fundraising dollars.”

Totem users are now able to include the 360MatchPro streamlined matching gift search tool as a field on their donation forms. As donors search for their company name in that field, their transaction record is updated in 360MatchPro. This functionality of the 360MatchPro platform ensures that every matching gift opportunity is identified, driven to completion, and reported back to the nonprofit — all automatically. 

“Lack of donor awareness is the number one reason for the $4-7 billion in matching gift revenue left on the table every year,” says Adam Weinger, President of Double the Donation. “We are so excited to be Totem’s exclusive choice for a matching gift solution partner.”

Double the Donation’s database of matching gift companies takes the guesswork and time out of the matching gift process, leaving nonprofits time to focus on top opportunities with the Totem and 360MatchPro integration.

Activate in seconds and start raising more from matching gifts!

Find your company name with ease

Donors can enter their company name to see their match eligiblity.

Activate in Seconds and Start Raising More from Matching Gifts!

The 360MatchPro and Totem integration can be activated by the Totem support team in a matter of minutes, so you can get straight to matching gifts—no complicated IT work required. 

Once integrated, 360MatchPro presents donors with multiple opportunities to identify their employer during the donation process without interrupting the flow of the donation experience. The autocomplete search tool maps your donor’s entries to corresponding company names and follows up on each submission with a link to the donor’s company matching gift request form.

The integration also immediately recognizes corporate email addresses and populates the search field with the corresponding company, making it even easier for donors to discover their eligibility for a match. And with 1 in 3 donors more likely to give if they are match eligible, nonprofits who use Totem and 360MatchPro can take their fundraising strategy to the next level with the help of gift matching. 

360MatchPro collects this data and transforms it into actionable insights for your organization so you can keep your donor information streamlined and consolidated. The results are higher matching gift request rates and revenue, higher percentages of donors with current employer information on file, and a wealth of useful corporate philanthropy-related data for nonprofit teams.

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

Drive More Matching Gifts to Completion with 360MatchPro!  

Totem seeks to help nonprofits cultivate more donations, develop an effective fundraising strategy, discover untapped database potential, and more. 360MatchPro by Double the Donation enhances that mission by incorporating corporate philanthropy and matching gifts to the fundraising conversation. 

  • Identify more matching gift revenue opportunities: 360MatchPro 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 360MatchPro 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 360MatchPro 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 360MatchPro can handle the rest.
360MatchPro provides value to your nonprofit with corporate gift matching marketing!

360MatchPro provides value to your nonprofit with corporate gift matching marketing!

To get started on your matching gift journey with Totem and Double the Donation, schedule a private demo of 360MatchPro today. 


About Totem Insights: Totem offers a single platform to handle all of your constituent, donor, member, volunteer, program, and event needs. With years of experience working with and for nonprofits of all sizes, Totem remains dedicated to finding new solutions and providing top notch, human support to the “helpers” amongst us.  At Totem, we help the helpers. Learn more at www.totemfgf.com

About Double the Donation:  Automate your matching gift fundraising with the industry-leading solution from Double the Donation. The 360MatchPro platform provides nonprofits with tools to identify match-eligible donors, drive matches to completion, and gain actionable insights. 360MatchPro 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 about Double the Donation, visit https://doublethedonation.com and request a demo at https://360matchpro.com/demo-request/

GiveSignup

GiveSignup | RunSignup Debuts Corporate Matching Gifts Integration with 360MatchPro by Double the Donation

GiveSignup | RunSignup is proud to debut a new corporate matching gifts integration with 360MatchPro by Double the Donation, the leading provider of matching gift and volunteer grant solutions to nonprofits and educational institutions.

Nonprofits that use Double the Donation as their corporate matching gift platform can now enable the integration on any GiveSignup | RunSignup fundraising run/walk/ride, virtual event, challenge, donation website, donation form, and standalone fundraising campaign.

When $4-7 million in corporate matching gift revenue is left on the table every year, nonprofits miss out on revenue that could be used to power their missions. 360MatchPro helps nonprofits capture their full matching gift potential through powerful automated matching gift identification, completion, and reporting. Integrated with GiveSignup | RunSignup, 360MatchPro closes the matching gift revenue gap with minimal configuration and setup.

“GiveSignup | RunSignup is proud to recommend Double the Donation as our preferred partner for corporate matching gifts,” said Bob Bickel, Founder of RunSignup. “The time-saving, custom automation available through the 360MatchPro system can’t be beat. We hope all our nonprofits take advantage of this new partnership!”

The integration is simple for nonprofits with a 360MatchPro account to activate (Don’t have a 360MatchPro account? Request a demo!). With one click in the GiveSignup | RunSignup platform, nonprofits can link their 360MatchPro account to any event, donation website, donation form, or fundraising campaign that they create.

360MatchPro makes it easy for donors, too! When giving through GiveSignup | RunSignup donation pages, each donor is automatically evaluated for their matching gift eligibility and presented with the next steps for their company’s matching gift program.

“Seamlessness is a hallmark of 360MatchPro integrations,” said Adam Weinger, President of Double the Donation. “It’s important for donors to move smoothly through the donation process while the nonprofit simultaneously captures essential matching gift eligibility information. 360MatchPro and GiveSignup | RunSignup combine to provide that seamless experience for nonprofits and their donors.”

Close the revenue gap for your next race with the new integration between Double the Donation and GiveSignup | RunSignup!

This image explains that activating 360MatchPro will only take seconds, and it will help you start raising more funds from matching gifts.

Activate in Seconds and Start Raising More from Matching Gifts!

360MatchPro integrates seamlessly with GiveSignup | RunSignup software, making the setup process quick and easy. Once you obtain a 360MatchPro account, you can begin adding the powerful gift matching tool to your website and race forms.

Simply log on to your GiveSignup | RunSignup account, and navigate to the “Corporate Matching Gifts” tab. This can be found by first selecting the “Donations” option. This page will then prompt you to enter your Double the Donation credentials.

This image shows the option to enter 360MatchPro credentials into the RunSignUp platform.

These API keys can easily be obtained once your 360MatchPro account has been provisioned. They are designed to link the gift matching tool on your donation forms directly to your 360MatchPro dashboard.

After this step is completed, you will be ready to begin increasing your revenue through corporate gift matching! Now you can check out the 360MatchPro tool on your donation websites or race forms.

This image shows the 360MatchPro tool on a RunSignUp page.

This streamlined search tool allows donors to type in the name of their employer directly onto the form. Then, a drop down menu will appear and suggest possible options. This keeps the donor running smoothly through the donation process.

This image shows the 360MatchPro search tool in use.

Once a donor enters their employer information, the 360MatchPro database scans an extensive database of employer gift matching programs. If the donor is identified as match-eligible, an automated yet personalized email to help them drive their gift match to completion.

That’s all there is to it! This simple setup process can be activated in seconds so that you may drive donations through corporate gift matching.

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

This image explains that you can drive more matching gifts to completion with 360MatchPro.

Drive More Matching Gifts to Completion with 360MatchPro!

360MatchPro uses industry-leading practices to ensure a valuable and efficient gift matching experience. Its many features take care of the gift matching process so that you can focus your time on your organization’s top priorities.

360MatchPro will:

  • Identify more matching gift revenue opportunities: 360MatchPro 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 360MatchPro 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 360MatchPro 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 360MatchPro can handle the rest.

This image lists the features of 360MatchPro alongside an increasing graph to represent increasing donations.

Ready to see it in action? Schedule a demo with 360MatchPro for a personalized session to discuss the gift matching needs of your organization.


About GiveSignup | RunSignup: GiveSignup | RunSignup is a leading all-in-one platform for fundraising and endurance events. More than 21,000 events, supporting over 8,000 nonprofits, use GiveSignup | RunSignup’s free and integrated solution to save time, grow their events, and raise more. Built on a powerful CRM, our expertly crafted, open, and all-in-one solution powers nonprofit revenue generation and supporter engagement from run/walk/rides to ticket events to donation websites, forms, and fundraising campaigns. For more information, visit www.givesignup.org or www.runsignup.com.

About Double the Donation: Automate your matching gift fundraising with the industry-leading solution from Double the Donation. The 360MatchPro platform provides nonprofits with tools to identify match-eligible donors, drive matches to completion, and gain actionable insights. 360MatchPro 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://360matchpro.com/demo-request/

DonorDrive Chooses Partnership with Double the Donation to Drive More Matching Gift Revenue for Nonprofits

DonorDrive Chooses Partnership with Double the Donation to Drive More Matching Gift Revenue for Nonprofits

DonorDrive is proud to announce a new built-in integration with 360MatchPro, the leading matching gifts automation platform by Double the Donation.

The new partnership drives more revenue for nonprofit organizations through a tight integration between DonorDrive donation forms and 360MatchPro’s automated gift matching identification and workflows. With $4-7 billion in matching gift revenue left unclaimed every year, the new integration is essential for nonprofits looking to bridge the gap.

“Our mission at DonorDrive is to power our nonprofit clients’ missions by making available the best-in-class strategies, tools, and partners” said Marc Rubner, CEO at DonorDrive. “Our new partnership with Double the Donation supports this mission through our integration with the 360MatchPro solution.”

The new integration with 360MatchPro is quick for nonprofits to activate and easy for donors to navigate. Nonprofits using the integration will capture donors’ matching gift eligibility when they give, then automated personalized communication streams will drive matching gifts to completion. Donors who are match-eligible move seamlessly through the entire integrated workflow to swiftly match the gift they’ve just made, thereby doubling revenue for the nonprofits they’re supporting.

“360MatchPro drives immediate results for DonorDrive clients with the new integration,” said Adam Weinger, President of Double the Donation. “We’re focused on a frictionless donor experience, which preserves donation form conversion rates while capturing the employer information that’s essential for doubling revenue.”

The new 360MatchPro integration with DonorDrive will help nonprofits take advantage of the corporate matching gift opportunities their donors are eligible for, working together toward closing the $4-7 billion matching gift revenue gap.

Activate in seconds and start raising more from matching gifts with 360MatchPro and DonorDrive

Activate in Seconds and Start Raising More from Matching Gifts!

Activating the 360MatchPro integration within DonorDrive is easy. The support teams will take care of everything for you! And once you’re integrated, it’s time to get the most out of your new 360MatchPro automation.

As donors make a gift to your organization, they will have the opportunity to search for their company’s name. The helpful text above the company name search fields lets the donor know why you’re asking for their employer information — to double the impact of their gift!

The 360MatchPro streamlined company name search field on your DonorDrive donation form presents an easy-to-navigate drop-down list of matching gift companies for your donor to select from.

The 360MatchPro streamlined company name search field on your DonorDrive donation form presents an easy-to-navigate drop-down list of matching gift companies for your donor to select from.

But the matching gift journey doesn’t stop there. After your donor submits their gift, it’s time to direct them to the next steps they need to take to get it matched by their company. The 360MatchPro integration will inform the donor right on the confirmation page whether they’re eligible for a matching gift and what to do next.

360MatchPro takes donors from your DonorDrive confirmation page to their company's matching gift form with one click.

360MatchPro takes donors from your DonorDrive confirmation page to their company’s matching gift form with one click.

The donor can navigate directly to their company’s matching gift form or view additional guidelines with one click. That one click means double the revenue for your organization!

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

Drive more matches to completion with 360MatchPro and DonorDrive

Drive More Matches to Completion with 360MatchPro!

The combination of DonorDrive donation forms and 360MatchPro matching gift automation will seamlessly lead donors through the donation and matching gift process for all your fundraising events. Keep in mind the following benefits of 360MatchPro:

  • Identify more matching gift revenue opportunities: 360MatchPro 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 360MatchPro 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 360MatchPro 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 360MatchPro can handle the rest.

360MatchPro and DonorDrive provide value to your nonprofit

Put the integrated solutions to work for your next fundraising event! Schedule a demo of 360MatchPro to learn how to maximize your matching gift revenue.


About DonorDrive®: DonorDrive is an enterprise-level fundraising platform that turns everyday people into powerful fundraisers. With over 20 years of fundraising innovation, DonorDrive has helped hundreds of nonprofits, like Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals, the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, Arthritis Foundation, and World Vision grow and become industry leaders. Through innovative solutions such as Live FundraisingTM, Express DonateTM, Facebook Fundraisers, and the Fundraising Motivation EngineTM, DonorDrive has enabled nonprofits to raise over $1 Billion. To learn more visit, www.donordrive.com.

About Double the Donation: Automate your matching gift fundraising with the industry-leading solution from Double the Donation. The 360MatchPro platform provides nonprofits with tools to identify match-eligible donors, drive matches to completion, and gain actionable insights. 360MatchPro 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://360matchpro.com/demo-request/

Double the Donation Partners with Give Lively to Offer Corporate Matching Gifts Solution to 10,000+ More Nonprofits

Double the Donation Partners with Give Lively to Offer Corporate Matching Gifts Solution to 10,000+ More Nonprofits

Double the Donation, the leading provider of matching gift and volunteer grant solutions to nonprofits, is excited to announce the integration of its 360MatchPro corporate matching gift solution with Give Lively, a New York City-based tech company reimagining the future of nonprofit fundraising for free.

Give Lively built and supports a powerful and practical nonprofit fundraising platform that provides unlimited access to free digital, peer- a360MatchPro adds gift matching to your donation pagesnd event-based fundraising technology. The rapidly growing tech company facilitates hundreds of thousands of donations every year for its 10,000+ nonprofit members, all of which can now benefit from industry-leading corporate matching gift automation from Double the Donation.

“We believe nonprofits, no matter their size, should not sacrifice their means to satisfy their missions. Our direct collaboration with them reflects this; their needs propel the development of our product,” said David DeParolesa, CEO of Give Lively. “Double the Donation addresses an area of fundraising that our nonprofit members find invaluable for their fundraising strategy. We’re proud to offer them the opt-in opportunity to add the 360MatchPro matching gift solution and open up new avenues for fundraising perhaps unknown to their donors.”

$4-7 billion in matching gift revenue is left on the table every year and the gap can be attributed to a lack of donor awareness of corporate matching gift programs. According to Double the Donation’s analysis, 78% of match-eligible donors do not know their company offers a matching gift program, and only 7% of donors at companies with matching gift programs get their gifts matched. 360MatchPro by Double the Donation ensures that every matching gift opportunity is identified, driven to completion, and reported back to the nonprofit — all automatically.

“Every nonprofit we speak with knows that corporate matching gifts are an important source of fundraising revenue, but many don’t know how to increase their matching gift numbers,” said Adam Weinger, President of Double the Donation. “The 360MatchPro platform closes the matching gift awareness gap by identifying match-eligible donors and guiding them through the complicated matching gift process, all without any manual action by the nonprofit.”

The Give Lively and Double the Donation partnership integrates in minutes and can raising your fundraising revenue by double or even triple the amount.

Activate in seconds and start raising more from matching gifts with 360MatchPro and DonorDrive

Activate in Seconds and Start Raising More from Matching Gifts!

To begin your matching gifts journey, establish a 360MatchPro account with Double the Donation. Then, take your new 360MatchPro account and connect it to your existing Give Lively account. Once connected, 360MatchPro will automatically begin searching for matching gift opportunities and driving them to completion as donors give through your Give Lively forms!

easily integrate with API keys in minutes. No coding required!

With your 360MatchPro account plugged into your Give Lively platform, the 360MatchPro tool is enabled globally across your confirmation pages. After a donor makes a donation to your organization, they’ll be prompted to search for their company to see if they are match eligible via the 360MatchPro autocomplete search tool. That means donors can go straight from your organization’s confirmation page to their company matching gift application form, streamlining the donor’s journey to doubling their donation!

About 10 percent of the workforce—that’s approximately 26 million individuals—work for companies with matching gift programs. The Give Lively and 360MatchPro integration makes it possible for your organization to reach that population by giving donors the resources they need to get their gifts matched through an easy-to-use search tool, consistent communication through automated emails, and a platform that keeps track of the gift matching process every step of the way.

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

This header image states: "Drive more matching gifts to completion with 360MatchPro!"

Drive More Matching Gifts to Completion with 360MatchPro!

With the new integration from Give Lively and Double the Donation, you can take advantage of corporate philanthropy and claim millions of dollars in fundraising revenue via corporate gift matching. The 360MatchPro tool helps you every step of the way from identification of match-eligible donors to leading those donors to their employer’s gift matching page to tracking matching statuses and other fundraising trends. 

360MatchPro can change your fundraising strategy for the better

Give Lively’s goal is to help nonprofits of all sizes take advantage of the digital fundraising movement by dramatically improving the giving experience for everyone. The 360MatchPro integration helps Give Lively accomplish that mission with features like the following:

  • Identify more matching gift revenue opportunities: 360MatchPro 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 360MatchPro 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 360MatchPro 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 360MatchPro can handle the rest.

Request a demo today to get started with improving the giving experience for you and your donors. 


About Give Lively: Give Lively believes nonprofits shouldn’t sacrifice their means to satisfy their missions. They are a philanthropist-funded, social impact-driven tech company that collaborates directly with nonprofits to build better fundraising tech and give it away to them for free. Visit www.givelively.org to learn more. 

About Double the Donation: Automate your matching gift fundraising with the industry-leading solution from Double the Donation. The 360MatchPro platform provides nonprofits with tools to identify match-eligible donors, drive matches to completion, and gain actionable insights. 360MatchPro 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 about Double the Donation, visit https://doublethedonation.com and request a demo at https://360matchpro.com/demo-request/