Employees (or volunteers, for that matter) of any nonprofit should believe in their mission wholeheartedly. At the same time, team members across all roles and departments should be encouraged to further their good work in any way they can.
Why else would a person dedicate their life to any profession? Sure, some people might work for money alone, but in the nonprofit sector, the ultimate goal is often not a personal or financial one.
Rather, key objectives include delivering a positive effect on the world by helping solve problems and overcoming community roadblocks. This often involves providing a solution via goods or services where there once was a gap. The problem is that these solutions typically require a decent amount of funding to establish.
If you’re looking for new methods that your organization can use to collect increased funds, matching gifts are one of the best ways to go. And the first logical step in driving matching revenue is beginning with your nonprofit itself—by marketing matching gifts to your internal team.
By incorporating the following matching gift marketing strategies into your overall nonprofit fundraising plan, you can ensure your team is doing the best job possible in acquiring matching gift funds. This should include prioritizing your:
Remember, internal outreach encompasses all areas of your nonprofit’s “behind the scenes” efforts—including paid staff members, volunteer teams, dedicated fundraisers, and so on.
Let’s dive in with key ways to market matching gifts to these critical teams!
Marketing Matching Gifts With Internal Awareness
One of the first steps you’ll want to take in order to market matching gifts to your nonprofit’s internal team is to increase awareness of the opportunities within your organization. Make sure that every team member is familiar with the concepts involved with employee gift-matching so that they can be better prepared to pass on the information to interested supporters.
When your team has a solid foundation of knowledge about matching gifts, your staff and supporters will naturally spread the word about the opportunities. Informing your internal staff about matching gifts reminds them to prioritize and elevate matching gifts every chance they get.
Here are a few best practices to consider when marketing matching gifts by increasing internal awareness:
Host dedicated training sessions where you inform your nonprofit team about matching gift fundraising.
Clarify where team members should turn to seek more information about donation-matching—whether that’s a matching gift team leader, additional resources, etc.
Incorporate matching gift training into your organization’s future onboarding initiatives to ensure new team members are being informed about the opportunities as well.
Internal promotion may be the most essential strategy for promoting matching gifts. Of course, you’ll want your fundraising team to understand and communicate the value of matching gifts. But don’t stop there! Make sure every person within your organization is trained on matching gift fundraising strategies—from the board president to your custodial staff!
This can be as simple as informing your staff about matching gifts at your next organization-wide meeting. Then, implore your team to be mindful of these programs when speaking to both donors and prospects. Once the word about matching gifts is out, it can spread like wildfire from one trusted voice to another.
Marketing Matching Gifts With Matching Gift Teams
Strategies for marketing matching gifts to your internal team typically begins with establishing a dedicated matching gift coordinator and team. Once ready and equipped, these individuals will work to spread the word and prioritize the opportunity for everyone else involved with your nonprofit.
Sure, everyone should have basic knowledge when it comes to corporate gift-matching. But in order to fully implement the funding source in your overall nonprofit fundraising strategy, it’s important to form a dedicated matching gift team that goes above and beyond in pursuit of matching gifts.
Here are a few best practices to consider when marketing matching gifts by forming a matching gifts team:
Identify a leader of your matching gift fundraising team to ensure matching gifts are promoted to donors and be there to answer questions about matching gifts.
Pull individuals from your marketing, fundraising, volunteer coordinating, and other relevant departments.
Make an effort to streamline your matching gift processes and implement a culture of matching gifts.
For the greatest results, a matching gift fundraising team should address specific roles in the matching gift process. This group of dedicated individuals is designed to get all of your matching gift efforts streamlined and bring in more corporate-matched donations than ever before.
Specifically, hiring a matching gift expert (or forming a team of matching gift fundraisers) will ensure that you have a point of contact for everything matching-gift-related. This can lead to better outreach and marketing strategies for matching gifts. There’s a real science to maximizing matching gifts, and it takes foundation in proper execution from a dedicated matching gift team.
Marketing Matching Gifts With A Matching Gift Fundraising Plan
With your matching gift team in place, it’s time to execute your efforts with a detailed fundraising plan. With determination and proper strategy on your side, your organization as a whole can benefit from a substantial increase in doubled donations.
To do so, be sure to first identify to whom you plan on marketing matching gifts—and how you aim to do so. This step also involves determining exactly what information you’d like to share with donors. Consider the following questions:
Do you simply want to inform donors that matching gift programs exist? Shall you educate them on how to get involved? Would you like donors to know how matching gifts provide necessary additional funds for specific mission initiatives? Are you aiming to direct eligible donors directly to their companies’ matching gift program guidelines and instructions?
More than likely, your answer will involve a combination of each key topic. But don’t forget—before you can craft your plan to communicate the above information to donors, you’ll need to ensure your nonprofit team is up to speed as well.
Here are a few best practices to consider when marketing matching gifts to your internal team by developing a detailed matching gift fundraising plan:
Establish specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound goals for increasing matching gift awareness and revenue.
Discuss matching gift opportunities with the tangible mission impacts in mind. Your team members care about your cause and will be increasingly motivated to seek donation matches when they can better visualize what’s at stake.
Evaluate the most effective marketing opportunities for promoting matching gifts. Prioritize the outreach channels that will best serve your nonprofit (such as direct mail, social media, email, etc.) while keeping in mind that a multi-channel plan is typically the most ideal choice.
When you inform your staff about matching gifts, it essentially launches the domino effect, and, before you know it, soon, word has spread throughout your entire network about the power of matching gifts.
Be sure to articulate that submitting a matching gift will allow people to go the extra mile and do even more for your mission—all without having to reach back into their own wallets. That should be the foundation of your matching gift fundraising plan!
Marketing Matching Gifts With Key Metrics
As you dive into marketing matching gifts to your nonprofit’s team by forming a marketing plan, sharing corporate giving content with donors, and incorporating matching gift training into ongoing staff management, don’t forget to also measure your results.
Here are a few best practices to consider when marketing matching gifts by tracking and recording key fundraising metrics:
Keep track of the number and value of match-eligible gifts identified.
Record the number and value of matching gifts received in a certain time period.
Calculate your organization’s matching gift rate (i.e., the number of matching gifts received divided by the total number of individual donations).
Make a note of the percentage increase on individual donations (matching gift value divided by the total value of individual donations).
By tracking, recording, and analyzing key fundraising metrics, you can easily evaluate your data. From there, you’ll be able to continuously improve your matching gift promotion strategies both internally and beyond your own team.
Remember—there’s always room for improvement when it comes to optimizing your fundraising efforts. As you learn from past initiatives and aim for increasingly improved results, keep in mind that key updates can be made to better engage with your audience (not to mention your own internal team) at any time.
Getting your nonprofit’s team on board with matching gifts is an essential prerequisite for effective matching gifts fundraising. Before you can market the opportunity to external supporters, it’s vital that your fundraisers are up to speed with all things matching gifts and ready to communicate the impact and importance of these programs to donors and supporters.
It all starts with marketing matching gifts to your internal team! Be sure to increase awareness of the programs, form a dedicated department devoted to amplifying matching gifts, and track and report key fundraising metrics throughout the process.
Ready to learn more about matching gift opportunities? Read up on these additional resources—and be sure to share your findings with the rest of your internal team:
Corporate Social Responsibility: A Comprehensive Guide. Matching gifts are a form of corporate philanthropy which falls under the corporate social responsibility, or CSR, umbrella. Dive into everything CSR with our guide on the topic!
https://doublethedonation.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/DTD_Marketing-Matching-Gifts-To-Your-Internal-Team_Feature-1.jpg275725Adam Weingerhttps://doublethedonation.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/logo-dtd.svgAdam Weinger2022-05-12 13:45:192025-05-30 21:23:32Marketing Matching Gifts To Your Internal Team
While electronic communication is a speedy and efficient outreach strategy, some donors prefer communication via direct mail. That’s why we recommend taking a multi-channel approach to marketing matching gifts with direct mail outreach and online engagement efforts.
This way, you’re able to reach a significantly wider audience while offering additional touchpoints to make your materials stand out. And in the end, that means more matching gifts for your cause.
Now, you might be asking yourself (or your team): “Is paper marketing out of date?” The simple answer is that no, it’s not. In fact, there are a number of donors who still prefer the personal touch of tangible mail.
When people read direct mail, as opposed to email or other online communications, the interaction between ink and paper does something to help people better remember what they’re reading. Common sense would advise that you don’t just want people to read about matching gift programs; you want people to remember them.
Though digital giving methods are en vogue as of late, some donors don’t respond to internet-based outreach. Whether your donors are less technologically savvy or simply prefer a good, old-fashioned letter, some donors are best contacted through the (still lively) snail mail process.
The debate between paper communication and technological communication has raged on for years. Nonetheless, employing both types of marketing works best.
Every type of direct mail has its place in the matching gift donation cycle, and each one will help you better reach that vital segment of donors who prefer to interact via direct mail communications.
In this guide, we’ll learn more about marketing matching gifts with direct mail using each of these strategies. Let’s begin!
Marketing Matching Gifts With Letters
Use letters to remind donors to check if their employers offer matching gifts. Make sure the wording doesn’t read like a sale but rather feels like a personal communication between your nonprofit and the donor.
You want people to know that, by applying for a matching gift, they’re doing a great service to your nonprofit—above and beyond their initial contribution. If you have the time and resources, consider writing your letters by hand. If not, you may decide to opt for printed matching gift letters.
Consider these best practices for marketing matching gifts with direct mail letters:
Target your direct mailings to active donors who have recently contributed a gift to your organization.
Research your donors (and their matching gift eligibility) before sending your letters to ensure you’re not throwing away any postage.
Incorporate an easily scannable QR code that directs readers to your matching gifts page for more information.
Just be sure to write to your donors like they’re human beings and share personal stories to get them increasingly invested in your cause. This will encourage individuals to want to go the extra mile to seek out and participate in their employers’ matching gift programs.
And when you receive a matching gift, remember to say “thank you!” Even if you communicate with a donor primarily via email, a paper thank you in the mail can be a great way to show how much you appreciate the additional dollars (and the steps the donor took to secure the funding).
Example Content:
“Many employers offer matching gift programs that could double or even triple your contribution. We invite you to seek out matching gifts so that Atlanta University can continue to educate the next generation of changemakers.”
“Many corporations offer programs that match employee donations to the Cat Rescue Club. The tax-deductible portion of your membership contribution is often eligible to be matched as well—find out more on our website!”
“Visit catrescueclub.org/employer-matching/ or visit https://doublethedonation.com/CRC to find out if your company will match your donation.”
Marketing Matching Gifts With Direct Mail Inserts
If you don’t want to edit all of your existing marketing materials to mention matching gifts, or if you want to call added attention to such programs, paper mailing inserts may be the offline marketing technique for you.
Paper inserts are typically slips of paper included in additional donor mailings that call special attention to matching gifts. And they come in a variety of forms, as well. Sometimes they’re as simple as small pieces of paper, though you could even get creative and turn your paper insert into a bookmark or another longer-lasting material.
Consider these best practices for marketing matching gifts with direct mail inserts:
To reduce costs, design direct mail inserts smaller than a full page or use a postcard.
Rather than creating an additional direct mail insert, incorporate donation-matching information on the back of an existing paper insert material.
Consider retaining direct mail marketing strategies for donors or members at higher giving levels (and prioritize digital outreach for small and mid-level donors).
Stick to a limited amount of text that gets straight to the point—typically an overview of matching gifts and a call to action to participate.
Incorporate eye-catching graphics that elevate the brief message rather than take away from the content at hand.
Encourage recipients to visit your website (and, specifically, your dedicated matching gift page) at the provided link. If the URL for your match page is long or complicated to type, consider including a shortened version that automatically redirects to your matching gift page.
Direct mail is more likely to be noticed by less tech-savvy donors and members who aren’t exploring your website on a regular basis. Including a matching gift insert in new members’ or donors’ welcome packets, membership renewal materials, or annual update communications can bring additional attention to matching gifts.
Example Content:
“Matching gifts can double your support for our organization. Many corporations offer programs that will match employee donations to our organization. Is your employer one of them? Learn more about available matching gift programs on our website!”
“Matching gifts and volunteer grants are important sources of revenue for our organization. Visit our matching gift page to find out if your company will match your donation and to access the appropriate forms and guidelines.”
Marketing Matching Gifts With Postcards
People love receiving personalized mail, and postcards can be a great way to make your materials stand out. After all, you get to immediately surpass the issue of donors who never get past the first obstacle—the envelope.
As a result, postcards can be an especially effective way to encourage donors to submit matching gifts.
Consider these best practices for marketing matching gifts with postcards:
Summarize what matching gifts are and what the financial impact is.
Remind donors to submit their matching gift requests to their employers.
Directs recipients to a site (or individual’s contact information) where they can access additional information.
Determine which segments of donors to which you’ll send postcards—including all recent donors, recent donors above a certain threshold, donors identified as match-eligible, or donors who’ve submitted matching gifts for past donations but haven’t yet for their most recent contributions.
Just as with the solicitation letters, the more personalized you can make your postcards, the better. Handwritten cards are great, but at the very least, you’ll want to have your postcards signed by hand. Knowing that a real person cared enough to write (or sign) your mailing can go a long way toward connecting with recipients on an individual level.
Example Content:
“Get your donation matched! Scan this QR code to visit our page on corporate matching gifts and find out if your employer will match your generous donation to our cause.”
“Do you match? Visit www.lls.org/matching-gifts/ to search our matching gift database and quickly access your company’s matching gift program guidelines.”
Marketing Matching Gifts With Thank-You Notes
It’s likely that your nonprofit is receiving matching gift checks several months after the original donations. Sending thank-you notes is a great way to notify your donors that the matching contributions were received.
Thanking donors is not only the right thing to do, but it also instills a positive impression in donors’ minds and ultimately closes the loop. As a result, donors will be more likely to make future contributions with matching gifts.
Consider these best practices for marketing matching gifts with thank-you notes:
Utilize a “thank-you” card that is both easy to read and eye-appealing while also staying true to your brand’s color scheme.
Ask donors to keep your organization in the loop throughout their matching gift request process (i.e., indicating when they’ve submitted their match), which allows you to better track and record incoming matching donations.
Provide insights into the tangible impact the individual’s donation match can offer your organization and its beneficiaries.
Share gratitude for both the donation match and the individual’s initial donation.
For large institutions, the chances are that you’ll be sending notes to more people than hand cramps you care to endure. Printed materials are a speedy and efficient alternative to handwritten letters, but if you want that personal touch, pick up a pen and scribble a quick message. Even just signing at the bottom can show an extra level of dedication that donors will respond to!
Example Content:
“We recently received a matching donation from the Home Depot as a result of your generous donation and subsequent match request on our behalf. Thank you for your constant support of our cause!”
“Thank you for submitting your matching donation! Your support goes above and beyond to help us fulfill our mission. Our team, and the beneficiaries we serve, will forever be grateful for your contributions to the campaign.”
Marketing Matching Gifts With Physical Newsletters
Physical newsletters as a marketing medium offer a unique opportunity for organizations to share content that goes in-depth about the details of matching gifts. After all, this method typically encompasses an increased amount of space to articulate why matching gifts are important—and their specific benefits to your nonprofit—as compared to some other direct mail or even online marketing tactics.
This, in turn, brings them closer to your nonprofit in a way that makes them feel more in touch with (and thus more included) in your community.
Consider these best practices for marketing matching gifts with physical newsletters:
Share compelling statistics about matching gift availability and potential (hint: we’ve compiled a list of impactful corporate giving research to help).
Communicate the value of matching gifts using examples of tangible benefits that increased funding can bring your organization and its mission.
Direct readers to additional online resources where donors can navigate to learn more about getting involved with donation-matching.
Consider creating a matching gift-specific edition of your nonprofit newsletter, chockfull of information about the giving opportunity.
Chances are, you have an online newsletter to share current events and updates surrounding your nonprofit organization and its mission. But have you noticed that some people still prefer the physical newspaper to the digital edition?
As a result, a physical newsletter gives you a better chance of reaching donors who you might otherwise miss.
Example Content:
Matching gifts occur when socially responsible companies agree to financially match donations that their employees make to eligible causes. However, millions of eligible donors have no idea whether their companies offer such a program! As a result, more than $4 to $7 billion in available matching gift funding goes unclaimed every year. Are you missing out on potential matches from your employer? Check out our website to learn more about these opportunities and determine whether your most recent donation is eligible for a corporate match.”
“In the last year, more than $100,000 worth of donations made to our charity were identified as eligible for corporate matching through donors’ employing companies. However, only a fraction of that amount was actually processed and contributed via corporate matches. Imagine what we could do if every match-eligible donor secures a corporate donation from their employer. Think of all the families in our community who won’t go hungry, thanks to adequate funding for our food pantry! Find out if your employer offers a matching program by visiting www.henrypantry.com/matching.”
Marketing Matching Gifts With Return Envelopes
If your nonprofit is like other organizations using direct mail to solicit donations, you probably include a pre-addressed, pre-paid return envelope. This is a common practice, the purpose of which is to make it easy for donors to send in their donations.
But did you know that the return envelope is also a prime spot to remind donors to look into their employers’ matching gift programs?
Consider these best practices for marketing matching gifts with return envelopes:
Keep your text short and sweet—you’re not going to have a ton of space on the outside of an envelope.
Direct recipients to additional resources where they can learn more about matching gift opportunities.
If a donor is submitting a gift to your organization via return envelope, there’s no better time to inform them of the power of matching gifts.
Why?
These already-philanthropic donors can increase the impact of their donations to your organization without spending any more on their initial donation. Right when they’re already in the giving spirit is the perfect opportunity to inform them about the opportunity!
Example Content:
“Thanks for donating! Don’t forget to see if your company offers a matching gift program. Visit atlantauniversity.edu/matching-gifts/ to access your company’s matching gift form, guidelines, and instructions.”
“Next steps: find out if your donation is matchable! Search your employer’s name in our online matching gift database at www.catrescue.org/employee-matching.”
A lot of the time, scoring matching gifts is about increasing awareness about these programs. Marketing matching gift with direct mail outreach offers a bevy of ways to connect to donors—and some donors even respond better to paper mail than they do digital methods.
From letters to postcards to newsletters, you have a ton of options to raise more fundraising revenue than ever (both matching gift and otherwise).
And remember—the question is hardly ever whether to market matching gifts with direct mail or with digital outreach. Instead, a multi-channel approach is nearly always the best solution for communicating with donors, sharing information in effective and memorable ways, and ultimately driving more donation matches to completion.
Interested in increasing matching gift marketing for your cause? Check out our other educational resources to raise more:
Improving the Donor Journey with Matching Gifts. Incorporating matching gift outreach—whether direct mail, digital, or a combination of the two—is one of the best ways to improve the donor journey and provide excellent supporter experiences. Find out how with this guide!
Corporate Giving and Matching Gift Statistics [Updated 2022]. These corporate philanthropy, workplace giving, and matching gift statistics are unbelievable but true. Learn more about the current state of corporate giving, the potential that these programs offer for nonprofit causes like yours, and how to close the gap.
Corporate Volunteer Grant Programs: Learn the Basics. Thousands of companies provide organizations with which their employees volunteer generous grants corresponding to the number of hours spent with the cause. Like matching gifts, volunteer grants enable supporters to do more for their favorite charities!
https://doublethedonation.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/DTD_Marketing-Matching-Gifts-With-Direct-Mail-Outreach_Feature.png5501450Adam Weingerhttps://doublethedonation.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/logo-dtd.svgAdam Weinger2022-05-11 14:00:442025-02-28 21:45:13Marketing Matching Gifts With Direct Mail Outreach
As a nonprofit fundraiser, you should hopefully know all about the enormous impact that corporate matching gifts bring to strategic fundraising efforts.
Here’s a brief recap: matching gifts enable organizations to double existing donations when qualifying donors request corporate matches from their employers on your behalf. Yet unfortunately, millions of dollars of available matching gift revenue are left on the table each year. Two significant roadblocks to matching gift success are a lack of awareness of these programs and a lack of understanding of how eligible donors request their company matches.
And there’s one little piece of information that plays a huge role in just about any donor’s matching gift employer submission: the nonprofit’s EIN or employer identification number.
In this resource, we’ll dive deep into the world of EINs by covering the following key topics:
Ready to learn more about nonprofit EIN numbers—including what they are and their critical role in maximizing matching gifts? Let’s jump in with the basics.
“An Employer Identification Number [EIN] is also known as a Federal Tax Identification Number, and is used to identify a business entity.”
But don’t think that’s referring to for-profit businesses only!
In regards to nonprofits, an EIN is critical for identifying the organization as being an officially registered 501(c)(3) cause. By extension, this nine-digit number (formatted as XX-XXXXXXX) verifies an institution as a tax-exempt nonprofit, to which charitable donations are considered tax-deductible by the U.S. government.
You might even think of an organization’s EIN as the nonprofit (or business) version of a social security number.
This is the unique identifier belonging solely to the entity in question. No two groups share the same tax ID number, which allows the figure to pinpoint a particular organization and track all sorts of critical financial data. For nonprofits, this includes donations, tax receipts, and more.
2. Where Should a Nonprofit’s EIN Number Be?
Whether you’re a donor attempting to locate your favorite charity’s EIN number for a matching gift program or a nonprofit aiming to ensure your EIN is easily accessible to your audience, understanding the prime location for this information is essential.
So, where should an organization’s EIN number be found?
On the organization’s website
A nonprofit’s website is one of its most valuable assets for driving fundraising, improving donor engagement, and providing educational resources to viewers. As such, it’s critical that an organization incorporates its EIN number in multiple prominent locations across its site.
That’s why we recommend nonprofits include this information on their:
About Us page
Ways to Give page
Frequently Asked Questions page
Dedicated matching gift page
Keep in mind that if donors have to search particularly hard or click through a whole trail of breadcrumbs to locate your tax ID, they’re likely to call it quits before reaching the intended destination.
And if they need your EIN to submit their matching gift request, you might just miss out on that possible match. That’s why it’s essential to keep this information as openly accessible as possible.
Within donor communication materials
Beyond your nonprofit website, it’s also a good idea to include your EIN within a number of donor-facing communications. This typically includes:
Donor acknowledgments
Tax-exempt donation receipts
Matching gift follow-up emails
Not only does providing your tax ID number in communication materials ensure donors have access to the information they need for their matching gift requests, but it can also help when it comes time to report their charitable contributions as tax-deductible!
Through third-party resources
There’s also a good chance that an organization’s tax ID number is available online through a third-party resource such as Charity Navigator, GuideStar, or the IRS itself. These sites can be useful for donors and prospects looking to learn more about nonprofit causes they support.
As a nonprofit, however, you should not rely on this being the case—let alone the available resources providing accurate and up-to-date information. Thus, make sure to prioritize getting your organization’s EIN number out via your own website and communication materials.
3. The Importance of EIN Numbers for Matching Gift Programs
Most companies that offer matching gift programs will require the receiving organization’s EIN number to successfully process the matching gift request and ultimately disburse the funding.
The EIN requirement will typically be in addition to other information about their employee’s donation, such as:
Donation amount
Date of donation
Nonprofit name
Nonprofit address
Copy of the donation receipt (which should also include the EIN)
Without the organization’s ID number, the donor will likely be unable to submit their online match request—or if they do submit it without an EIN included, the request may be denied.
The purpose of the above information is so that the matching gift company can verify that the initial donation was made, along with it having been contributed to a qualifying nonprofit cause. Not to mention, having access to the organization’s official tax ID number also ensures that the employer is able to give to the same organization its employee did.
4. The Role of EIN Numbers With CSR Platforms
Thousands of companies with workplace giving programs utilize CSR platforms (sometimes referred to as corporate giving platforms, matching gift software vendors, etc.). These solutions were developed to help businesses manage their philanthropic initiatives. For many, that means matching gifts.
If your donors work for those companies (which it’s fairly likely that they do), participating individuals are often required to submit corporate matching gift requests through their employer’s CSR software portal.
And to complete their request, they’ll need the EIN number of the organization to which they gave.
Many companies even choose to automate their matching gift facilitation through the use of corporate giving software. When this occurs, donors simply fill out an online form provided by the CSR platform. The donation information entered (including EIN) is then quickly scanned against the business’s pre-determined matching gift criteria. This typically includes minimum and maximum donation amounts, types of qualifying nonprofits, and more.
The request is then approved or denied, and, if approved, the funding moves toward the distribution process. So as you work to drive as many matching gifts as possible—with as few roadblocks as possible—it’s essential that you provide individuals with the information they require.
5. How to Simplify EIN Numbers for Donors
So you understand why your organization’s EIN is essential to matching gift fundraising. But what can you do to make this information easily accessible and simplify the process of obtaining the figure for donors?
Leveraging matching gift automation software like Double the Donation can help in two keys ways:
Providing a dedicated matching gift web page with an explanation of matching gifts and an embedded search tool, alongside an organization’s EIN and other contact information
Offering customizable and automatically triggered post-donation follow-up emails to inform and remind donors about matching gifts
For example, check out how two leading nonprofit organizations display their EINs on their dedicated matching gifts pages for supporters:
American Heart Association
Leukemia & Lymphoma Society
Sometimes the process of identifying the right EIN number can be particularly difficult for nonprofit supporters. For example, some large schools, universities, and multi-chapter organizations may have multiple tax ID numbers—often a different EIN for each component of the overall cause.
In that case, you might want to include brief instructions within your matching gift follow-up emails that direct donors to the correct information. This can be as simple as incorporating a note near your matching gift company instructions. For example: “Kindly visit our dedicated matching gift page and look for the correct EIN for your matching gift request.”
If your organization has a single EIN number, you might still choose to include a reminder that the information is available on your matching gift web page. Alternatively, you could insert the number directly into your matching gift follow-up email for even easier access.
The more your organization simplifies the matching gift process for its donors, the more individuals are likely to participate—namely, following their matching gift request from beginning to end.
By highlighting EIN numbers for matching gift programs, your team can ensure your match-eligible supporters have the information they need to complete their employer’s submission process. You’ll receive additional corporate funding, and your donors are able to make an even more significant impact on a cause they care about. That’s what we like to call a win-win!
Want to learn more? Make the most of matching gifts with our other top fundraising and corporate giving resources here:
3 Reasons to Register Your Nonprofit with CSR Platforms. Are you interested in simplifying the corporate giving process for your organization, its donors, and their employers? Make sure to get your nonprofit registered with the top CSR management platforms and streamline fund disbursements.
Corporate Giving and Matching Gift Statistics [Updated 2022]. Take a look at these powerful corporate giving-related statistics to better inform your nonprofit team about the importance of corporate philanthropy. You’re sure to be inspired by these hard-to-believe (yet entirely true!) facts and figures.
https://doublethedonation.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/DTD_EIN-Numbers-for-Matching-Gift-Programs-A-Basic-Guide_Feature.png275725Adam Weingerhttps://doublethedonation.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/logo-dtd.svgAdam Weinger2022-03-18 17:37:542025-04-29 15:40:27EIN Numbers for Matching Gift Programs: A Basic Guide
by Mark Becker, Founding Partner, Cathexis Partners
Peer-to-peer fundraising is big. According to a peer-to-peer fundraising study by NonProfit PRO and Frontstream, 43 percent of nonprofits engaged in peer-to-peer fundraising said that fundraising made up more than 50 percent of their revenue. And according to Peer-to-Peer Professional Forum’s Peer-to-Peer Fundraising Thirty, 2.2 million people took part in peer-to-peer fundraising programs in 2020.
So, let’s take a look at three areas where you can improve your peer-to-peer fundraising results:
1. Recruit more participants.
One key thing peer-to-peer fundraising requires to be successful is participants. Here are some ideas for recruiting more participants for your next peer-to-peer campaign or event:
Create powerful messages – To get your supporters excited about helping you raise funds, it’s important to have a compelling story. Make sure your messaging addresses key ideas, including:
What makes your organization unique
What impact you are having on your mission
How your peer-to-peer campaign or event is solving a problem
What the funds raised from your campaign or event will help your organization accomplish
How participants can help you reach your fundraising goals
Make your story easy to understand and share – Make sure the messaging for your peer-to-peer fundraising campaign is easy to:
Understand – It should be obvious why your organization has launched the peer-to-peer fundraising campaign.
Convey – Your message should be simple enough for your supporters to easily explain to others.
Share – Your peer-to-peer fundraising tools should make it easy for participants to share your message.
Analyze your data – Take time to gather, analyze and use data from your past peer-to-peer campaigns or events to uncover trends and find new opportunities to improve your recruiting efforts. For example, review funds raised based on your top fundraisers’ connection to your organization. Understanding more about them can help you target your recruitment efforts with greater precision.
Do a “soft” launch – Consider doing a soft launch of your campaign in which you have staff members, board members, and your most involved constituents register to begin fundraising ahead of the official launch. Then, when other people come across the campaign, they’ll see that it already has an interest.
Build targeted recruitment emails – Segment your audiences and tailor messages for each segment for greater impact. For example, create email audiences based on past participation and past team membership. By doing so, you can send targeted messages, such as an early announcement email to those who have participated in the past and follow-up messages encouraging past participants to sign up.
Reach beyond your list – Think about other communications channels that reach beyond your constituent list: social media, your website, signs at your organization’s events, public service announcements, local morning TV news shows. All of these channels can be used to announce your campaign and recruit participants.
2. Motivate your participants to raise more.
Getting participants to sign up to fundraise for your organization (and providing them with basic details, sample emails, and suggestions about how to raise funds from their family and friends) is just the beginning. Your ability to reach your fundraising goals depends heavily on your ability to engage with your peer-to-peer participants and keep them motivated to raise funds.
Some ideas:
Issue social media challenges. Create social media challenges to get participants more excited about your campaign and help them engage with potential donors. For example, at the beginning of the week, issue a challenge via your website, social media, and email. Challenges can be related to your organization’s mission, such as “the participant who posts the most pet-themed photos wins the challenge,” or generic, like “the participant with the most donor selfies wins.” Then, promote the winner the following week.
Send out a call for videos. Ask participants to create videos to help inspire other participants. For example, ask your top fundraisers to develop a short video about why they’re raising funds for your organization or what have been their most effective approaches for raising funds from friends and family.
Provide incentives. Those who sign up for your peer-to-peer event or campaign have already shown interest in raising funds for your organization. But a little extra incentive can help you keep up the fundraising momentum. For example, offer a t-shirt, an online gift card, or another gift for participants who reach specified fundraising milestones.
3. Consider your peer-to-peer fundraising software platform.
The software platform you use to manage your peer-to-peer campaigns and events and to provide participants with the tools they need to raise funds is critical to your fundraising success. Be sure to periodically re-evaluate your software platform to ensure it’s still meeting your needs.
Here are three signs that it might be time for a change:
Your peer-to-peer participants aren’t as happy as they should be. Here are some signals that your participants are finding the online experience for your peer-to-peer campaigns and events difficult to navigate:
Registration abandonment. If you see a high number of people abandoning the registration process, or if that number starts to go up, it might be a sign that you need software that supports an easier and more intuitive participant-facing online experience.
Support requests. If you find your staff is receiving an increasing number of support requests for your peer-to-peer campaigns and events, it’s a signal that your software might not be as easy for participants to use as it should be.
Survey responses. After each event or campaign, it’s a good idea to send participants a survey to capture their feedback. Be sure to ask questions about their online experience. They’ll let you know if the experience is clunky or outdated.
Staff productivity is decreasing. If your organization’s peer-to-peer fundraising team doesn’t seem to be working as efficiently as it seems like it should be, it might be time for new software. You might hear them say things like:
It’s difficult to run reports and get the information they need when they need it.
Making changes to the participant-facing design is difficult and/or they aren’t getting the results they expect after making changes.
It seems to take too long to set up and/or edit a new campaign.
Your organization’s strategy is evolving faster than your software. As your organization evolves, it’s not uncommon for technology that once met your needs to no longer work for you. Here are some things to watch for:
Your software will not integrate with your donor database/customer relationship management platform, email marketing platform, or other key software that your organization uses or plans to add soon.
Your organization’s strategy has expanded to include more social media, apps, SMS, matching gift tools, and other technologies, but your software does not support or integrate with those technologies.
Your organization has shifted money or resources toward other technologies, and you need a more cost-effective solution.
Whether you’re just getting started with peer-to-peer fundraising, or you’ve been at it for years, the approaches in this article can make a positive impact on your peer-to-peer fundraising campaigns and events.
If you need more ideas or an extra set of hands for your peer-to-peer fundraising events or campaigns, the Cathexis Partners team is ready to help. Contact Cathexis Partners today.
About Mark Becker and Cathexis Partners: Mark founded Cathexis Partners in 2008 to help nonprofit organizations get the most from their existing technology tools, implement new technology to address gaps, and find the best overall approach to using technology to support their missions. He previously served as director of IT consulting at a fundraising event production company focused on nonprofits. Cathexis Partners helps nonprofits use technology to raise funds and engage supporters more effectively.
https://doublethedonation.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/DTD_Cathexis_3-Areas-to-Improve-Your-Peer-to-Peer-Fundraising-Results_Feature.png310720Adam Weingerhttps://doublethedonation.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/logo-dtd.svgAdam Weinger2021-08-21 14:46:162023-09-14 20:44:453 Areas to Improve Your Peer-to-Peer Fundraising Results
Sending a weekly or monthly newsletter to your community is a proven way to engage your supporters and keep them up-to-date with what’s going on at your organization. It’s a great vehicle for sharing news stories, reminding your readers about upcoming events, and reporting on your impact.
That’s why many nonprofit professionals are very eager to start sending regular newsletters to their community. Unfortunately, many of them often come to one of two roadblocks at one point or another: 1) they run out of ideas for what to include in the next newsletter and stop sending them as regularly, eventually stopping altogether, or 2) they run out of ideas but desperately try to stick to the regular schedule, resulting in newsletters so bland that their open rates plummet.
If you have ever found yourself here — or if you’re planning to start sending a newsletter and want to make sure it’s a success — this arsenal of foolproof content ideas will help transform your newsletters into updates that your readers will not only open more often, but will actually look forward to reading.
Once you get accustomed to coming up with new content pieces based on these ideas, you’ll become much better at seeing a potential story in just about anything. The key thing to remember is that everything your readers want to read about is already happening within your organization and the community that surrounds it — you just need to know where to look, whom to ask, and how to communicate it in a way that will pique interest.
Now without further ado, here are 24 content ideas for your next newsletter and all the ones after that.
1. Beneficiary Story
Does your nonprofit serve a particular community of people? Does someone benefit from the work you’re doing? Get in touch with these people and ask them if they’d be willing to share their story.
It can be very powerful to hear firsthand accounts from the people whose lives have been made better because of your organization’s existence. It serves as a reminder of why your work is so important, makes members of your community feel good about supporting you, and inspires them to continue or increase their involvement.
2. Donor Story
If your organization is supported by donors, you likely have a few (or many) individuals who strongly believe in the work you’re doing and have been supporting you for a long time. Take this opportunity to shine a spotlight on them.
Ask them why they chose to support you, what it means to them, and what they’re hoping to help achieve with their involvement. Not only is this a great way to show your appreciation and acknowledge their long-standing support, but it will also inspire other people to rise up and join them.
3. Staff Member Spotlight
You likely show a lot of love to your donors, volunteers, and board members, but your staff members are some of the most hard-working and dedicated people in your community. Don’t forget to show them some appreciation by shining a spotlight on what they do for your organization — it’s a great way to build morale among your employees.
For those who read your newsletter, it puts a face and a story to the name they’ve likely exchanged emails with or spoken to on the phone; it shows transparency and authenticity on your end and allows them to build a more personal connection with your organization.
4. Volunteer Spotlight
What about writing a story about one of your volunteers? Maybe you have someone who’s been a volunteer at your organization for years — or decades! They would definitely have an interesting story about how and why they got started and how they’ve seen your nonprofit grow over the years. Or maybe you have a volunteer who has just joined — ask them why they joined and what they’re hoping to get out of this experience. Volunteers always have a very special reason for why they do what they do — all you have to do is ask!
5. Sponsor Spotlight
If you have a corporate sponsor or a business that supports your work with monetary gifts or in-kind donations, your newsletter is a great place to recognize them with a special story. You can interview the CEO or showcase all the ways in which this sponsor has impacted your community. Most companies are looking for exposure for their brand by making charitable contributions, so featuring them in a newsletter is a great way to deliver that.
6. Q&A With a Member/Donor
Publishing a story about a member or a donor can be a special once-in-a-while feature, but you can also showcase your members in a brief but more regular way. What about coming up with a few standard questions and getting a different member to answer them every week?
Having a consistent element across all of your issues will get readers into the habit of anticipating it, making them more likely to open the newsletter week after week to read the next Q&A in the series.
7. Member of the Month
Has a member gone above and beyond with their involvement? Acknowledge them with this special accolade — it will make them feel appreciated and will likely inspire others to strive to receive the same honour in the following months.
8. Timeline of Your Nonprofit’s Milestones
No matter how long your organization has been around, you likely have a pretty interesting story about how you came to be and the milestones you’ve had to hit to be where you are today. While some of your long-standing members may already be familiar with these, it’s not a bad idea to re-ignite the conversation every now and then, especially for the sake of the brand new members.
Maybe you could even throw back to this timeline every time you have a new milestone to add to it — say, for example, your nonprofit was just endorsed by a local celebrity, or you’ve just hit a record number of members or donations.
9. From Our Friends
Is there an organization that does similar or complementary work to yours? Why not partner with them and offer a fresh take on your shared mission to your respective audiences? They could write a guest piece for your newsletter and you could do the same for theirs in exchange.
This will help raise awareness about your cause, introduce more people to your organization and provide your readers with refreshing and informative content.
10. In the Know
Have you heard something in the news recently that affects your organization’s work or is simply relevant to your mission? Maybe it’s a new law that was passed or news about a larger organization making big strides in your sector.
Be sure to share it with your readers – it will help them stay informed, spark conversation, and will make everyone involved a little more equipped to deal with the issues your organization strives to eliminate.
11. This Day in History
Similarly to sharing current news relevant to your organization, why not invite your readers on a trip down memory lane and remind them of important events that happened on the same day, week, or month, but a few (or several) years ago?
Chances are, your mission is related to an issue that many others before your organization had made progress on. Acknowledge their contribution and thank them for taking steps in the right direction, ultimately making your work a little easier.
12. Upcoming Events
Hopefully, this is a section you already include in your newsletter. If your nonprofit hosts frequent events, this is a great way to keep your members in-the-know and remind them about what’s coming up soon.
13. Photo Gallery from Past Events
Once an event has passed, don’t forget to follow up with your community about it. You can share a few highlights and key outcomes and thank the attendees for their participation. Most importantly, offer a preview and a link to the full gallery of photos from the event.
The people who attended will be happy to reminisce about a great time and will eagerly flip through the gallery in hopes of seeing their own photo pop up. The people who didn’t attend will be curious to see what they missed and will be more likely to come to your future events.
14. Photo Essay
Post-event follow-up is not the only time when you can share meaningful photos with your community. What about putting together a photo essay based on a particular theme, such as a year in review, volunteers in action, behind-the-scenes, power of teamwork, etc.
You can also ask your members to submit their own photo essays — they definitely have unique perspectives and experiences. Then, feature the best ones in your newsletter.
15. Report on Your Progress
You are hopefully already reporting on your progress and impact through communication pieces like your annual report and other impact reports, but your newsletter is a great vehicle for sharing quick updates and short summaries of what you can later expand on in a report.
Your community wants to stay up-to-date on what their involvement is helping to make possible, so providing regular updates will ensure that they stay engaged and committed to your cause.
16. Tips & Advice
Your nonprofit’s mission is likely part of solving a larger issue — one that affects your community on a daily basis. Why not offer your readers uplifting tips and advice relevant to your work to help them make small differences in their everyday lives. For example, a nonprofit that advocates for better public education on healthy eating choices includes one meal recipe at the end of each of their newsletters.
It’s an easy and fun way to get your community involved from the comfort of their own homes and keep your mission at the top of their minds.
17. Answering Questions from Members
Members of your community almost definitely have insightful questions and ideas for discussion. Why not open up the floor and let everyone contribute? Chances are, many other members have the same inquiry but don’t have the confidence to step forward and ask.
Encourage them to email their questions or concerns and dedicate a space in each of your newsletters to address one of these questions. This gives you the freedom to screen them to make sure you’re only answering the most relevant and appropriate ones. It’s not a bad idea to make them anonymous too, but you can also leave that up to the people submitting the questions.
18. Note from Leadership
Leaders inspire vision, action, and a sense of community, not only in an organization’s staff members, but in all who are associated with the organization. This is especially true for nonprofits. Your President, Founder, CEO, Director of Development, or any other person in a position of leadership has the power to inspire your community and remind them why they joined in the first place.
Make sure your members hear from this person often and that the message is well crafted and to the point, but is also authentic and down to earth. There’s nothing worse than an address from leadership that uses boilerplate language and feels like it wasn’t written by that person at all.
19. Ideas for Action
Advancing your nonprofit’s mission doesn’t have to stay within the walls of your organization. There are probably small things that members of your community can do in their own lives. You can use your newsletter to remind them that there are things they can do right now to help. For example, if your nonprofit’s mission is to protect the environment, remind your readers of some easy, low-waste swaps they can use in the kitchen that will help reduce their use of plastic.
20. Spread the Word
Similarly to the above point, members of your community can help advance your mission by sharing content from your newsletter with their own circles and social networks.
To encourage this, be sure to offer shareable content that your readers will resonate with. This includes meaningful quotes about your mission, powerful statistics, and infographics. Don’t forget to include a clear call for action, such as a “Share” button, that automatically tags your social media accounts.
21. Food for Thought
Are there issues that you aren’t sure how the world is going to solve? Is there a philosophical, ethical, or moral question that keeps you up at night? Get your members involved by providing this as a prompt and encourage them to think about it or bring it up in conversation with the people around them. It never hurts to keep the conversation going. Plus, you never know — your prompt might just reach someone who has the answer.
22. Wish List
Is your organization looking for any particular in-kind donations? This is the place to ask for them. Just be sure to provide a specific request and a clear set of instructions for how to arrange their delivery.
23. Call for Volunteers
If you’re like most nonprofits, you’re probably always looking for volunteers. Your newsletter is the perfect place to let people know what you’re looking for. Just remember that it’s best to provide specific descriptions of the types of work you need done and the time commitment required. More people will respond if they have a clear sense of whether or not this is something they can commit to.
24. Call for Donations
Lastly, you can always mention your current campaign or ask for donations to a specific fund/program. Make sure your call to action is specific and remember not to include this in your newsletter too often — you don’t want to deter your members from opening your newsletters in the future. At the end of the day, your newsletter is not part of your fundraising plan, its primary purpose is to keep your community engaged and interested in what you’re doing.
So there you have it. Hopefully, this list gives you some ideas about what to include in your newsletters. The most important takeaway is that your audience wants to read stories about how their involvement is helping to advance your mission.
Look within your organization, talk to as many people as you can to get their perspectives, and be on the lookout for what’s going on with nonprofits similar to yours. You’ll be sure to find everything you need to create meaningful and compelling content.
This post was contributed by Wild Apricot.
About the Author: Sayana Izmailova is the Content Marketing Specialist at Wild Apricot, a membership management software. She has worked at a number of nonprofits and uses her experience to help small organizations advance their missions.
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An article from Forbes revealed that, “92% of marketers claimed that social media marketing was important for their business, with 80% indicating their efforts increased traffic to their websites.” If you’re trying to raise awareness for matching gift programs, social media offers fruitful options.
Websites such as Facebook and Twitter allow you to appeal to your decidedly tech savvy audience, which, in our technologically reliant world, could be a bulk of your donors. Furthermore, a sizable online following offers social proof that your nonprofit is both credible and well-respected.
Marketing matching gifts through social media is both its own step and a conglomeration of all your social media tactics. Let’s take a look at the Twitter profile of CASA Pikes Peak Region to see social media versatility in action:
The tweet in the green box is an example of straight pitching matching gift programs. This is the actual call-to-action, and this is what you need to do on social media to increase matching gift awareness. The other tweets all help to build follower interest, so, when this matching-gift-specific tweet gets posted, people actually pay attention to it because they’re emotionally engaged with both the organization and the content that they share.
You can’t market matching gifts all of the time, and you shouldn’t, as your followers will grow bored. Share meaningful material and build relationships so that when the time for marketing comes it feels organic and unimposing to your followers.
What types of posts best spread the word about matching gifts? There are more social media sites than you could ever use, so we’ve selected the two main players. You’ve likely heard of these sites, and we’ll provide concrete examples of posts that will engage donors.
Facebook
Facebook algorithms pick up on gimmicks, so, unless you pay to promote your content, you need to remain abreast of what Facebook will prioritize and what they will hide. With tens of thousands of possible posts to present each time a user logs on, Facebook continuously tweaks its standards for what content people see.
Facebook communications director Brandon McCormick told Businessweek that, “People would rather see posts about a sale, or a new pair of pants that’s come in. Keeping the posts relevant to the kind of business that you have is really important.” In essence, stay on task with your content in terms of what people want to see and who you are as a nonprofit. Talk about matching gift programs, but in a creative way.
CMTA include both a link to their matching gift page and a conspicuous graphic. It’s hard to miss their appeal for matching gifts and it is simple to navigate to the applicable matching gift webpage.
If a matching gift post could be a rockstar, this would be Kurt Cobain. Much like the CMTA post, the National Kidney Foundation combines informative text with an attention grabbing graphic, but look at all those Likes, Comments, and Shares.
The graphic is split in two, with the question mark grabbing the attention and the white text holding the attention. Chances are that most people will check out the graphic first, but then they’ll likely read the text above, too, and see the link. That link takes donors to a dedicated matching gift page, which is a crucial step towards landing more donations. Donor engagement with this post helps it to appear on more newsfeeds, so more donors become aware of matching gifts, which should lead to increased fundraising success. You want to go viral.
Additional Matching Gift Facebook Post Templates
We sincerely appreciate all donations to [Your Organization’s Name]. Did you know that your generosity has the potential to be doubled, tripled, or even quadrupled? Check to see if your employer offers a matching gift program. [Insert Your Double the Donation Matching Gift URL]
A huge thanks to all of our donors, and a double thanks to those who submitted matching fund requests. Does your employer offer a matching gift program? Check today. [Insert Your Double the Donation Matching Gift URL]
What do Microsoft, Bank of America, IBM, and Verizon have in common? They all match employee donations to nonprofit organizations. If you donate, or have donated, to us and work for one of these four companies, your employer will double your donation. Many major employers offer similar programs. Searchto discover if your employer offers a matching gift program, as well as to gain access to program guidelines, how-to instructions, and relevant forms. Thank you for taking five minutes to double your donation. [Insert Your Double the Donation Matching Gift URL]
In addition to text, graphics help to grab readers’ attentions. If your image doubles as a clickable link, that’s even better.
Example dedicated matching gift page from the Hereditary Neuropathy Foundation
The link is the tweet’s call to action in action. The goal is to earn a click in order to take donors to where it’s a simple five minute process of discovering if their employers match gifts and submitting the necessary forms.
Additional matching gift Twitter post templates
Did you donate to us in 2014? There’s still time to submit a matching gift request to your employer. Click, don’t scroll! [Insert Your Double the Donation Matching Gift URL]
It takes only a few minutes to submit corporate employee matching gift forms. Have you submitted yours? [Insert Your Double the Donation Matching Gift URL]
It’s February – do you love us? We love you, too! Click here to see if your company will double your donation: [Insert Your Double the Donation Matching Gift URL]
Facebook has the largest community. Twitter is the modern way donors stay up to date with the organizations they care about. Leverage your social following with well-crafted posts and you can increase corporate matching donations.
https://doublethedonation.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/matching-gifts-social-media.png321845Adam Weingerhttps://doublethedonation.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/logo-dtd.svgAdam Weinger2015-02-14 14:38:062024-02-08 20:22:35Feature Matching Gifts in Your Nonprofit’s Facebook and Twitter Posts
Your homepage is the first thing people see when they visit your site, and priority number one is letting people know who you are and what you do. Part of what you do is receive donations, and matching gifts for those donations, so including links to information about matching gift programs is a good idea.
The two approaches (which can be combined, of course) are placing matching gift links such that people can find them if they are looking for them (navigation bars) and inserting links so that they jump out at site visitors, such that the link is more or less an advertisement for matching gifts (banner ads).
Let’s take a closer look at each approach through proven strategies.
Navigation Bars
Every useful website has a navigation bar that helps people to discover relevant information. Including a link to matching gift programs in your navigation bar puts matching gifts in a visible location where donors can easily find and access the information. A link in the navigation bar won’t advertise matching gifts to unknowing donors, but if a donor is on your site and looking for how to apply for a matching gift then he will easily be able to navigate to a page to learn how.
To get a better idea of how navigation bars work, here’s an example from Lafayette Partners in Education:
Screenshot of Lafayette Partners in Education’s Website
(http://lpie.org/)
This is a clean, modern site, with an easily visible and useable navigation bar. They incorporate matching gifts under the fundraising tab, so it’s part of a larger topic. This link won’t function as an advertisement, but, for someone who is looking for matching gifts or ways which they can contribute to the organization, the website provides an intuitive way to access that information.
When a website visitor clicks on the “Matching Gift Program” link they’re taken to Lafayette Partner In Education’s dedicated matching gift page:
If you want to advertise matching gifts on your homepage then banner ads are a great way to go. A banner ad will catch eyes and make people think about matching gifts. This informs donors about matching gifts when they may be visiting your site for other purposes.
Here’s a banner ad in action from Autism Speaks:
Screenshot of an Event Page for Autism Speaks
Highlighted by the green box, this banner ad works because it’s clean, easy to read, and its color stands out from the color scheme of the homepage. People notice when something stands out in a crowd. A 2011 study in the journal Emotion claimed that reaction times become faster and more forceful when people see a bright color, so the choice of color was well selected. Little factors such as color can play vital roles in whether or not people respond to your banner ads, so if you have the time to get intricate with your banners it will be time well spent.
Autism Speaks also created their own custom matching graphics to include throughout their website. Examples of individualized banners used by Autism Speaks include:
Everything about these banners is clean and easy to read. The iconic puzzle piece logos add a touch of intimate personality that separates the images from plain text graphics. The difference in shapes, square versus rectangle, highlights that your banner can and should be tailored to the size that works best on your website.
Still clean and basic, this banner adds simple details, such as a faded color scheme and the orange ribbon in the top right corner. The image works great on donation confirmation screens, and make sure to link the graphic to your dedicated matching gift page.
The picture of the gift box is enough to signal to the user that this banner has something to do with giving or gifts prior to the user engaging with the white text. And the white text is easy to read and the large, capitalized letters, which will likely be the first words you read, tell you exactly what the box is addressing. As for the psychological effects of the color, green is commonly associated with balance and harmony, such as the balance a matching gift brings to the original donation and the harmony between you and donors. There are serious benefits to thinking out the minor details of banner ads in order to leverage major psychological impacts.
Your nonprofit does not have to advertise for matching gifts on its homepage, but it’s a good idea if you want to raise awareness for matching gifts. Regardless, including information about matching gifts in a logical place, such as a navigation bar, is a must.
https://doublethedonation.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Untitled-design.png321845Adam Weingerhttps://doublethedonation.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/logo-dtd.svgAdam Weinger2015-02-02 13:03:002022-06-20 07:54:20Feature Matching Gifts on Your Homepage and Across Your Website
According to recent studies, more than 26 million individuals work for companies that match employee gifts. However, an estimated 78% of the group has never been informed about the available philanthropic programming. Thus, in order to maximize funding, it’s important to increase matching gift awareness across your network of support.
In this guide, we’ll touch on some impactful marketing efforts to get your donors ramped up to submit those matching gift forms to their employers. But we’ll also cover why awareness is crucial to matching gift success, how you can set your staff up to champion your efforts, and what to do after educating donors about the opportunities at hand.
Surely, your organization aims to maximize the impact of each donation you receive. Matching gifts are one of the best ways to do so—but in order to drive results, your supporters need to know about them.
Let’s get started!
Why increasing matching gift awareness matters
Ensuring donors are aware of matching gifts is one of the biggest obstacles your organization will face. However, it’s essential for increasing funding through these programs.
There are billions (yes, billions—to the tune of $4,000,000,000 to $7,000,000,000 worth) of corporate giving dollars left unclaimed each year. Why? Largely because the majority of eligible donors have never been informed of the opportunity.
In fact, without a strategic approach to increase matching gift awareness…
78% of donors do not know if their company offers a matching gift program;
15% of donors know their company has a program but are unsure if they’re eligible or how to submit a matching gift request;
Only 7% of donors are aware that their company matches gifts, know they’re eligible, and understand how to submit their matching gift requests.
Not to mention, donors love participating in matching gift programs—so long as they know they exist. These initiatives allow them to double or even triple the impact of their giving to the charitable organizations they support. And they don’t even have to reach back into their own wallets to do so!
An analysis of donor behavior even indicates that nonprofit supporters are more likely to give—and to give more—when they know their donations will be matched. In fact, 84% of survey participants say they’re more likely to donate if a match is offered. And 1 in 3 donors would give a larger gift if matching is applied!
As a result, organizations saw a 71% increase in response rate and a 51% increase in average donation amount when matching gifts were mentioned.
That means when donors are aware of the opportunities, your organization can benefit not only from more corporate matches but from increased individual giving altogether.
Starting with your staff; driving awareness internally
Increasing matching gift awareness among donors is critical for a nonprofit to maximize its fundraising potential. However, before a nonprofit can effectively communicate the benefits of matching gifts to donors, it is crucial that its internal team fully understands the opportunity themselves.
After all, a nonprofit’s staff (or volunteers) are likely the primary point of contact with supporters. Therefore, it’s essential that the internal team understands the concepts behind corporate matching gifts and is equipped to support donors interested in participating.
Here’s what we recommend:
Conducting regularly scheduled dedicated matching gift training sessions for all donor-facing staff and volunteers;
Incorporating matching gift information in new team member onboarding materials going forward;
Developing easily accessible internal materials that provide an overview of matching gifts, frequently asked questions and answers, benefits, and more;
Establishing a matching gift team leader to whom the rest of the team can direct inquiries regarding matching gifts to learn more.
Luckily, Double the Donation offers a wide range of free resources that can help guide you through the process—from educational blog posts to immersive webinars and more.
Staff members who are familiar with matching gift programs can best serve as advocates for the opportunity to eligible donors. By equipping staff members with the knowledge and tools necessary to promote corporate matching, a nonprofit can effectively communicate the benefits of matching gifts to donors and maximize its fundraising potential.
10 marketing methods to increase matching gift awareness among donors
Now it’s time to make your donors aware of the available programming that can double their impact on your cause.
There are a ton of ways to do so—but we’ve selected a few of our favorite marketing strategies to increase matching gift awareness for your audience here.
1. Create a matching gift web page.
To make it easy for donors to learn about matching gift programs, create a dedicated matching gift web page on your nonprofit’s website.
This centralized hub of matching gift information should provide an overview of corporate donation-matching, explain the tangible benefits of these programs for your cause, and include an intuitive database search tool for donors to uncover their own eligibility.
You’ll also want to include basic information about your organization, including contact details for your matching gift coordinator, your tax ID number, and more.
In doing so, you can target supporters who are perusing your website—which can actually drive them further down the donation funnel and encourage them to give more—and provide donors with a trusted resource with everything they need to get started.
Then, you can link to this hub in your other marketing materials, demonstrating how donors can learn more about the opportunity. You might even use your match page to train your internal staff on matching gifts!
2. Highlight matching in fundraising appeals.
We mentioned previously that when donors are informed of matching gift opportunities prior to making their contributions, they’re more likely to give and give in larger amounts. In order to drive awareness beforehand, your fundraising appeals can really come in handy.
As you craft your next donation appeal, incorporate a quick blurb about matching gifts and the amplified impact they bring. This can be just what you need to drive on-the-fence supporters into action-taking donors!
Here’s an example: “Dear [donor], Do you work for a match-maker? Thousands of companies—employing millions of qualifying donors—agree to match the charitable gifts their team members contribute to nonprofits like ours. Find out if your company participates by searching here. Then, head to our donation form to make a match-eligible gift (or request a match from a previous and still-eligible donation)!”
3. Embed in online donation pages.
If an individual navigates to your nonprofit donation page, chances are that they’d like to support your cause. That makes your online giving forms the perfect place to promote gift-matching.
And it’s also one of your best opportunities to request employment information. [Hint: Once collected, this detail can directly aid your team in uncovering and pursuing match-eligible donations.]
We recommend embedding Double the Donation’s smart company search tool that allows donors to choose from auto-completing search results. It even takes into account common typos and company subsidiaries for the most accurate results, ensuring users can quickly select their employer from our robust database and move on to the next steps without slowing down the giving experience.
To encourage donors to complete the optional field, you’ll also want to include a short blurb about matching gifts that provides context as to why you’re asking for employment data. Here’s an example: “Millions of donors qualify to have their charitable gifts matched by their employers. See if your company offers such a program by entering your employer’s name in the box.”
4. Mention on your confirmation screen.
Immediately after completing an online donation, nonprofit supporters typically remain at a high level of engagement. It’s important to take advantage of this momentum and immediately encourage eligible donors to secure a matching gift.
And your donation confirmation or thank-you screen is a great place to begin! After all, matching gifts make a great “Next Steps” option for supporters looking to increase their impact after they submit their donations.
Consider adding a message to your confirmation screen such as this: “Thanks for your donation! Did you know your employer may match your gift and double its impact? Check if your contribution is eligible by searching for your company here.”
And when you embed Double the Donation’s matching gift plugin, you can provide quick and easy access to company-specific guidelines, forms, and more. Plus, if the individual provides their employer’s name during the giving process, the plugin tool will automatically populate with that company’s program details and direct links to submission forms!
This allows individuals to quickly move from the “general awareness of matching gift programs as a concept” phase to the “specific knowledge of their company’s initiatives and guidelines” in no time. And remember—the latter is where you want your donors to be!
5. Include matching gift information in donation acknowledgments.
If your nonprofit organization is not already including information about matching gift opportunities in donor acknowledgment letters, it’s super easy to start. Keep in mind, though, that you won’t want this to be your sole matching gift promotion. Automated donation acknowledgments and gift receipts are often quickly discarded and may ultimately end up in a “trash” box before the donor arrives at the included matching gift mention.
Still, including a brief section about corporate matching gift opportunities can be an excellent way to whet your supporters’ appetites regarding the programs. Direct donors to your aforementioned matching gift web page, and let them know that they should soon expect to receive an additional email follow-up dedicated to matching gifts.
It can be as simple as this: “Did you know that many corporations offer employee giving programs where they match donations to [your organization’s name]? Search for your company on our matching gift page to see if they provide matching gifts! Or keep an eye out for detailed next steps in a separate email.”
6. Send separate matching gift follow-up emails.
Chances are, some donors are likely to miss out on your confirmation page and/or acknowledgment promotions. But you still want to ensure that all of your supporters are exposed to matching gift information so they can make an informed decision about their next steps.
The best way to do this?Send dedicated matching gift emails after each donation you receive.
(This is also a great reminder avenue for donors who did become aware of matching gifts previously but ultimately opted to procrastinate their requests.)
If you have a record of a donor’s employer, you can even incorporate detailed and company-specific program guidelines. This will help recipients quickly determine match eligibility and lead them directly to their companies’ online submission forms to complete the request. If you’ve yet to identify a supporter’s employer, encourage them once again to provide that information so you can guide them through the matching process.
By highlighting matching gifts while your organization and its cause are still fresh on donors’ minds, you increase the likelihood that they will take action to double their gifts. That’s why we recommend sending these follow-up messages within 24 hours of receiving the initial gift. In fact, organizations that do so see an estimated 53% open rate, which is more than two to three times the average nonprofit email open rate.
7. Engage on social media.
Social media sites can be a great way to increase matching gift awareness across a wider audience. Plus, you can encourage supporters to interact with and share your content with their own followers.
Make sure to schedule regular messages throughout the year, noting occasions like Matching Gift Month and more. Use your social platforms to share stories about how the money raised for your organization is helping grow your mission—and how doubling those gifts helps amplify impact.
For the best results, adjust your messaging based on the platform on which you plan to share it. For example…
Twitter is great for short-and-sweet blurbs about matching gifts;
Facebook posts can be a bit longer and more in-depth;
Instagram is designed for image-sharing—so be sure to choose eye-catching graphics that help demonstrate the power of matching gifts.
And don’t forget about vide0-sharing sites, either—YouTube and even TikTok offer excellent opportunities for sharing matching gift videos and more.
Regardless of what you post or where you post it, you’ll want to provide direct links to resources users can access for additional information.
8. Enlist snail-mail promotions.
While electronic communication is speedy and efficient, there are still donors who would still rather the personal touch of a tangible mailing. If your organization employs direct mail outreach in your fundraising, consider exploring the tactic to increase matching gift awareness among your direct-mail-preferred donor segment.
However, you’ll want to keep in mind that the investment for this strategy can add up quickly—so make sure you’re still expecting an appropriate return.
There are a number of ways to keep your costs low, too. For example, if you’re already hosting a direct mail campaign, you might include an insert on matching gifts into your existing fundraising packet. Or similarly, you can even print matching gift information directly onto your donation return envelopes!
Still, we recommend retaining physical mailings for only your most lucrative matching gift opportunities.
9. Host a live-stream event.
If they’ve never heard of the programs before, your donors are likely to have a number of questions about matching gifts. As you begin to integrate donation-matching promotions into your overall fundraising efforts, consider hosting a live-stream event.
This will allow you to engage with your audience in real-time, encouraging supporters to attend, ask questions, and learn more about getting involved with their employers’ corporate giving programs.
Not to mention, it will also provide a unique opportunity for your team to show the persons behind your organization with a virtual, yet face-to-face experience.
10. Employ end-of-year reminders.
Unfortunately, donations typically have a limited time span during which they qualify for corporate matching. Though it can differ from company to company, many program windows close at the end of the year. Thus, it’s critical that you increase matching gift awareness among donors before it’s too late.
And end-of-year reminders can be a great way to do so.
As the year comes to a close, consider sending additional outreach that reiterates the availability of matching gifts. This can be especially beneficial for those who had been marked match-eligible despite not seeming to have submitted their matches.
Remember: the urgency at the end of the year can be an excellent tool for driving action along with awareness. So make the most of it!
After awareness — next steps to consider
Informing individuals about matching gift opportunities is phase one in securing additional financial support. But you can’t stop there!
After ensuring awareness of matching gifts, there are a few next steps we recommend to ultimately drive matches to completion, determine success, and thank donors for their above-and-beyond support.
Remind supporters about matching gifts.
Sometimes the initial steps you take to inform your audience about matching gifts won’t be enough to actually produce results. In those cases, take the extra step to remind qualifying donors about their matching gift eligibility after the fact.
To do so, it helps to track which identified matches have been submitted by donors and which ones appear to remain unclaimed. Then, follow up on incomplete matches by reminding donors about the opportunity and how easily they can get involved.
Here’s a hint: manually tracking and following up on matching gifts can be quite the undertaking. We recommend employing automation software like 360MatchPro to identify, pursue, and monitor matches throughout the process.
Thank donors for their submissions.
Once you’re notified that an individual has completed their end of the matching gift request process, be sure to thank them for doing so. Communicate the amplified impact of an individual donation when matched, and show your appreciation accordingly.
To make your gratitude stand out in your recipients’ inboxes, consider employing customizable donor recognition eCards. It’s a fun and creative way to thank your matching gift donors for taking the next steps to amplify their giving impact. And it will keep your organization at the forefront of the recipient’s mind for longer, too!
Communicate gratitude for completed matches.
Your supporters also want to know if and when your organization receives the associated match to their donation. Despite the matching gift not coming from an individual’s own wallet, it’s important to recognize that the additional contribution would not have been possible without their actions on your behalf.
Plus, it helps close the loop with the original donor, confirming with them that the match was ultimately successful. Otherwise, they might never know it was completed, and they wouldn’t be as likely to request a match in the future.
Bonus tip: In your acknowledgments, you can even link a survey that asks donors how they learned about matching gifts. Consider listing your primary marketing efforts along with an “other” field or free response option. This will help determine which efforts are worth prioritizing in the future as well as which may be less impactful for your particular audience.
Identify ongoing opportunities.
Your organization should also be able to determine if a majority of matching gifts are coming from one company in particular or from a wide array of employers.
This is noteworthy because if your matching gifts seem to be coming from a few major employers, consider publicly recognizing the company as a valuable partner to your organization.
You can even reach out to pursue additional corporate sponsorships. This might include upcoming events, cause marketing opportunities, in-kind donations, workplace giving campaigns, and more.
Measure matching gift marketing impact.
Our final recommended step involves ensuring that your above-mentioned marketing efforts are actually working. One key piece of advice we have is to visualize your data with a chart or graph. This way, you can easily view the total (number, revenue, or percentage) of matching gifts received in a set time period.
Then, compare that figure to your previous month, year, etc., to show the difference between your results pre- and post-marketing strategy. Can you see a discernible difference in the number of matching gifts being sent in?
But to scale up your reporting capabilities, the right matching gift software can make a big difference here as well. For example, Double the Donation empowers organizations to easily track metrics such as their:
Total individual donations
Percentage of donations flagged as match-eligible
Total number of matching gifts submitted
Number of matching gifts verified by your organization
Number of matching gifts ultimately received
Percentage of matching gifts completed
Value of received matching gifts
Percentage increase due to matching gift revenue
And more!
From there, you can take a look at your data, locate apparent trends, identify successes, and explore areas with room for improvement.
Wrapping Up
There are a variety of ways to market matching gifts to your donors, and increasing awareness of the opportunity can go a long way.
Too much money goes unclaimed by nonprofits and their donors due to a lack of awareness about corporate giving initiatives. This shouldn’t be the case!
Make sure you’re educating your supporters on a consistent and ongoing basis, and you could be well on your way to a substantial increase in matching gift fundraising success.
Interested in learning more about matching gift opportunities and how to drive participation for your nonprofit cause? Check out these additional recommended resources:
How to Get Matching Gifts Trending at Your Organization. How can you use current marketing trends to get the word out about matching gift opportunities? We share several innovative ideas, from social media usage to artificial intelligence, in this recent blog post.
Top Matching Gift Practices | Actionable Insights & Examples. Explore real-world examples of matching gift success. This guide walks through tried-and-true tips from the nation’s leading nonprofits—and how they promote matching gifts to their audiences.
Interested in learning more about communicating the value of matching gifts and securing buy-in from your stakeholders? Check out our immersive webinar on the topic!
https://doublethedonation.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/DTD_How-to-Increase-Donor-Awareness-about-Matching-Gift-Programs_Feature.png6001600Adam Weingerhttps://doublethedonation.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/logo-dtd.svgAdam Weinger2014-08-25 21:31:022023-07-21 14:23:05Increase Matching Gift Awareness [And Revenue!]
Many nonprofits host special event fundraisers like galas to boost them toward their revenue goals. However, only a few organizations realize that tickets and donations made during the event might be eligible for corporate matching gifts.
When brainstorming ideas for your next fundraiser, don’t steer clear of special events. Instead, research your donors’ employers and your corporate match opportunities. To kick off your research, review the following key examples and commonalities between companies’ giving programs:
Ready to learn more about matching gifts for special event fundraisers? Let’s get started!
1. Examples of Donations at Annual Galas and Special Events
Because of your familiarity with the nonprofit world, you likely know that organizations typically incorporate donations with their special events.
Let’s take a look at some notable special events hosted by some major, well-known organizations:
The Greater Los Angeles Zoo Association gives individuals an opportunity to name one of its animals. For donations between $1,000-$50,000, you can name an animal, receive recognition in the zoo publication, have your photo taken with the animal, and get a VIP tour.
The Atlanta Botanical Garden has its Garden of Eden Gala, the organization’s largest annual fundraiser. Tickets range in price from a few hundred dollars to $25,000 if you want to be the presenting sponsor. Benefits include tickets to the organization’s Ball, a Patron Party, and much more.
NEXT for Autism (formerly New York Collaborates for Autism) hosts its annual “Night of Too Many Stars”. Celebrities such as Jon Stewart, Katie Perry, Amy Poehler, Tina Fey, Seth Rogan, and many others auction off once-in-a-lifetime opportunities to hang out with them. For instance, becoming “best friends with Amy Poehler & Tina Fey” for an evening was auctioned for thousands of dollars a few years ago.
Most nonprofits aren’t quite on this huge event level, but it’s a great place to start researching. Take the time to look at special events hosted by major nonprofits whose missions are similar to yours. Who knows? Their major fundraisers may inspire your next event!
2. Eligibility of Donations Made at Galas and Special Events
It may come as a surprise, but many companies that offer matching gift programs will match donations made at special events!
When reviewing a company’s matching gift form, you may notice a sentence similar to “the corporation will not match tickets or subscriptions.” For instance, if your organization is a symphony selling a concert ticket or a science museum selling an IMAX ticket, companies won’t match the ticket price.
The reason for this is that donors are receiving a tangible benefit that would be charged by other for-profit organizations. For example, an IMAX movie could be compared to a regular movie ticket while the symphony could be compared to a sporting event ticket.
If that’s the case, then why are gala tickets and special event tickets often eligible?
If you look at the fine print on many nonprofits’ special event tickets, you’ll notice that it mentions a tax-deductible amount for each ticket. The tax-deductible dollar amount is what’s eligible to be matched.
In general, at galas, you must subtract the cost of a similar meal and any gifts that guests receive. Otherwise, it won’t be considered matching-gift eligible. For instance, if you host a gala and sell $500 tickets, you have to determine the fair market value of the benefits. In other words, how much would someone spend on the event if it wasn’t a fundraiser?
Let’s say people would typically spend $100 for a gala like yours plus $50 on the meal at a local restaurant. That makes the fair market value $150, meaning the tax-deductible amount is $350. In this case, $350 is the amount that would eligible for matches.
The Bottom Line: A significant percentage of a gala ticket’s price is tax-deductible and is often eligible to be matched by an employee’s company. However, corporate guidelines do vary by company.
3. Matching Gifts for Peer-to-Peer Fundraisers
When researching corporate match programs, you may come across some companies that match the fundraising efforts of its employees. In other words, if their employees voluntarily fundraise for your cause (i.e. peer-to-peer fundraising), a company that offers this program will match the entire amount up to a certain limit.
Some of the major companies that offer these generous programs are:
Peer-to-peer fundraising is a common strategy for boosting nonprofit revenue. With these campaigns, your volunteer fundraisers receive their own personalized webpages where they raise money for your cause. The most common example of these effective fundraisers is walkathons. Though these campaigns are heavily reliant on online tactics, once you master the peer-to-peer approach, you’ll boost your fundraising potential!
4. Tips for Promoting Matching Gifts to Special Event Attendees
Unfortunately, for organizations, it’s less common to receive employee matching gifts for galas and special events than it is for regular donations or annual fund contributions.
As with all donations, you have to raise awareness and make it easy for donors to submit matching gift requests. However, there’s an extra component when it comes to galas and special events.
Even if an individual knows about their company’s matching gift program, they rarely realize a portion of their recently purchased ticket is tax-deductible and often match-eligible. Therefore, you need to promote this. Start by doing the following:
Include the tax-deductible amount on the ticket with a line such as “Did you know $X of your ticket is tax-deductible? If your employer offers a matching gift program, it may be eligible to be matched.”
If you subscribe to Double the Donation’s matching gift service, consider setting up a laptop with your organization’s page about matching gifts that’s easily accessible at your event.
At payment stations where donors pay for auction items, make sure your staff asks each individual or his or her spouse if they work for a company with a matching gift program.
Do you give donors an acknowledgement card after they buy a ticket or make an additional donation? If so, this is a great time to encourage donors to see if their employer or their spouse’s employer offers a matching gift program.
In addition to helping your day-to-day fundraising strategy, a matching gift database (like Double the Donation) can help your organization pinpoint additional revenue opportunities at special events.
Your nonprofit should promote corporate giving at any special fundraising event. Before going into ways to do this, here’s how Double the Donation works:
A nonprofit embeds the tool on its website or online donation page.
A donor (or volunteer) starts typing his/her employer’s name.
The database autocompletes the search, suggesting companies for the user to click.
The user receives all available updated information on his/her employer’s giving program.
Best of all, the tool easily integrates with other fundraising software. That means Double the Donation Matching streamlines the process even further by autoamting matching gift outreach to donors who contribute to your organization.
There are multiple ways you can promote corporate philanthropy with Double the Donation’s services:
At your event, set up a laptop with your page that has the search tool embedded.
Analyze your guest list prior to the event and research attendees’ employers. That way, you’ll have more insight on who to approach at your event.
For your event, create and hand out educational pamphlets on matching gifts and local employers that offer them.
Get creative with your matching gift promotion! Think your nonprofit can benefit from Double the Donation?
Corporate philanthropy represents a major opportunity for nonprofits. By taking the time to incorporate it into your fundraising and outreach strategies, you set your nonprofit up for success. Few nonprofits take the time to do proper research on these programs. Because of that, they overlook major revenue opportunities.
Now that you know special event tickets and donations can be matched by most employers, get started boosting your revenue!
https://doublethedonation.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Special-Fundraising-Events_Feature.jpg285725Adam Weingerhttps://doublethedonation.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/logo-dtd.svgAdam Weinger2014-04-25 13:06:232025-02-24 15:34:20Matching Gifts for Special Fundraising Events
Does your organization have a strategy in place to maximize fundraising from employee matching gift programs? Directing donors to matching gift forms is a great place to start.
After all, one of the biggest challenges nonprofits face isn’t just spreading awareness about matching gifts—it’s helping donors actually follow through. Even when donors are eager to maximize their impact, they often don’t know where to go or what steps to take. That’s where clear direction and smart strategy come in.
In this post, we’ll break down several key methods your organization can use to guide donors straight to their matching gift forms—making the experience a seamless one and boosting your fundraising potential in the process.
At Double the Donation, we utilize a number of different approaches to direct your organization’s supporters to the forms they need to submit matching gift requests. We know each method isn’t created equal, so we’ve prioritized the information we provide to donors to maximize the likelihood they’ll ultimately submit a request.
Ready to find out how? Let’s get started with the basics.
What are matching gift forms?
Matching gift forms are the key documents that employees use to request a matching donation from their employer after they’ve contributed to a nonprofit organization. These forms are part of a company’s corporate philanthropy program, allowing eligible donations to be matched—often dollar for dollar—by the employer.
There are typically two types of matching gift forms:
Paper Forms – Some companies still provide physical forms that employees fill out with their donation details, the nonprofit’s information, and sometimes a copy of the donation receipt. The employee then submits the form to their HR department or a designated matching gift administrator for processing.
Online Submission Portals – Most modern companies now use digital platforms to manage their programs. Employees log in, search for the organization they supported, enter their donation details, and submit the request—all online.
The nonprofit may then be required to verify the donation before the match is approved and disbursed. It’s a simple process, but many donors don’t know where to start, making it crucial for organizations to guide them to the correct form at the right time.
Why directing donors to matching gift forms matters
You might be spreading the word about matching gifts, but if donors don’t know how or where to submit a request, those potential matches can easily fall through the cracks. That’s why directing donors to their matching gift forms isn’t just helpful—it’s essential.
Here’s why it matters:
Increased Match Completion Rates Even donors who are aware of matching gifts may not follow through without explicit instructions. Providing direct access to their employer’s matching gift form removes a key barrier, making it more likely they’ll take action.
Improved Donor Experience Donors want their contributions to make a difference. When you streamline the matching gift process, you show that you value their time and are committed to helping their generosity go further—with minimal effort on their part.
Strengthened Corporate Relationships When donors successfully complete a match, it opens a door between your organization and their employer. This can lead to long-term opportunities for corporate sponsorships, volunteer engagement, and deeper partnerships.
In short, directing donors to matching gift forms is one of the simplest and most effective ways to increase fundraising without asking supporters to reach deeper into their pockets. It’s all about turning good intentions into meaningful, multiplied impact—and guiding them through the process of doing so.
Method #1: Guide Donors to Their Electronic Matching Gift Portals
Many of the largest companies offer an electronic matching gift submission process. While a few companies have developed their own proprietary process, the majority of companies contract the matching gift administration process out to a dedicated corporate matching gift vendor.
Fortunately for nonprofits, in the majority of instances, the electronic login page is actually publicly available on a website that anyone can access. Therefore, we recommend directing donors to the login page, where they enter their username and password and proceed through the matching gift submission process.
Check out the example showcasing how our database directs users to the correct login pages for their matching gift forms:
Method #2: Link to Matching Gift Forms on a Company’s Website
While more and more companies continue to migrate over to an electronic submission process, many still require donors to print and complete a paper matching gift form. In many cases, the form is posted on a publicly accessible website, so we direct donors to the company page where the matching form can be accessed.
Here’s an example of a public-facing web page from Alliant Energy:
Method #3: Provide Donors with Matching Gift Forms on our Servers
If a company requires employees to submit a paper matching gift form, we do our best to provide the donor with a copy of the form. If it isn’t posted publicly on the company’s website, we request that the company provide us with a copy of the form. In these cases, we host the form on our server (typically as a PDF) so your donors can easily download it.
Here’s a sample form for Coca-Cola’s matching gift program hosted on our servers:
Method #4: Direct Donors to their Company Intranet or HR Contact
Sometimes, a company’s matching gift forms can only be accessed via the company’s intranet servers, often for internal security-related reasons.
In these cases, we typically encourage donors to access the form via a quick inquiry on the company intranet. If it’s an online submission process, we notify the donor and ask them to go to a specific location on the intranet or to search for “matching gifts.”
Here’s what this looks like for one company, Freddie Mac, using our matching gift database:
While this is less than ideal, simply telling donors, “Hey, company XYZ will match your donation up to $5,000, and your organization is eligible,” increases the likelihood they’ll log into the company intranet to retrieve and submit the form.
Bonus Method: Skip Matching Gift Forms with Double the Donation’s Auto-Submission
What if your donors didn’t have to fill out a separate matching gift form at all?
Thanks to Double the Donation’s auto-submission feature, select donors can now submit their matching gift requests directly from your donation form or follow-up email—no extra steps, no confusion, and no portal hopping. It’s the most seamless way to turn one donation into two.
Here’s how it works:
When a donor gives to your organization, they’re prompted to search for their employer.
If their company supports auto-submission, they’ll see the option to submit their matching gift request automatically—right then and there.
All it takes is a few clicks, and their match request is submitted in the background—no need to visit a separate platform or fill out a detailed form.
This feature drastically increases match completion rates by removing friction from the process. By enabling auto-submission through Double the Donation, your organization makes it easier than ever for donors to double their impact—and that means more matching gift revenue with less donor effort.
Want to see it in action? Check out this short clip:
Next Steps & Additional Resources
Making it easy for donors to submit their matching gift requests can mean the difference between doubling your impact and leaving money on the table. By implementing these methods in your strategy, your organization can streamline the process, remove donor confusion, and unlock more corporate matching opportunities.
It’s not just about raising more—it’s about empowering your supporters to do more with every dollar. Start applying these strategies today, and watch your matching gift revenue grow.
Looking to learn more about matching gift strategies and beyond? Check out these additional recommended resources:
Corporate Matching Gift Forms | The Ultimate Guide. Take a deep dive into everything you need to know about corporate matching gift forms! This complete guide will help you help your donors understand the documents.
https://doublethedonation.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/DTD_Directing-Donors-to-Matching-Gift-Forms-Key-Methods_Feature.png6001600Adam Weingerhttps://doublethedonation.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/logo-dtd.svgAdam Weinger2013-01-20 21:41:412025-04-10 19:33:46Directing Donors to Matching Gift Forms | 5 Key Methods
