As a nonprofit professional, you likely already understand the importance of marketing in collecting funds and making your cause known. From attracting donors and pursuing matching gift opportunities to promoting your services to your target audience, marketing is a key strategy for successful nonprofits.
Your nonprofit’s fundraising events are no different. Successfully marketing your fundraiser is crucial to the event’s success, not to mention positive fundraising outcomes, and gets your community excited about participating.
When it comes to your charity golf tournament, it’s important to cast a wide net to attract new supporters to your cause. Golf events have a unique appeal. The sport is more popular than ever, so getting the word out about your golf fundraiser lets folks know that they can play the game they love while supporting a great cause.
Ready? Start spreading the word about your golf fundraiser today with these five creative marketing tips:
Without further ado, let’s dive in with our first recommendation.
1. Use an Event Website
An event website for your charity golf tournament serves as the homepage for the event and where folks can go to find more information and get involved. Customize the site with pertinent information about your nonprofit, its mission, and what the tournament is raising funds for. It’s also a good idea to include the tournament’s schedule, recognize sponsors, and give visitors the chance to donate.
And if you’re going to incorporate matching gifts in your event strategy (which you should!), you’ll want to ensure your site is equipped with matching gift information, too.
Interested in learning more about how corporate donation-matching can play a role in your event strategy? Jump to the bonus section now!
The best thing about an event website is that it makes promotion as simple as sharing a link in all your online channels—social media, email campaigns, your nonprofit’s website, or even online ads. You’ll also end up saving a ton of time by collecting registrations and selling sponsorships right on the website.
2. Choose a Memorable Event Name
A catchy tournament name is a great way to brand the event and your marketing campaign. A tournament logo is another option you can leverage in a variety of ways to help connect folks to the event and what it’s raising money for. For example, use the tournament logo and its branding on t-shirts for organizers and volunteers, hole signage, banners, email campaigns, promotional graphics, giveaways, and more. Of course, it should be front and center on the event website.
Get your planning team, staff, or board together for a brainstorming session to settle on a tournament name that makes a lasting impression. Some ideas to get your creative juices flowing might include:
Swing Fore the Kids
Putts Fore Pets
Fairway to Heaven
Putting for Miracles
Teeing Up Hope
Holes Fore Heroes
Scramble for a Cure
If you’d rather stick to a traditional tournament name, such as a “Charity Golf Classic” or “Memorial Golf Tournament” that’s perfectly fine—but consider a specific tournament logo that makes your event stand out.
3. Incorporate Gamification Elements
Competition is a natural part of a charity golf tournament. You can leverage friendly competition in your marketing to help engage supporters about your event. In fact, integrating gamification into your golf tournament gets supporters and participants invested before they even tee off. Try these gamification ideas to get started!
Use a fundraising thermometer or donation tracker on your event website and in social media materials. Post updates and graphics in the days and weeks leading up to the tournament so people can see how their donation can help move the needle towards your goal.
Launch a contest to encourage people to recruit additional teams to play in the tournament. Not only does this help spread awareness about your tournament and cause, but you can stoke a little friendly competition by offering prizes to those who bring in the most number of teams. You might offer mulligans, raffle tickets, and drink tickets as prizes.
Implement user-generated content challenges. Leveraging user-generated content in your marketing provides a great opportunity to broaden your campaign’s reach. For example, you could have golfers share posts with a photo of their teams in the lead-up to the event and have social media followers vote on their favorite team names or costumes by liking, commenting, or sharing posts.
Add an auction to your tournament and promote it in your pre-tournament marketing. Silent and live auctions can certainly be competitive—in the best way possible—because they drive more dollars for your nonprofit. High-end prizes like a donated stay-and-play opportunity at a destination golf club get donors excited and engaged before, during, and after the golf tournament.
4. Collaborate With Local Celebrities & Influencers
Influencer marketing is another tool in your nonprofit toolkit to spread awareness about your nonprofit and your golf event to new audiences who otherwise might not have known about it. Plus, online channels have made it easier than ever to connect with celebrities and influences who can help amplify your event. Consider these options:
Local celebrities. You don’t have to have A-list celebrities involved to make an impact. Local celebrities, like the mayor, local news anchor or meteorologist, radio personality or host, community sports team, or well-known business owner, are more accessible and can add a draw to your fundraiser. It’s a win-win—you’ll get great exposure and they’ll be publicly associated with a great cause.
Social media influencers. Whether you’re connecting with influencers in the nonprofit sector, the golf world, or in your local area, you can improve your event’s visibility with social media partnerships. NXUnite’s list of nonprofit influencers is a great resource for learning more about the nonprofit influencer space.
Once you’ve made contact with them, work together to outline a mutually beneficial partnership. Perhaps in exchange for promoting your tournament on their socials and appearing at the event, they receive a complimentary team registration or two. Consider devoting a specific part of the event to the VIP, such as a hole-in-one contest hosted by them or a signed raffle prize or auction item donated by them. Highlight their presence in your marketing materials to get the most out of the partnership.
5. Leverage Cause Marketing With Corporate Sponsors
You might think of sponsorships primarily in the context of monetary donations. But in fact, you can leverage your corporate partnerships for marketing purposes, too. Cause marketing is marketing carried out by a for-profit business to advance a charitable cause or better society—in this case, your charity golf tournament.
Reach out to your nonprofit’s current corporate partners with a mutually beneficial proposal, providing positive exposure and outcomes for both parties. Your matching gift software can help here, too, when you use donor employment insights to identify top prospects for marketing partnerships.
Then, much like with influencer marketing, think of ways to sweeten the deal in exchange for their partnership, like offering a complimentary team registration for promoting the tournament to their employees or clients.
If leveraging corporate sponsorships isn’t an option for your nonprofit, you might consider offering sponsorship packages for your golf tournament that include cause marketing components. For example, a local business might underwrite paid social media campaigns or television or radio spots in exchange for exposure to your tournament’s field. GolfStatus recommends targeting businesses that are interested in getting in front of the golfer demographic. In either case, you should work closely with the sponsor or partner to determine how you can meet each other’s needs.
Bonus: Double Event Donations with Matching Gifts
As a nonprofit fundraiser, you’re surely looking to get the biggest bang for your buck with your upcoming golf event. Fortunately, integrating employee matching gifts into your overall fundraising strategy can go a long way. And there are a few key ways to do so. These include:
Matching event donations — Any gifts contributed above and beyond an event ticket cost or registration fee can typically be matched by individuals’ employers as usual. Just let your donors know that they should complete the matching gift request process for their company. You can even use a matching gift database like Double the Donation to supply supporters with employer-specific submission forms, guidelines, and more.
Matching the tax-deductible portion of event tickets — The cost of an event ticket or registration fee might be match-eligible, too! However, this process may be a bit more nuanced depending on the individual’s employing company. While the donation portion of the transaction (which is also the tax-deductible amount) will likely qualify for a match, the event’s fair market value will typically need to be deducted from the payment total.
Corporate matching gifts not only supply nonprofits and their events with an additional source of fundraising revenue, but they also incentivize greater individual generosity. In fact, Double the Donation studies indicate that 84% of donors are more likely to give if a match is offered (resulting in a 71% increase in response rate). At the same time, 1 in 3 donors would give a larger gift if a match were available, leading to a 51% increase in average gift size.
In other words, incorporating matching gifts is one of the best ways to supercharge your efforts and bring your fundraising event success to new heights.
Wrapping Up
Once you have a date and location locked in for your charity golf tournament, you’ll want to start planning your marketing efforts so you can start gaining traction as soon as possible. Your planning team should play a crucial role in marketing your golf tournament. You might even appoint someone to take charge of marketing efforts to ensure campaigns are moving forward. A robust marketing campaign is critical to the success of your golf tournament.
Nonprofits thrive on the support of major donors. The most major of the major gifts a nonprofit might receive are called principal gifts.
Principal gifts bring transformational benefits and drive incredible impact, growing organizations’ capacities to run programs, serve constituents, and make a difference. They’re elusive but achievable when you have an intentional strategy to identify and secure them.
What’s a Principal Gift?
Simply put, a principal gift is a large donation made to a nonprofit by a major donor.
Nonprofits commonly consider principal gifts to be worth $1 million or more, but it’s important to remember that their exact value is relative to the size of an organization’s average gifts. You can define a rough range for major giving for your organization by identifying your top 25 or so gifts received within the past five years and determining the median of this range. This number can serve as a minimum for defining major gifts. Principal gifts would fall at the very top of (or far above) this range.
So how do you snag a principal gift? What background knowledge and strategies do you need to succeed and start transforming your organization?
In this crash course, we’ll take a closer look at principal gifts, how to pursue them, and other ways to maximize the value of your development efforts through tactics like corporate philanthropy.
Before you can begin laying out a principal gift fundraising strategy, you’ll need to understand some important context.
Principal gifts vs. major gifts: What’s the difference?
A principal gift is a major gift, but a major gift is not necessarily a principal gift.
As explained above, your organization’s definition of a major gift is highly relative to your donor base and average fundraising data. A principal gift is simply a large gift at the top of or above that range of major giving.
Nonprofits pursue major and principal gifts using similar tactics but note that principal gifts have an especially long lifecycle. The larger the gift, the more discussions, care, and due diligence that go into the process. This is also true because principal gifts can generate significant publicity when given by high-profile philanthropists. Options should be weighed carefully before nonprofits and principal donors make public “investments” in one another and link their images.
You may also encounter the term lead gift. These are also large major gifts, but they’re received specifically in the context of major fundraising campaigns. A capital campaign’s fundraising goal, for example, is traditionally topped by a large lead gift, followed by a couple of smaller (but still major) gifts, and then more and smaller gifts down the line in a pyramid structure. This approach is highly efficient, allowing nonprofits to focus first on the handful of highest-impact gifts that will push the campaign the furthest forward.
Who gives principal gifts?
Major donors give principal gifts to nonprofits.
Sometimes, but not always, these donors are high-profile, high-wealth philanthropists—think Mackenzie Scott making waves in the nonprofit world with a new mega-gift. This situation is often what nonprofits imagine when they hear the term “principal gift.”
But again, it’s important to remember that the value of major gifts is relative and that no two donors are alike. What they do have in common is the capacity and inclination to give major gifts, whatever that might mean for your organization.
If you’ve taken concrete steps to invest in prospect research and major gift fundraising, there’s a good chance you’re already in touch with (or in the orbit of) a potential principal gift donor for your organization’s major giving range.
How are principal gifts usually given?
Principal gifts are not usually given out of cash but rather from saved assets (or a mix of cash and assets).
These non-cash assets often include:
Real estate
Stocks and other tradable securities
In-kind gifts of valuables like jewelry or art
Grants from donor-advised funds (DAFs)
Planned gifts like trusts and annuities
Cryptocurrency
When you pursue large donations, it’s important to be flexible in the types of gifts you can accept. Wealthy donors often prefer to give from saved assets rather than from liquid cash, not only because this won’t affect their day-to-day finances but also for the unique tax benefits that different non-cash gifts can bring. We’ll explore this best practice in greater detail below.
How do nonprofits pursue these gifts?
Nonprofits pursue principal gifts as part of their development programs, typically overseen by a dedicated staff member.
Nonprofit development provides the core structure and processes for principal gift fundraising. Having a development approach in place is generally a prerequisite for success. (Keep in mind, though, that even small shops succeed with development with the right tools and prioritization tactics!)
The fundraising strategies used for principal gifts are similar to those for other major gifts but heightened in intensity. One-on-one engagement is even more important for principal gift fundraising, for example. Other best practices take increased emphasis, as well, like the importance of networking in the prospect identification process.
How to Build a Principal Gift Fundraising Program: 10 Key Steps
So you’re ready to get serious about pursuing and securing principal gifts for your nonprofit. How do you build a program to support that goal? We break it down into the following key steps:
1. Understand principal donor motivations.
First, take the time to understand why principal donors give such large gifts. As with other major donations, these gifts are motivated by a range of different personal reasons. These might include:
The simple desire to give back
Giving back to a personally meaningful cause or institution
Tapping into significant tax benefits
Simplifying estate and financial plans with bequests and in-kind donations of property
Public recognition for personal brand-building
Always keep in mind that philanthropists give strategically—of course, they choose to give to the specific causes and organizations that matter to them, but additional motivations usually come into play. Understand these and you can better align your own goals with those of your prospects.
2. Audit your existing development practices.
Principal gift fundraising occurs as part of your other development practices. Review your current processes for major gift fundraising, planned giving, and other high-impact or nontraditional forms of one-on-one fundraising. Consider the entire major donor lifecycle and the steps, tools, and best practices you use at each stage. These include:
Prospect research and wealth screening
Prospect qualification
Gift cultivation and your messaging during this process
Pay extra attention to the logistical processes that drive this lifecycle, especially moves management and your CRM practices. You’ll rely on these for principal gift fundraising just as you do for other giving programs.
Ideally, you’ll have data to refer to. Check out your historical performance with major gifts. Is your prospect pipeline consistently full or running low? Are there stages in the lifecycle where many prospects seem to drop off? Are your qualification criteria appropriate and up-to-date?
Identify potential improvements and make them (and/or consider how you’ll adjust them for principal gifts).
3. Screen your database and research connections.
Next, you’ll begin identifying your first principal gift prospects.
Look to your existing base of support. A pre-existing relationship with your nonprofit is one of the most reliable indicators of giving likelihood. Run a wealth screening to find those donors and contacts with the means to give a gift in the upper half or so of your nonprofit’s defined range for major gifts.
It’s normal in major and principal gift fundraising to branch outside of your direct contacts to find prospects, as well. However, this doesn’t mean cold-calling individuals in your community who you know to be wealthy. Existing, organic connections will yield the best results. Look to your current major donors and consider what you know or could find out about:
Their families, friends, and community ties
Their careers, colleagues, and employers
Past nonprofits they’ve given to or volunteered for
Local histories, publications, social media (especially LinkedIn), the annual reports of other nonprofits, and more are all viable research routes. And remember, if you have strong working relationships with any major donors, don’t be afraid to just ask. Set up a call or lunch to let them know your organization is seeking more high-impact support. Do they have any friends, family, or colleagues who’d also be interested in your mission?
4. Map out your relationships with major donors.
Review everything you’ve learned from researching top prospects and their connections. Then, map it out.
This might mean using a notebook or simple design tool to literally draw connections between your contacts and individuals you’d like to meet—whatever works! You’ll likely be surprised to find that many high-impact donors move in similar social circles, especially in smaller communities.
Visually look for connections and correlate them to your research insights. This process can yield some valuable results. For example, you might find several connections from existing donors pointing to one individual in the community. This person might be a prime candidate for outreach because of the organic personal or professional connections that you already have with them.
5. Review your donor qualification criteria.
Before finalizing a list of prospects, you need to qualify and prioritize them. Principal gift fundraising is highly time-intensive and requires one-on-one communication over extended periods. You’ll need to have a plan to spend your time wisely, that is, by focusing first on those most likely to give.
Qualification is the process of defining the characteristics of a strong giving prospect and using them to update your prospect lists for more efficient and targeted outreach. Qualification criteria can include:
Certain giving capacities (shaped by your organization’s definition of major gifts)
Stock ownership
Property ownership
Active engagement with your nonprofit
Active engagement with other nonprofits
Demonstrated interest in or personal connection to your cause
Direct, second-degree, third-degree, etc. connection to your nonprofit
Personal vs. professional indirect connections
Note that some criteria can (and often should) be weighted more heavily than others. Existing direct connections with your nonprofit should be prioritized over indirect connections, or you may learn over time that personal indirect connections are better indicators than professional ones.
Not every prospect will check every box, but this approach does allow you to tackle the prioritization process in a standardized, easily repeatable way. Many fundraising experts recommend making qualification a recurring activity for your development team to ensure continued effectiveness—Graham-Pelton’s donor qualification guide lays out why and how to do this.
You should also keep your qualification criteria up-to-date over time, and create different variations of them for different giving programs. For example, while principal gift donors, major donors, and planned gift donors might share some common characteristics, these are not perfectly overlapping groups. Qualification makes it easy to build in a more targeted approach from the very start.
6. Build a preliminary list of principal giving prospects.
Next, use your qualification criteria to screen the list of donors and prospects you identified in Steps 3 and 4.
Rank them according to your criteria, and you’ll have a handy, easy-to-use shortlist of your very top prospects.
7. Develop outreach strategies.
Now you can begin thinking about how you’ll get in touch with your prospects. Consider these tips:
Review known communication preferences of existing contacts.
Look back at previous conversations with existing contacts to refresh yourself on their personal life developments, career changes, etc., and use these to begin new conversations.
Ask your existing contacts for introductions to new prospects based on the mapping exercise in Step 4.
Create more context-specific cases for support if needed. For example, if you’re seeking a lead or principal gift as part of a major fundraising campaign, you’ll need talking points tailored to the campaign’s objectives.
Prepare some preliminary shareable resources like your annual report, one-pagers, and brochures about your nonprofit and its impact. You likely won’t need these until you’re closer to actually soliciting a gift, but it doesn’t hurt to be prepared.
With these tips in mind, take a closer look at everything you’ve learned about each prospect and conduct more research if needed. Use this information to lay out personalized outreach strategies for each individual.
8. Start reaching out to build relationships.
Begin reaching out! Work your way down your shortlist of prospects, starting conversations, having calls and meetings, and introducing them to your organization, its work, and its needs.
During this stage, take your time and follow standard gift cultivation best practices that you follow for other major gifts.
Take an interest in your prospects’ personal and professional lives, and work to show them how a partnership would drive impact in the community. Remember that gifts of any size can be restricted or unrestricted—if a prospect shows interest in one particular program or service that your nonprofit runs, lean into it.
You should also seek to learn more about your prospects’ giving motivations so that you can best tailor your eventual solicitations. For example, a wealthy middle-aged prospect might be nearing retirement age and interested in financial planning. You could explain to him or her that various types of planned gifts can actually provide donors with regular income payments while reducing their tax bills, making these arrangements ideal vehicles for principal donations.
9. Double down on moves management and record-keeping.
Throughout the cultivation and solicitation processes, keep close track of your touchpoints with prospects. Organized moves management is essential.
Use your CRM to record each touchpoint, add notes, and tag it with the appropriate prospect. This will take all the guesswork out of preparing for your next conversation and determining the right time to make the ask.
And aside from tracking your interactions with prospects, be prepared to handle other logistics once you make a successful solicitation. Finalizing a principal gift will involve working closely with the donor and perhaps their (and your) lawyer to hash out the details, especially for non-cash gifts that require legal transfers of ownership or other arrangements. Keeping tidy records of your organization’s finances is always important, and you’ll need to have crystal-clear records of your principal gifts.
10. Prioritize engagement and stewardship.
As you build relationships with principal gift prospects, introduce your giving programs, and lay out compelling cases for support, you’ll hopefully soon successfully solicit your biggest donation yet. Thank your donor, work out the fine print, thank them again, and begin facilitating the donation.
What next?
Ongoing engagement and stewardship are already important for your major donors—doubly so for principal gift donors. They are extremely valuable partners for your mission. You should have a plan to:
Stay in touch and aware of developments in their lives
Keep them up-to-date on the progress of your work and any specific campaigns or programs they funded
Offer ongoing opportunities to get involved with event invites, personal meetings, tours, and more
Offer new giving options over time that you think they may be interested in
By maintaining and growing your relationships with key supporters over time, you’ll retain their support, secure additional gifts in the future, and build a stellar reputation for your nonprofit. Who wouldn’t want to be known as an organization that inspires transformational gifts and fosters a thriving community?
How to Make the Most of Your Development Strategies
You’ve built effective development strategies and are well on your way to securing a principal gift that will take your work to the next level. Your prospect pipeline is humming along, and everyone’s excited to drive your nonprofit’s goals forward. What next?
Stay on the lookout for ways to maximize the impact of your development work. There are all kinds of ways you can generate more value through your giving programs. For example:
1. Promote matching gifts, volunteer grants, and payroll giving. These employer-offered CSR perks are effortless ways to boost the value of your donations. Ask your donors (at all giving levels) to check their eligibility, or research it for them. Nonprofits’ board members are also often significant donors—don’t forget that their board service might qualify for volunteer grants through their employers, as well!
Double the Donation streamlines the entire process for you and creates easy value-adds up and down your donor pyramid. Learn more or request a demo to see our platform in action. For more information on how the platform works, check out this video:
2. Provide flexible giving options. As mentioned above, major and principal donors often like to give from assets rather than cash for numerous reasons. Be prepared to offer and discuss these giving options. Making it easy to give in a preferred way almost guarantees that you’ll raise more in the long run. Look for tools that simplify the process of accepting stock donations, gifts crypto, donor-advised fund grants, and more as needed.
3. Monitor federal and state tax changes. Tax incentives are powerful motivators for donors when large gifts are involved. Stay aware of developments at the federal and state levels so that you can have productive conversations with prospects. Help them understand the potential benefits of donating (but don’t give explicit financial advice—leave that to the financial and legal professionals).
4. Suggest gift-matching challenges to your top donors. Planning a new major fundraising campaign or giving day? Try asking a longtime major donor to offer a unique gift-matching challenge! This involves your major donor matching all gifts made to your organization within a specific timeframe, and it can be an easy way to supercharge your fundraising results in a short time. Plus, it’s an easy way to engage your major donor with a serious opportunity to drive impact.
5. Research further funding connections and opportunities. Keep researching your donors’ and prospects’ connections over time. Major supporters who are philanthropically active might have connections with foundations that you can tap into to get your foot in the door for new grant funding. Wealthy individuals might even eventually form their own private or family foundations—make sure your nonprofit is a preferred partner right from the start.
Additional Considerations of Principal Gift Fundraising
Principal gift fundraising can completely transform your nonprofit’s ability to pursue its mission. But it also comes with unique challenges and considerations to keep in mind:
By forging such a big partnership with an individual, you link your organization’s image with theirs. Consider their reputation, the publicity that an announced gift will generate, and whether you can (or want to) honor any restrictions that a donor places on their gift. You can turn down a gift in the best long-term interest of your mission. Think carefully about these factors long before soliciting a gift. Reference your gift acceptance policies, and create them now if you haven’t yet.
Prepare for the logistics of accepting non-cash gifts. You may need to liquidate stock, work with attorneys and accountants to make arrangements for complex planned gifts, or even handle accepting gifts of real estate. Consider these processes in advance and be prepared to invest in new tools, hire external professionals, and expand your bookkeeping practices as needed.
It’s also recommended to look for ways over time to build more business connections as your organization grows. By integrating corporate philanthropy into your development strategies, you can build extremely fruitful and resilient revenue sources for your nonprofit. Ask your major and principal donors about their careers. Learn more about their employers. Use your existing relationships to springboard new corporate partnerships or sponsorships—the sky’s the limit!
Despite its nuances and unique considerations, principal gift fundraising is easily the highest-impact form of fundraising that a nonprofit can conduct.
Understand its distinctions and why major donors choose to give. Build and improve upon your existing development strategies, and focus heavily on research and preparation. With the right plan in place and plenty of time to build relationships, you’ll be on your way to securing a transformational gift.
Want to learn more? Take a deeper dive with these related resources:
As a leader at your company, you’ve likely heard about the widespread movement toward more socially responsible business practices. With 65% of Fortune 500 companies offering matching gift programs, corporate social responsibility (CSR) is becoming increasingly common. In fact, 93% of employees believe that companies should lead with purpose through these programs.
However, starting a CSR program at your business can be challenging. For example, how do you know how to balance priorities like your profits with social good initiatives like corporate volunteer programs? Frameworks like the pyramid of corporate social responsibility can help you navigate these decisions.
We’ll break down what the CSR pyramid is and explore the ways your business can use it in practice. Let’s get started!
What is the pyramid of corporate social responsibility?
Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a company’s commitment to social good through philanthropy and employing sustainable and ethical business practices. Socially responsible businesses aim to have a net positive impact on the world.
CSR strategies like implementing workplace giving programs and building partnerships with nonprofit organizations can also benefit your business by enhancing your reputation, attracting top talent, and boosting customer and employee loyalty.
The pyramid of corporate social responsibility is a framework depicting the importance of four key CSR dimensions: economic, legal, ethical, and philanthropic. This model was created by Professor Archie Carroll in 1991 as a way to visualize his four-part definition of CSR. The pyramid reveals the building blocks that businesses can use to become responsible in all four areas, rather than prioritizing profits alone.
The 4 Levels of the CSR Pyramid
The CSR pyramid has four tiers of social responsibilities, including:
Economic responsibilities: This is the lowest level of the pyramid. In order to achieve success in the other three areas, your business must be profitable and financially stable. However, profitability should not come at the expense of other responsibilities, such as ethics.
Legal responsibilities: While economic responsibilities are key for providing a strong foundation for these other efforts, legal responsibilities could be considered the most important. This involved complying with all relevant laws and regulations to ensure the business is conducting its operations fairly.
Ethical responsibilities: This refers to doing the right thing and following ethical norms to fill in any gaps or ambiguities in the law. Similar to the legal layer, the purpose of being an ethical business is to operate fairly and avoid causing harm.
Philanthropic responsibilities: The final level of the pyramid includes the voluntary responsibilities that businesses take part in to go above and beyond, such as donating to a nonprofit. While businesses are not legally obligated to participate in these activities, employees are coming to expect it. For example, 60% of employees say that it’s imperative their employer offers matching gifts.
Carroll used a pyramid for this framework to highlight the importance of each facet of CSR and the order in which companies should implement changes. For example, because your business’s profitability is the foundation of the pyramid, you’ll need to make sure this area is sound before moving on to your legal responsibilities.
How can businesses use the pyramid of corporate social responsibility?
While the pyramid does a good job of transforming an abstract concept into a clear visual, it doesn’t provide instruction on the practical ways to implement these ideas at your business.
To fill in the gaps, we’ll break down some of the ways you can use the pyramid to improve your operations and explore examples from real companies:
Level 1: Economic Responsibilities
If your business cannot sustain a profit, then it will eventually have to shut down. Clearly, this would prevent you from taking part in philanthropic activities and being an ethical employer. Your company also wouldn’t be able to offer jobs to its community or provide valuable goods and services to customers.
However, it’s important to be ethical in your pursuit of profit. While working with the cheapest manufacturer to fabricate your product might increase your profits, for example, that manufacturer may be exploiting its workers in the process.
Ensure you’re meeting your economic responsibilities in ethical ways by:
Offering fair, living wages and benefits to employees.
Creating high-quality products and services.
Prioritizing customers’ safety and satisfaction.
Remaining transparent about your business practices, finances, and motives.
Economically Responsible Company: Patagonia
Patagonia is a California-based clothing retailer that specializes in outdoor recreation apparel. Patagonia aims to make changes by implementing environmental and animal welfare responsibility programs that guide how the brand produces its products. Additionally, the company maintains transparency about where its facilities are located and strives to produce products under safe and humane working conditions.
These measures help Patagonia make a profit and remain economically responsible. The company is valued at about $3 billion and brings in about $100 million in revenue each year. Sales have steadily increased over the last decade, proving that sustainable businesses can be successful.
Level 2: Legal Responsibilities
Following all of the laws and regulations that apply to your business helps ensure that your company is operating fairly and not causing any harm. This can protect your business from legal implications like fines, and it is an indicator to employees and customers that you are a trustworthy organization with integrity.
While it’s best to get lawyers, accountants, and other professionals involved when it comes to legal issues, a good starting point is to make sure your company is complying with:
Employment laws
Health and safety regulations (e.g., OSHA)
Tax regulations
Environmental laws
Legally Responsible Company: Moleskine
Moleskine is an Italian company that manufactures paper goods, such as planners, notebooks, writing tools, and bags. Because its products are made from trees, Moleskine is subject to additional environmental regulations.
Moleskine meets these regulations and goes above and beyond to protect the planet. Not only does the company donate and recycle unsellable products, but they have been Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) Certified since 2008. This indicates that the business follows relevant environmental regulations for forests and commits to nurturing, restoring, and protecting forests.
Level 3: Ethical Responsibilities
Being ethically responsible means doing the right thing even if you aren’t legally obligated to. For example, your business might implement hybrid schedules that increase sustainability by limiting how often employees need to drive to the office. Plus, initiatives like this one can boost employee engagement and retention by enhancing work-life balance.
Additionally, your business can pursue certifications to guide your decisions and signal that you are an ethical organization, including:
B Corps Certification: This designation is extended to businesses that demonstrate high social and environmental performance, make a legal commitment to prioritize ethics (e.g., adjusting the corporate governance structure to be accountable to all stakeholders), and exhibit exceptional transparency. B Corps you may have heard of include Patagonia, Ben & Jerry’s, and TOMS.
Fair trade certifications: These apply to items like food, drink, housewares, and apparel. Companies are held to fair labor standards such as providing a sustainable income and practicing environmental stewardship. Popular certifications include Fair Trade USA Certified and Fairtrade International.
Animal welfare certifications: These certifications are concerned with the treatment of animals in the manufacturing process. Some certify that the products did not test on animals while others confirm that products are free of any animal products (e.g., vegan leather or almond milk). Widely used certifications include Leaping Bunny, PETA, and Vegan.org.
Ethically Responsible Company: Ben & Jerry’s
Ben & Jerry’s is a Vermont-based ice cream company. The business has been dedicated to supporting progressive causes and operating sustainably and fairly for decades, following core values such as human rights and dignity, social and economic justice, and environmental protection. In their own words, they strive to be “a social justice company that makes ice cream.”
In addition to being a Certified B Corporation, Ben & Jerry’s shows its commitment to ethics in almost every aspect of its operations. The company supports supplier diversity, helps farmers thrive through organizations like Fairtrade International, and believes in animal welfare. Ben & Jerry’s also works to protect the environment by reducing its carbon footprint, running energy-efficient freezers, and using FSC-certified paper packaging.
Level 4: Philanthropic Responsibilities
Finally, your business should focus on driving change through philanthropy. There are many ways to contribute to charitable causes and issues that your business and employees are passionate about. Choose initiatives based on the time and resources you have available along with your CSR goals. For instance, if you aim to increase employee engagement with your CSR programs, opt for philanthropy initiatives that put employees in the driver’s seat.
Some popular CSR programs include:
Matching gifts: Through these programs, employers offer to match the donations their employees make to charitable organizations. For example, if one of your employees donates $100 to a local nonprofit, your company would match that donation with an additional $100. This way, employees can double their impact without needing to give more. Many of the most successful companies in the world have matching gift programs, including Microsoft, Coca-Cola, and Disney.
Corporate volunteerism: With a corporate volunteer program, your company will coordinate with a nonprofit to have your employees volunteer with the organization. For example, you might have optional volunteer hours for employees over the weekends. Or, you can set up company-wide volunteer days where employees can choose to spend the whole day volunteering.
Volunteer grants: Volunteer grants, sometimes called Dollars for Doers programs, allow employees to turn the time they spend volunteering into more money for the nonprofits they support. Some companies give donations based on an hourly rate (e.g., $20 per hour volunteered) while others give a flat amount once employees pass a certain hours threshold (e.g., $500 once the employee reaches 20 volunteer hours).
Corporate grants and sponsorships: Corporate grants supply nonprofits with the funding they need for a specific project or initiative. When awarding grants, you have more control over what the funding will be used for. Additionally, you may offer corporate sponsorships. These tend to be more informal than a grant and might fund things like fundraising events.
Philanthropically Responsible Company: TOMS
TOMS is a California-based company that designs and manufactures shoes, eyewear, and other apparel. The company gained acclaim for its pledge to donate one pair of shoes to someone in need for every pair sold. While TOMS has since phased out this initiative, it continues to focus strongly on philanthropic activities.
Like Ben & Jerry’s, TOMS is a Certified B Corporation that meets high standards of social and environmental performance, transparency, and accountability. The business focuses its efforts on causes like mental health and increasing access to opportunity. Notably, TOMS invests one-third of its profits for grassroots good to drive sustainable change for community organizations.
What are some challenges of implementing the CSR pyramid framework?
As with any academic theory, there are some criticisms of Carroll’s CSR pyramid. Some critics point out that the pyramid doesn’t show businesses how to approach conflicting obligations (e.g., choosing an unethical supplier for the sake of profits). Others argue that the pyramid should place more weight on ethics in general, particularly for global companies that employ workers across regions with varying levels of labor and environmental regulation.
However, it’s worth noting that many companies face negative backlash from neglecting ethics—this backlash ultimately impacts their bottom line. When Rhianna’s Savage x Fenty clothing brand received an abysmal ethics rating of 4 out of 125, fans of the star and her brands were shocked. The company’s reputation was harmed, and many loyal customers expressed hesitation over shopping from the business again.
Additionally, keep in mind that the CSR pyramid is just one framework that businesses can use to structure their CSR efforts. For example, some companies choose to follow the 3 Ps model instead. This idea falls under the Triple Bottom Line (TBL) theory and posits that companies should work on the following bottom lines simultaneously: profit, people, and planet. Ultimately, you’ll need to select a framework that aligns with your business’s current situation and resources.
Wrapping Up
The pyramid of corporate social responsibility reveals your organization’s core responsibilities to its community and how CSR fits into your operations. With this understanding, you can better allocate resources toward more sustainable, ethical practices. Additionally, you’ll make strides toward a more streamlined and effective CSR program, allowing you to make a bigger impact on your community.
To continue optimizing your CSR initiatives and getting employees involved, check out these additional resources:
https://doublethedonation.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Pyramid-of-corporate-social-responsibility_Feature.png6001600Adam Weingerhttps://doublethedonation.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/DTD-horizontal-logo-300x63.pngAdam Weinger2024-02-06 20:51:452025-10-01 14:55:05Pyramid of Corporate Social Responsibility: Go Beyond Profit
When researching nonprofit capacity building, the definitions you find may seem a bit vague. You may hear the term at a board meeting, fundraising team gathering, or networking event and wonder “What exactly defines my nonprofit’s capacity, and why is it so important to build?”
The truth is that many definitions of nonprofit capacity building are very generalized because the term means different things in the context of different organizations. What allows an animal shelter to grow and support its mission may look much different from what an environmental organization, museum, or public school needs to thrive.
No matter what type of nonprofit you run, here’s what you’ll need to know about capacity building:
To help your organization forge its own path, we’ll define what nonprofit capacity building may look like for different organizations and offer tips for creating a strong capacity building strategy that fits your nonprofit’s needs.
What is nonprofit capacity building?
The National Council of Nonprofits defines nonprofit capacity building as “whatever is needed to bring a nonprofit to the next level of operational, programmatic, financial, or organizational maturity, so it may more effectively and efficiently advance its mission into the future.”
This definition is relative to your nonprofit’s unique goals and operations, but the ultimate objective is to realize your operational potential. That way, you can fulfill your mission to the best of your nonprofit’s ability.
To build capacity, your nonprofit may employ a mix of three approaches:
Individual. By investing in individual team members, you can ensure your team has the resources and training they need to be successful in their roles. For instance, you may offer a mentoring program to help new employees acclimate to your organization and get advice from their coworkers.
Organizational. Tools like office equipment and fundraising software help your organization run more effectively. To secure the resources needed for organizational capacity building, you may turn to corporate partnerships or brainstorm ways to diversify your revenue.
Systemic. At the systemic level, you may lobby for policy changes that will help your organization better fulfill its mission or strengthen your nonprofit’s board. Many nonprofits turn to a community of practice for assistance, which is a group bonded by a common goal that provides knowledge about nonprofit causes and helps organizations apply for grants.
When you combine individual, organizational, and systemic nonprofit capacity building, you fortify all areas of your organization and ensure each has the resources necessary to carry out mission-critical work.
Why is nonprofit capacity building important?
Nonprofit capacity building allows your organization to create a healthy infrastructure that supports future growth and longevity. Through capacity building, your nonprofit will receive a variety of benefits, including:
Enhanced impact. When you increase your nonprofit’s operational capacity, you can expand your nonprofit’s programs and services. As a result, you can make a greater impact on your community and beneficiaries. For example, an animal shelter’s increased capacity would enable it to offer additional spay and neuter services and rehome even more animals.
Improved sustainability. One of the top methods of nonprofit capacity building is diversifying your revenue streams. With funds flowing into your organization from different sources, your nonprofit will be more financially stable and sustainable.
Increased efficiency. Investing in tools and training that help team members perform their roles effectively makes day-to-day tasks more efficient. With less time going to logistics, you can spend more time on mission-critical activities.
Better adaptability. With funding from different sources and a variety of resources at your disposal, your nonprofit will be better equipped to take on challenges. Whether you’re trying to keep up with trends in your nonprofit’s sector, responding to crises, or adjusting to evolving community needs, your organization can quickly adapt and carry on with its mission.
Long-term viability. Ultimately, nonprofit capacity building sets your organization up for long-term success. It ensures you’re taking full advantage of all resources at your disposal to enact lasting change in your community.
Your nonprofit’s focus should be your mission. When you allocate time to capacity building, you strengthen your nonprofit’s operations so all underlying processes are as efficient as possible, allowing your mission to remain at the forefront.
How to Create a Strong Nonprofit Capacity Building Strategy
Like with any strategy, it’s essential to follow a systematic approach to building your nonprofit’s capacity. That way, you can craft a strategy that’s thorough and fits your organization’s unique needs.
To develop your nonprofit capacity building strategy, keep these steps in mind:
1. Start with your mission.
As mentioned before, your mission is at the heart of your nonprofit’s operations. Think about how all elements of your organization come together to support your mission, and determine any areas you could improve to better achieve your goals.
For example, an organization for at-risk youth may have a mentoring program that has worked well for beneficiaries in the past but is currently understaffed. This nonprofit may look into hiring additional staff members or volunteers to manage the program so it can better fulfill its mission of providing a brighter future for at-risk students.
As your organization grows and changes, so may its priorities. Before diving into the nonprofit capacity building process, take a careful look at your mission to ensure it still reflects your organization’s current services and values. You may eliminate facets of your mission if they’re no longer relevant or make additions if your nonprofit has taken on new initiatives.
Next, assess your organization’s most pressing needs and whether you have the resources to address them. While some needs may be more readily apparent, others may require further investigation.
All staff members, board members, and volunteers have different perspectives on your organization that allow them to identify unmet needs. Send periodic surveys that invite these stakeholders to provide feedback on your nonprofit’s operations. You may also host discussions during team meetings to obtain more candid feedback on your organization’s needs.
Once you’ve compiled a list of your nonprofit’s highest-priority needs, evaluate your current resources’ ability to fulfill them. You may consider the following questions when assessing your needs and resources:
Is there a deadline for addressing this need?
What are the costs associated with addressing this need?
How many team members do we need to address this need?
Do we have the appropriate equipment to address this need?
If your nonprofit has some resource gaps to fill, brainstorm how you can efficiently acquire the tools you need at a low cost.
For instance, you may find that your organization is eligible for a grant that would help you cover the costs of obtaining fundraising software. Additionally, if you don’t have enough staff to address a pressing need, you may tap into your corporate partnerships to see if they’re willing to donate their services pro bono or leverage your volunteer network.
3. Get your team involved.
Your team’s involvement in nonprofit capacity building shouldn’t end with them offering their initial input. Lean on the support of staff, board members, and volunteers to implement your capacity building plans.
Your board in particular should have a role in creating your capacity building strategy. As the governing body of your organization, your nonprofit board can decide how to best allocate resources for capacity building and successfully address each need.
If you need additional support in developing your nonprofit capacity building strategy, enlist the help of a nonprofit consultant. An outsider’s perspective may be just what your organization needs to provide an objective opinion about your capacity building priorities.
4. Determine your goals and timeline.
Clear goals and metrics will break your needs down into manageable goals and help you evaluate your progress. Stick to the SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound) goal framework to ensure your goals are actionable.
Let’s say that your nonprofit is looking to develop a new onboarding process that better informs team members of their responsibilities, company culture, and your mission. Take a look at how your team may qualify and quantify this objective using the SMART goal framework:
Specific. Our human resources team will create and implement new onboarding materials that give a more holistic, comprehensive view of each team member’s role, the organization’s culture, and the underlying nonprofit mission and services.
Measurable. Our goal is to increase new team member efficiency by 20% by providing them with the resources they need to succeed from the start.
Achievable. In the past, we’ve made slight improvements to our onboarding process and have seen small gains in new team member efficiency. We’re hoping that a larger-scale revamp of the new hire onboarding process will allow us to see even greater results in employee motivation and productivity.
Relevant. When team members have a better understanding of their roles and how they contribute to the organization’s purpose, they’ll work more efficiently and effectively. Consequently, we’ll spend less team member time on logistical tasks and more on urgent, mission-critical work.
Time-Bound. Our human resources team will develop this new program over the course of the next quarter. Then, we’ll roll it out to the next batch of new hires and measure their subsequent performance.
Applying the SMART goal framework to your nonprofit’s needs can also help you determine which ones to address first. You may be able to address multiple needs at once or have to prioritize certain needs over others in order to commit your full attention and resources to each one.
5. Invest in the right tools.
Once you’ve further defined your goals, you may notice you’re missing some of the tools or software you need to succeed. For instance, if you’re launching a campaign to promote a new service your nonprofit is offering, you may need to invest in new marketing software that will automate your outreach.
Although it’s best to take full advantage of the resources you currently have, an investment in the right tools is an investment in your nonprofit’s future. To increase your nonprofit’s capacity, it may be worth it to purchase new software or obtain additional resources that will make your nonprofit’s operations more efficient.
6. Track your progress.
Before you embark on your nonprofit capacity building efforts, set up benchmarks that allow you to mark your progress. You may schedule monthly check-ins with the appropriate team, take notes on the state of each project, or survey those involved with each endeavor to see where you can improve your efforts.
For all goals with clear performance metrics, make sure to check your campaign data regularly to ensure you’re on track. For example, if you’re running a capital campaign and intend to raise $10,000 overall, download reports from your fundraising software each month that indicate how much money you’ve raised in the past month and how much you’ve raised throughout the campaign.
5 Ways to Enhance Your Nonprofit’s Capacity
Now that we’ve covered the basics of nonprofit capacity building, it’s time to dive into some specific strategies you can implement to enhance your nonprofit’s capacity. While your organization’s specific plan will depend on your goals and resources, here are some ways nonprofits in a variety of sectors can expand their operations and increase efficiency:
1. Invest in matching gift software.
Our top recommendation is to invest in matching gift software. Companies that offer matching gift programs match their employees’ donations to eligible nonprofits. While most companies match employee contributions at a 1:1 ratio, some match at a 2:1 or even 3:1 ratio.
However, 78% of donors are unaware if they’re eligible for matching gift opportunities. As a result, they don’t fill out matching gift requests, and nonprofits collectively miss out on $4-$7 billion in matching gift funds each year.
Matching gift software resolves this matching gift gap by automatically informing donors of their matching gift eligibility and prompting them to fill out a matching gift request form. Nonprofits can embed this type of tool right on their donation pages so that donors can submit their requests immediately after contributing. Check out the video below to learn more about how our matching gift software, helps nonprofits earn more:
As the video explains, Double the Donation users raise 20-50% more in matching gifts each year. This passive income allows charitable organizations to expand their programming and ultimately help more beneficiaries.
To make the matching gift process more efficient and help your nonprofit earn even more, some matching gift platforms offer auto-submission. Instead of donors filling out a matching gift request form, all they have to do is input their company email address and check a box indicating they’d like to opt into auto-submission. Then, the platform creates and sends the request to the donor’s employer on the donor’s behalf, driving even more matches to completion.
2. Provide professional development opportunities.
When you invest in each individual staff member at your nonprofit, you fortify the team as a whole. Professional development opportunities allow team members to hone their skills and build confidence.
To ensure team members are motivated to participate in professional development opportunities, survey them to see which they’d be most interested in. Then, implement the most popular methods to begin growing your staff’s skills while measuring the opportunities’ engagement and impact.
3. Diversify revenue streams.
Imagine your nonprofit’s only source of revenue is from individual donations. You have a large donor base with many generous recurring donors. However, the economy starts to decline, and you notice donation revenue is decreasing as a result. Suddenly, you begin to worry that you won’t have enough funds to cover all of your programming and have to start cutting important services that your beneficiaries depend on.
Building your nonprofit’s capacity should make your organization more sustainable. However, if you rely on one main revenue source, you put your nonprofit at risk.
Tapping into a variety of revenue streams allows your nonprofit’s finances to remain steady, even if one source dries up. We recommend leveraging a combination of the following revenue streams:
Individual donations. These may include one-time donations, recurring donations, planned gifts, major gifts, and in-kind donations.
Corporate philanthropy. Charitably-minded companies contribute to nonprofits through matching gifts, volunteer grants, community grants, event sponsorships, automatic payroll deductions, annual giving campaigns, and more.
Earned income. Your organization can earn funds by selling merchandise, charging membership dues, and selling event tickets.
Investments. Sometimes, nonprofits receive major gifts in the form of endowments that they can deposit into an investment account. Your organization can also open and invest in a brokerage account, just like individuals can.
Grants. There are all sorts of different grants out there that government entities, corporations, and foundations provide to nonprofits. You can even apply for specific nonprofit capacity building grants.
Once you’ve properly diversified your nonprofit’s revenue streams, keep track of how much you’re earning from each method for internal and tax filing purposes. If you need help reporting your nonprofit’s revenue, partner with a nonprofit accountant.
4. Rework your strategic plan.
Your nonprofit’s strategic plan serves as your roadmap for success. It aligns your organization’s goals with its values to provide a strong foundation for decision-making.
Since your strategic plan helps you prioritize projects and navigate challenges, it’s a good idea to revisit it when trying to build your nonprofit’s capacity. You may find that your organization’s initial strategic plan is not comprehensive enough to cover all of your current operations or that the goals outlined in your plan no longer reflect your nonprofit’s current priorities.
When you update your strategic plan, you can get all your team members on the same plan and provide more direction to your nonprofit capacity building efforts.
5. Network with other industry professionals.
From time to time, you may feel stuck with how to properly build your nonprofit’s capacity. Luckily, there are many nonprofit professionals out there who have gone through the process and can provide advice on how to improve your organization’s operations.
Networking is essential to gaining insider industry knowledge and building inter-organizational relationships. Start networking with other nonprofit professionals by:
By connecting with others in your industry, you can help each other navigate challenges and learn from each other’s experiences. Along the way, you’ll acquire tips that will help you build your nonprofit’s capacity and operate more efficiently.
Wrapping Up
Nonprofit capacity building is an ongoing process. As your organization grows and changes, new ways to scale your operations or function more efficiently will emerge. It’s up to your team to build a strong foundation for building capacity by evaluating your organization’s values, goals, and resources. Then, develop a strategy based on your nonprofit’s current needs and work with staff, board members, and volunteers to implement it.
Want to dive deeper into some of the nonprofit capacity building strategies we’ve covered? Check out the following resources:
Must-Have Types of Nonprofit Software for Your Org in 2024. The right software can help you quickly build your nonprofit’s capacity. Learn about a variety of different types of nonprofit software to determine which is best for your organization’s current and future needs.
16 Free & Low-Cost Nonprofit Webinars To Amplify Your Work. Nonprofit webinars can help you stay on top of industry trends, hone your skills, and network with other industry professionals. This guide reviews 16 of the top free and low-cost nonprofit webinars you can join.
Matching Gift Databases: What Nonprofits Should Know in 2024. With comprehensive matching gift databases and software, you can empower your donors to drive matches to completion. Earn more for your cause equipped with knowledge about matching gift tools.
https://doublethedonation.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Nonprofit-Capacity-Building_Feature.jpg3751000Adam Weingerhttps://doublethedonation.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/DTD-horizontal-logo-300x63.pngAdam Weinger2024-02-06 13:41:142025-07-30 19:00:58Nonprofit Capacity Building: How to Grow Your Organization
Well-conceived donor recognition invites a stronger community around your mission, leading to more support and awareness for your work. Recognizing donors is an art form, and your supporters’ contributions can be immortalized through donor walls, plaques, and signs. Expressing gratitude in this manner is more than a courtesy—it’s a catalyst for continued philanthropy.
This guide will help you fully understand these symbols of gratitude, from their basic concepts to the intricate process of designing them. We’ll explore the following:
Whether you work for a nonprofit, an educational institution, or a healthcare facility, understanding donor recognition is key to fostering lasting relationships with those who support your mission. In no time, you’ll create a recognition space that honors donors and inspires future generosity.
FAQs About Donor Recognition Walls, Signs, and Plaques
What’s A Donor Recognition Wall?
A donor recognition wall is a wall that displays the names of donors and supporters who have made an impact on your organization. For instance, you might feature supporters who contributed a major gift, donated to a particular campaign, or joined your legacy program.
Donor walls typically fall into one of three types:
Traditional: When most people think of donor walls, they think of elaborate physical displays installed in a nonprofit’s facilities. A traditional donor wall is physically tangible and usually permanent, often featuring engraved names.
Digital: Like traditional donor walls, digital donor walls are physical installations. Where they differ is that digital walls prominently feature large digital screens, allowing organizations to incorporate vivid imagery and interactive media. This also makes digital walls easier to update without installing new permanent displays.
Virtual: Virtual walls are an excellent option for organizations without the space for a physical wall. These donor walls are displayed online, typically on the organization’s website. Virtual donor walls are also the most cost-effective option of the three, making them well-suited to organizations with lower budgets.
What’s A Donor Recognition Sign?
Similarly to a donor recognition wall, a donor recognition sign often lists the names of donors who contributed to a particular campaign. A sign is usually portable and printed on a plastic or vinyl banner instead of metal or brick. As such, donor recognition signs are better choices for charity walks and other off-site or outdoor sponsored events.
What’s A Donor Recognition Plaque?
When an individual, organization, or small group of people is the sole or lead donor to a particular campaign, honor them with a donor recognition plaque. Plaques are often posted outside doors in buildings that a major contribution helped build. Donors can also take their plaques home with them if you don’t have a permanent place to house them.
How Do You Make A Donor Wall, Sign, Or Plaque?
To make a donor wall, sign, or plaque, you’ll need to work with a professional designer or signage company to design and manage the fabrication and installation process, ensuring that the final product aligns with the intended aesthetic and quality standards. For a more cost-effective solution, you might work with a local artist to hand paint a donor wall.
How Much Do Donor Recognition Walls, Signs, Or Plaques Cost?
The cost of donor recognition walls, signs, or plaques can vary widely depending on factors such as:
Materials:Common materials include acrylic, glass, metal, and wood. Higher-end materials like bronze, tempered glass, or digital screens will be more expensive. Simple acrylic or wood plaques can start below a hundred dollars, while premium materials can run into thousands.
Size and Complexity: A small, basic plaque might cost as little as $50 to $200, while larger, intricate wall installations can cost anywhere from a few thousand dollars to tens of thousands, especially for custom designs or interactive digital displays.
Design and Customization: Custom designs, including engraving, intricate patterns, or digital elements like screens or interactive features, will add to the cost.
Updateability: If you want a donor wall that’s easily updated with new donor names, that will also increase the cost of the solution. Static walls tend to be cheaper, but are much less flexible.
Installation: Professional installation can also increase costs, especially for larger or more complex structures. You may also need to budget for permitting, depending on the installation requirements—for example, electrical work may require you to obtain a permit.
As an estimate, small to medium-sized organizations might spend anywhere from a few hundred to several thousand dollars on donor recognition, while larger institutions with extensive customization and high-quality materials could see costs exceeding $10,000.
Get quotes from multiple vendors and consider the balance between cost, durability, and aesthetic appeal to find the best solution.
What Should Donor Recognition Walls, Signs, And Plaques Say?
When deciding what to write on your donor recognition walls, signs, and plaques, aim for grateful language that highlights your donors, not your own efforts.
Remember, the purpose of plaques is to reward your current donors and encourage prospective donors to give to future campaigns.
Think about phrases like:
“Donated in honor of her grandmother, Sarah.”
“Made possible by the generosity of Jenna Smith and her family.”
“In recognition of the charitable spirit of Matt Jones.”
Especially when creating plaques for individual donors, ask the honorees how they’d like to be acknowledged.
Why Donor Walls, Plaques, and Signs Are Effective
Donor walls, plaques, and signs all provide a tangible way to thank donors and create a sense of community. Each one serves as a visual testament to the generosity of the individuals and corporate sponsors who contribute to a cause or institution. Most commonly, organizations create these recognition installations to:
Show donor appreciation. A key element of effective donor retention is showing your supporters you appreciate their contributions. An easy way to celebrate your donors is to post their names publicly!
Build a legacy. A wall, sign, or plaque sticks around for a long time, sometimes as long as the building is still standing. This long-term expression of gratitude speaks to donors, especially those leaving planned gifts to your organization.
Inspire others to give. It’s not just your past donors who see your walls, signs, and plaques — prospective donors also see them as they walk by or scroll by them online. Seeing the public commendation a donation receives will encourage others to give!
By showcasing names and contributions prominently, a donor wall, plaque, or sign fosters a sense of community and investment among stakeholders.
When to Recognize Donors on Walls, Signs, and Plaques
Organizations that want to honor donors meaningfully can create donor recognition walls, signs, or plaques. This includes nonprofits, foundations, higher education institutions, faith-based organizations, athletic associations, and medical facilities.
In other words, recognize your donors if you have them! It’s just a matter of determining who you’ll recognize. Here are some types of impactful supporters to thank with your display or plaque:
Your major donors deserve to have their names posted somewhere prominent. For example, you might name a certain hallway or room after a major donor who helped build it by donating to a capital campaign. If you raised money to construct or renovate a building, you’ve got a natural place to post your donor recognition wall or plaque permanently.
Planned gifts are often among the largest that a nonprofit receives, so planned givers should definitely be included in donor recognition walls, signs, and plaques. Prominently placing their names can even encourage others to leave planned gifts.
Matching gift donors put in the extra effort to request matches from their employers, so commemorate their efforts by featuring them on a donor wall or sign or by sending them a plaque.
In-kind donors are equally important to your other supporters. Especially if you host events, you’ve likely received some in-kind gifts from sponsors, such as a venue, equipment, or staffing. You can specify the kind of donation you received on your donor recognition wall, sign, or plaque.
Thank your crowdfunders by posting your donor recognition wall, signs, and plaques online! Many crowdfunding websites offer this feature.
Individuals aren’t the only ones who donate. Chances are, you rely on sponsors for revenue, too, so don’t forget to thank companies and organizations that sponsor your events or contribute to your campaigns!
Of course, you’ll want to set a threshold for how much someone needs to donate to earn a spot on your donor wall. Determine your contribution levels and what kind of reward will be associated with each one. Leverage your donor database to determine who meets each threshold. Then, add each contributor to your display.
How to Design Your Donor Recognition Displays
Now that you understand the fundamentals, let’s delve into the process of creating impactful and memorable recognition pieces, complete with examples and design tips.
Choose A Style.
Start by considering where you’ll build your display. Your donor wall, sign, or plaque should complement its surroundings. In a historic building, traditional materials might blend in better, whereas in a new, minimalist space, contemporary designs could be more fitting.
In terms of materials, here are some common styles of donor recognition walls, signs, and plaques to consider:
Glass: For a clean, classic way to show appreciation for donors, glass is a great choice. However, glass walls and plaques aren’t as portable as other materials, so use glass for capital campaign donors who helped build a new building or another stationary object. Just make sure your glass wall is in a safe place, away from children or machinery that could break it!
Stone: Marble or granite creates a sense of permanence and prestige, making it ideal for monumental or commemorative displays.
Brick: When organizing a capital campaign for a building, especially for a school or hospital, a sentimental way to recognize your donors is with brick. The symbolism is obvious: your donors are the building blocks to your success. You could make an entire donor recognition wall sidewalk out of brick, or post plaques on individual bricks for your donors to take home with them.
Metal: Brass, bronze, and other metals are durable and versatile. That makes them suitable for both traditional and contemporary designs.
Acrylic: This is a versatile, cost-effective option that can mimic glass or be used in colorful designs.
Digital: What if you want to keep a running tally of your donors’ gift amounts, incorporating healthy competition into your donor recognition wall? What if you want to use your wall for more than one campaign? By installing a digital donor recognition wall, you can! Though it might be more expensive in the short term, you can reuse a digital wall more easily than permanent materials.
Each material has its unique qualities and can be chosen based on the desired aesthetic, durability, maintenance requirements, and budget.
Know What Elements to Include.
When designing a donor wall, sign, or plaque, incorporating key elements is crucial to effectively acknowledge contributions, show impact, and convey the right message. Depending on which type of display you choose, here are the fundamental components to include:
Fundraising Campaign Name: Clearly display the name of the fundraising initiative. This connects each donor’s contributions to the specific project they supported.
Donor’s Preferred Name: This personalizes the recognition and honors the individual or entity making the contribution.
Gift Amount: Listing the gift amount is optional, depending on your organization’s policy and donors’ preferences. When included, it can highlight the level of support and encourage others to contribute.
Organization’s Name and Logo: Feature your organization’s name and logo prominently to reinforce brand identity.
Timeframe of the Gift: Indicate the period during which the donations were made. This contextualizes the support and can be particularly relevant for ongoing or annual campaigns.
Each of these elements is vital for creating a meaningful, effective donor recognition display, ensuring that contributors feel valued and appreciated for their support.
Create A Strong Layout.
How you arrange elements on a donor recognition wall, plaque, or sign is a critical aspect of its design. For starters, ensure the layout strikes the right balance and avoids an overly cluttered or excessively sparse appearance. The layout must enhance the overall design and harmonize with the architectural characteristics of the surrounding space.
Above all, it needs to resonate with your organization’s purpose and align with your campaign’s objectives. For example, a sleek, minimalist arrangement might represent vibrancy, whereas a detailed, gallery-like setup could reflect the rich heritage of your organization’s endeavors.
Moreover, the layout offers an excellent chance to differentiate between various donor tiers through varying sizes and prominence. For instance, matching gift donors or top matching gift companies that support your nonprofit could have a special designation.
Infuse Your Nonprofit’s Branding.
Infusing your branding into a donor wall, sign, or plaque display is crucial for maintaining a consistent identity. For instance, a modern, tech-focused company might prefer a sleek, digital display, while a traditional academic institution might prefer classic materials like wood or brass.
To effectively incorporate your organization’s brand, consider the following elements:
Color Scheme: Utilize your organization’s color palette in the display. Consistent use of brand colors strengthens recognition and ties the donor wall to your nonprofit’s overall identity.
Logo and Typography:Incorporate your nonprofit’s logo prominently in the design. Ensure the typography used for other text matches or complements your official fonts.
Brand Messaging: Include key phrases or a mission statement that encapsulates your organization’s ethos. This reinforces your nonprofit’s purpose in the display.
Imagery and Graphics: If your brand has specific icons or graphic styles, integrate these elements into the design. This could be through background images, borders, or decorative elements.
Material and Style Consistency: Choose materials and a style that resonates with your nonprofit’s character. For instance, a modern, tech-focused nonprofit might opt for sleek, contemporary materials like glass or metal, while a community-oriented organization might prefer warm, natural materials like wood.
By following these guidelines, you can create a donor recognition display that not only honors contributors but also serves as an extension of your organization’s brand, enhancing its visibility and impact.
Working With A Donor Recognition Wall Agency
Working with a donor recognition wall, sign, or plaque agency can streamline and enhance the process of creating an impactful, professional display. These agencies specialize in understanding each organization’s unique needs and vision. They bring their expertise through the following services:
Design Expertise: These agencies offer professional design services to create visually appealing and memorable donor walls. This includes innovative layouts, strategic use of color, and incorporation of the organization’s branding.
Material Selection: Agencies will choose the right materials for the donor wall, such as glass, metal, wood, or digital displays. They understand the durability and maintenance requirements of different materials, ensuring that the wall remains attractive over time.
Digital Integration: For a modern touch, agencies can incorporate digital elements such as touch screens, allowing for interactive experiences and easy updates as new donors contribute. Some agencies also offer services to extend the donor wall experience to online platforms.
Scalability: If your nonprofit values having an easily updatable wall, your agency can design a wall that is scalable and allows for easy updates as more donors contribute over time without compromising the overall design integrity.
Installation and Maintenance: They manage the installation process, ensuring that the donor wall is securely and properly installed in compliance with your preferences and local regulations. They can also provide guidance on how to maintain the wall.
Unveiling Events: Agencies can assist in planning unveiling ceremonies to celebrate and acknowledge donors, making the donor wall a focal point of these events.
For instance, OmniAlly designs and installs beautiful, modern digital donor walls that incorporate visual storytelling. They take donor walls beyond lists of names, featuring dynamic donor lists, different giving tiers, donor highlights, and even Why I Give options. If you’d like to show your appreciation for your volunteers, that’s an option as well.
OmniAlly’s digital walls aren’t just a solution for showing appreciation for your constituents. Due to their digital nature, they can easily be adjusted to demonstrate your nonprofit’s impact, too. This agency will work with you to help you recap fundraising campaigns, announce events, feature key statistics, and even highlight ways to give through your donor wall.
No matter what type of digital installation your organization is looking for, OmniAlly can help you do it.
A well-branded donor wall, sign, or plaque can act as a powerful marketing and engagement tool. You’ll not only acknowledge donors but also communicate your organization’s values to visitors, potential supporters, and the wider community. This invites greater support and interest in your mission.
To continue learning about powerful fundraising and donor recognition ideas, explore these carefully curated resources:
How to Ask for Donations From Individuals, Companies & More. Before you can celebrate your donors’ contributions to your campaign, you need to ask them to donate! Write the perfect donation solicitation to encourage participation in your fundraising campaigns.
Imagine this: you’ve been a passionate advocate and donor for a nonprofit’s cause for many years. When the organization reaches out with an invitation to join its board, you’re ecstatic about the opportunity and eagerly accept.
However, when you show up to your first board meeting, you quickly realize that your role as a nonprofit supporter has not adequately familiarized you with the ins and outs of the organization. Suddenly, your excitement for this new opportunity turns to nervousness and frustration. You don’t feel prepared enough to contribute during the meeting and instead wonder how and when you’ll be brought up to speed about the board and the nonprofit’s general operations.
As a nonprofit board chair or president, it’s your job to avoid scenarios like these and ensure your board operates effectively. By holding a proper nonprofit board orientation, you create a smooth transition for new board members and simplify board management.
In this guide, we’ll cover the following nonprofit board orientation topics:
Throughout the article, we’ll answer all of your nonprofit board orientation questions and offer tips to ensure it’s a positive experience for all parties involved, including new board members, existing board members, and board leadership.
What is nonprofit board orientation?
Nonprofit board orientation is the process of informing new board members about your board’s structure and policies, as well as your organization’s mission and overarching goals.
While nonprofit board orientations are typically in-person, single-session meetings, nonprofits have adapted their board orientation formats in recent years. You may choose to host your orientation in multiple in-person sessions or through live virtual, asynchronous virtual, or hybrid sessions.
No matter which format you implement, your nonprofit board orientation should review the following information:
At the end of orientation, new board members should feel prepared to attend their first meeting, equipped with the knowledge they need to succeed in their new role. Even if your orientation materials are extremely thorough, be sure to leave time for questions to clear up any confusion and ensure new board members fully understand their responsibilities.
Who should participate in a nonprofit board orientation?
New board members are the main audience of your nonprofit board orientation. However, you should incorporate other team members into your orientation to provide a holistic experience for new members.
Here are the main groups that should participate in your orientation, as well as their roles:
New board members. New board members should attend your nonprofit board orientation ready and eager to learn about your organization. They should review all relevant materials, take notes, and ask any questions they may have about your organization or board.
Current board members. Your orientation is a great chance for new and current board members to get to know each other. Current board members may also help lead presentations during orientation and act as mentors for the new members. Additionally, they may benefit from going through the orientation process again to reinforce their background knowledge of your nonprofit.
Board chair or president. The board chair or president should attend to welcome new board members and manage the orientation experience. They may lead sessions and provide information about board members’ roles and responsibilities.
Executive director or CEO. Since the executive director or CEO is the most knowledgeable about your nonprofit’s mission, history, and goals, they should present this information to the new board members. They may also help organize the logistics of your nonprofit board orientation.
If your nonprofit is interested in hiring a third party to lead your board orientation, you may also have facilitators lead certain sessions. External facilitators specialize in encouraging participation and fostering valuable discussions. They also bring a neutral perspective to your nonprofit board orientation.
Why is holding a nonprofit board orientation important?
On the surface, it may seem that a nonprofit board orientation’s only purpose is to acquaint new board members with your organization and board. While that is one benefit of holding an orientation, there are several other advantages your organization will receive.
Holding a nonprofit board orientation is important for any charitable organization welcoming new board members because it:
Introduces new board members to your organization’s goals. Let’s say your organization has traditionally given new board members a welcome packet instead of a full orientation. While this packet likely covers a lot of the information board members need to succeed, it may not get to the heart of why board members’ roles are so important and what they’re striving to help the organization achieve. With a nonprofit board orientation, you can take the time to cover your nonprofit’s strategic plan and goals so board members have more context for their decisions.
Clarifies expectations for each board member. A welcome packet alone may lay out the responsibilities of each board member. However, when you interact with new board members in an orientation setting, you can more clearly set your expectations for them and answer any lingering questions.
Increases accountability. With a clear understanding of their responsibilities, new board members will be more likely to take accountability for their actions and fulfill their commitment to your organization.
Encourages team building. During in-person nonprofit board orientations or synchronous virtual sessions, new board members can get to know existing board members and organizational leadership. As a result, they can start to build working relationships that will enhance their collaboration and teamwork down the line.
Leads to more efficient decision-making. When each new board member enters their first board meeting with a thorough understanding of your nonprofit, they can make well-informed judgments, speeding up the decision-making process.
Improves board effectiveness. Overall, nonprofit board orientations make boards run more smoothly. New board members who are well-prepared through orientation are more willing to engage in board discussions, make strategic decisions, and act in the best interest of your organization.
While holding a nonprofit board orientation takes up more team member time and resources than a welcome packet, it’s well worth the investment to have fully informed board members who are ready to take on important decisions on your organization’s behalf.
How to Prepare for Your Nonprofit Board Orientation
Like any type of meeting, nonprofit board orientations require extensive preparation to ensure they’re effective. Your goal should be to develop an engaging and informative experience for new members that begins the moment they accept your invitation to join the board.
To prepare both new members and facilitators for your orientation, treat the following as your board orientation checklist:
1. Announce your new board members.
Kick-off orientation preparation by announcing your new board members to your organization. That way, staff and existing board members can familiarize themselves with the new individuals. Additionally, creating an official announcement will help new board members feel valued by your organization and start your relationships with them on the right foot.
While you may first send an internal announcement via email, inform the public about your new board members through social media and your website to keep external stakeholders in the loop.
2. Host a welcome event for new board members.
Shortly after you officially announce the arrival of your new board members, host an event to welcome them to the team. This meet-up will demonstrate your appreciation for your new board members’ commitment to your nonprofit.
A welcome event is also a chance for new board members to mingle with each other and current board members, allowing them to start forming working relationships that will strengthen your board.
3. Add new board members to necessary communications.
Make sure new board members start receiving necessary organizational communications by adding them to your email lists. For instance, you may have a general email list for your entire nonprofit, as well as a board-specific email list that informs members of upcoming meeting dates and offers previews of each meeting’s agenda.
4. Schedule a tour of your facility.
Becoming comfortable with your facility will help new board members determine the logistics of where to meet and how best to get there before their first meeting. While you should introduce them to the boardroom, show them other parts of your facility as well to help them get a better sense of your organization’s activities and what different staff members and volunteers do each day.
5. Create a new member welcome packet.
As mentioned before, a new member welcome packet should not be the end-all-be-all of your nonprofit board orientation. However, it can serve as a jumping-off point to help summarize key information for new board members.
If possible, distribute your new member welcome packets before your first orientation session. That way, new board members can review the contents ahead of time and note any questions they’d like to ask during orientation.
6. Delegate orientation responsibilities to different team members.
To ensure your board chair or president isn’t doing all the heavy lifting, distribute the responsibilities of leading your nonprofit board orientation to different team members. You may have current board members and senior staff members volunteer to lead certain sessions or delegate them based on each team member’s area of expertise.
7. Pair up new and current board members.
New board members may be hesitant to speak up in their initial board meetings. To help new board members acclimate to the board, pair them with current board members who can serve as mentors.
These board member mentors can meet with their new member mentees one-on-one to discuss any concerns and answer any questions. New board members may feel more comfortable going to a singular point person for advice than voicing their doubts in front of the entire board. As a result, they’ll get the information they need to feel confident in their abilities and become effective board members.
While it can be stressful to switch up the composition of your board and incorporate new members, holding an effective nonprofit board orientation helps to create a smooth transition for everyone involved. With a dedicated process for acclimating new members, you can quickly familiarize new board members with your organization, helping them step into their new roles and build relationships with other board members. Consequently, you’ll have a more well-informed, effective board governing your organization.
If you’re looking for more tips to help your nonprofit board run efficiently and effectively, check out the resources below:
The Ultimate Nonprofit Board Report Template and Tips. A comprehensive nonprofit board report is the key to a successful board meeting. Use the template and tips in this article to ensure yours includes all relevant information.
Board Member Appreciation: A Complete Guide for Nonprofits. When you thank your board members for their hard work, they’ll feel valued by your organization and continue putting their best foot forward. Check out these tips for how to properly show appreciation to your board.
The Comprehensive Guide to Nonprofit Board Self-Assessments. It’s important to check in with board members regularly to ensure they’re having a good experience and doing the best they can to serve your nonprofit. Learn how to conduct a nonprofit board self-assessment that supports these goals.
https://doublethedonation.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Nonprofit-Board-Orientation_Feature.png3751000Adam Weingerhttps://doublethedonation.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/DTD-horizontal-logo-300x63.pngAdam Weinger2024-02-05 15:28:242025-09-18 13:47:18Nonprofit Board Orientation: How to Get New Members On Track
February is a time to celebrate love and happiness—and matching gifts. That’s why it’s been dubbed the official Matching Gift Month. This year, we recommend taking the opportunity to scale up your matching gift promotional efforts accordingly.
We’ll cover everything you need to know to celebrate corporate giving and drive action (and matches) this February.
Looking for new and exciting ways to amplify your nonprofit’s matching gift efforts leading up to Match Month? You’ve come to the right place. At Double the Donation, we’re experts at matching gifts, and we’ve compiled a list of suggestions sure to elevate your engagement efforts this February.
Ready to bring your matching gift fundraising to the next level? Let’s explore top recommendations for making the most of Match Month—and see what your team can do to bridge the knowledge and funding gaps alike.
What is Matching Gift Month?
Matching Gift Month is an annual celebration of corporate donation matching, often used to increase awareness and usage of match programs. Held in February each year, Match Month is an opportunity to recognize the extensive impact that corporate philanthropy programs, like matching gifts and more, can have on nonprofit fundraising groups.
And what is that impact? Research indicates that an estimated $2 to $3 billion is donated through matching gift programs each year. That’s a substantial source of funds provided to charitable causes like yours. Not to mention, the mere existence of a match incentivizes individual donors to give at new heights, too. The same reports state that 84% of donors are more likely to give if a match is available, while 1 in 3 would give a larger amount if a match were to be applied.
However, an additional $7 billion goes unclaimed by qualifying nonprofits and their donors each year—largely due to a lack of information surrounding the programs. That’s why many mission organizations and schools are taking the opportunity to elevate their matching gift fundraising and push the initiatives forward this year. And Match Month is the perfect chance to begin.
10+ Powerful Ways to Celebrate Matching Gift Month This Year
These smart marketing and engagement ideas inhabit a fun sense of novelty this month. But they’re also impactful for long-term engagement in your organization’s overall strategy.
For the best results, we suggest integrating multiple of the following methods—both this month and beyond.
1. Give your internal team a refresher course.
Before ramping up your organization’s matching gift efforts for Match Month, it’s a good idea to take a look inward. Hopefully, your internal fundraising team should be well-versed in matching gift information. But perhaps you’ve had a few new team members join since your last group training. Or maybe your staff (and volunteers!) could just use a refresher.
The solution? Start the month off right with your own team. Take the time to reiterate the importance of corporate matching gift programs. Practice asking common matching gift questions, ensuring that all individuals have the knowledge and assets to answer them.
You can even provide your team with access to educational resources and other materials to help grow their knowledge and preparedness for the celebrations ahead.
We have some fantastic free eBooks, blog posts, templates, webinars, and more at Double the Donation.
Plus, we offer the industry’s first-ever Matching Gift Academy—an online learning hub encompassing 45 lessons and more than 7 hours of informational video content across 10+ modules.
When it comes to driving matching gift revenue, your internal team encompasses your greatest assets. Make sure they’re equipped to advocate for the opportunities as best they can!
Top tip:
Though the Academy is valued at $199 per year, current Double the Donation clients can access the learning system at no cost. Just head to the back-end of your matching gifts portal to locate your organization’s unique coupon code!
2. Share on social media.
Your organization likely has at least one, but likely a number of profiles on popular social media sites. Whether it’s a Facebook page, an Instagram profile, or even a TikTok account, your strategic web presence can go a long way toward marketing matching gifts online.
And what better time is there to begin (or to elevate your strategy) than a month dedicated to all things matching gifts?
To get started, consider sharing the following types of content on your nonprofit’s social profiles:
Images and videos
Social media platforms are increasingly visual-focused. If you want to grab—and maintain—your audience’s attention as they scroll through their feeds, research indicates that incorporating eye-catching images and videos is the way to go. In fact, studies show that image-based social posts receive 2.3 times more engagement than those without, and posts with video content can see up to 10 times higher engagement levels.
That said, Match Month is an optimal time to produce and share matching gift marketing videos and imagery. Or get started with our pre-made social media graphics here! (Hint: click each image to enlarge the attachment and download a copy.)
For more templates and sample matching gift posts, head to “Marketing Assets” within the “Resources” tab in your matching gift portal. Then, explore our customizable social media designs for Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and more—including graphics specifically for celebrating Match Month.
Not a client yet? Get a demo to see if Double the Donation is right for your team and gain access to a range of tools and resources!
Industry research
Highlight key statistics that effectively demonstrate the potential that corporate matching brings. Double the Donation has compiled some of our favorite metrics, including an overview of unclaimed funding and a wide range of participating companies.
Check out these examples:
65%
of Fortune 500 companies offer matching gift programs.
26 million+
individuals work for companies with matching gift programs.
11%
of corporate cash donations are made through matching gift programs.
$2.86 billion
was contributed through corporate matching gift programs last year.
$4-$7 billion
in matching gift funds are left unclaimed by eligible donors each year.
Social media is driven by connectivity, networking, and social proof. That’s why case studies, testimonials, and other success stories can be some of the most influential content you can share!
Take a look at a few examples here:
Sharing the total sum of matching gift revenue (e.g., “Our organization collected more than $50,000 in matching gift funds in the past year from donors like you”).
Highlighting specific examples from prior match donors (ex: “Sarah from Home Depot secured a corporate match on our behalf equaling $5,000, bringing her total contribution value to more than $10,000”).
Spotlighting user-generated content from prior match donors (“According to Jennifer, long-time matching gift donor, ‘I love having the chance to stretch the value of my donation, and getting my employer to support my favorite cause is great!’”)
Showcasing historic community impact (“Thanks to generous matching gift donors last year, we were able to feed an additional 1,000 families in need through corporate match funding we received.”)
Your supporters care about the impact your organization (and, by extension, their donations) brings. When your followers see the influence that other matching gifts have had, they’ll be more likely to take steps to do so themselves.
Reiterate that donation-matching programs enable donors to double their impact without reaching back into their own wallets. If you can put it in terms of tangible impact (e.g., feed two shelter cats for the cost of one), even better!
3. Optimize your site for matching gifts.
Social media marketing is great—but there’s only so much you can share in each post. So, how can you ensure your audience can easily access the information they need to take action? Be sure every matching gift-related item you share links back to additional resources for learning more.
The best place to house those resources is your organization’s website. If you already have a built-out matching gift web page (which you should), consider driving traffic to the page for supporters to learn more about the opportunity. And if you don’t have an existing matching gifts page, Match Month is the perfect time to build that online hub.
Here’s an example of a well-designed matching gifts page to consider:
This inspiring sample follows all of our recommended practices. Take a look at the embedded matching gift search tool (which empowers donors to locate the information they need in seconds), a helpful infographic to visualize the involvement process, a detailed FAQ section, and information about the institution required for donors’ requests. Not to mention, it’s prominently located on the school’s navigation menu!
From there, we also suggest integrating matching gifts directly into your online donation process. Ideally, this should include an employment data widget to your giving form and company-specific program details on the confirmation screen.
Does your organization send regular newsletters as a way to keep donors and other supporters in the know about upcoming events and opportunities? A matching gift-focused newsletter—whether physical or digital—can serve as a powerful tool for raising awareness of matching gift opportunities.
And it’s a great way to elevate engagement with the annually celebrated Match Month.
At the very least, consider adding a section about Matching Gift Month involvement in your standard newsletter. But an entire edition dedicated to matching gifts can go a long way toward inspiring participation in the programs!
Programs like these are known as fundraising match programs. And since these initiatives can also be considered a form of donation-matching, they can fit perfectly into a well-rounded Matching Gift Month plan!
Here’s how it works:
Your organization facilitates a peer-to-peer fundraising campaign in conjunction with Matching Gift Month (February).
Your team reaches out to fundraising match-eligible contacts and encourages them to fundraise on your nonprofit’s behalf. (Be sure to mention your Matching Gift Month celebrations and the opportunity for their total funds to be doubled by their employer!)
Volunteer fundraisers solicit donations from their family and friends and participate in any associated event or campaign activity.
At the conclusion of the campaign, fundraisers submit requests for their companies to match the sum of their funds raised.
Fundraisers’ employers review the requests and verify that submissions adhere to program criteria.
Fundraisers’ employers approve the requests and disperse funding to the organizations for which their employees fundraised.
For example, let’s imagine that John Doe of State Street Corporation raises $1,572 for your organization. This is collected from 15 peers and associates through a social fundraising effort your team hosts this Match Month. When John requests a match from his employer, State Street supplies an additional $1,572 for your cause. This brings the total value of John’s fundraising efforts to $3,144!
That’s a lot of extra funding for your mission—all while engaging your donors at new heights and growing corporate support.
Top tip:
Use your matching gift database tool to uncover fundraising match opportunities in your donor network. Platforms like Double the Donation supply information about many types of corporate giving programs—including volunteer grants and fundraising matches when available.
6. Encourage non-eligible donors to advocate for new programs.
Unfortunately, not all companies match employee donations (though new programs are added every day). And some employers are likely interested in getting started—they might just need a little push to do so.
Luckily, your existing (and non-match-eligible) donors can be some of your best champions for inspiring new matching programs. Sometimes, all it takes is an email from a philanthropic employee to get the ball rolling for a new corporate program. And Matching Gift Month can be the perfect time to begin laying a foundation.
Consider sharing a template like this to provide a baseline for supporters considering advocating on your behalf this month:
Subject line: Request for a corporate matching gift program
Hi [manager or HR representative name],
I am writing to request the addition of a corporate matching gift program at [company name].
Thousands of companies across the globe have established employee matching gift programs, agreeing to match gifts made by their employees to qualifying nonprofit causes with their own corporate donations.
This is an extremely beneficial program to host for every party involved—including the company, its employees, and the nonprofits they support. If you’d like to take steps to establish a matching gift program for the company, Double the Donation has provided a number of detailed guides that walk corporate leaders through the process.
Thank you for your consideration!
P.S. — February is National Matching Gift Month, so it’s a great time to get started!
Use Double the Donation’s “Leading Companies” tool, which showcases the employers most often searched by donors using your company database tool, to identify businesses in your network without existing match programs! Then, craft a personalized plan for pitching a matching gift program or encouraging your donors to do so themselves.
7. Pursue one-off matching gift program opportunities.
Most companies that match employee donations agree to do so to most nonprofit causes. However, if an organization has an existing partnership with a corporation, it may seek a one-off (or unique) matching gift program that is exclusive to the cause.
In some cases, this type of offering can be an ongoing sponsorship opportunity. But it also may be limited to a particular period of time—such as Matching Gift Month! Thus, February (and/or the weeks leading up to February) can be a great chance to begin pursuing such a relationship.
There are a few types of one-off matching gift programs to consider. These include…
One-off match initiatives with companies that do not yet offer complete matching programs. (For example, Carl’s Computer Company does not have an established matching gift program but agrees to match donations solely made to Atlanta University.)
Agreements with companies that do offer traditional matching gift programs but want to match donations to your organization at a higher rate. (Ex: Carl’s Computer Company matches employee donations to all 501(c)(3) nonprofits at a dollar-for-dollar rate and matches gifts made to Atlanta University at a 2:1 ratio for the duration of Matching Gift Month.)
Keep in mind that both types of programs can be beneficial to your cause, your donors, and your corporate partners. In either case, your donors’ employing companies can be some of your most valuable prospects!
Top tip:
Once you’ve established a one-off match with a corporate partner, add the program details (including eligibility criteria and submission instructions) to your company search tool using Double the Donation’s custom matching gift management feature. This way, the program will populate in your employer search tool, making it quick and easy for donors to access the information they need to participate.
8. Follow up on previously made donations.
Your organization’s work promoting Matching Gift Month might very well drive a number of new donations—and matches—to your cause. But another strategy you can employ involves following up on previously made gifts. Then, encouraging still-eligible donors to submit their requests retroactively.
Here’s a sample follow-up email you might send:
Not to mention, Match Month falls just a few weeks after the year-end giving season when most organizations see elevated giving. Many of those donations may still qualify for corporate matching, even into the first few months of the new year.
In fact, tons of companies set generous matching gift request deadlines—often accepting submissions for up to a year after the initial donation is made. Take this opportunity to remind eligible donors about their employers’ matching gift programs and how they can get involved.
Top tip:
Use a matching gift automation tool (like Double the Donation Matching) to automate outreach and trigger personalized donation follow-ups!
9. Include matching gifts in staff email signatures.
This is perhaps our simplest suggestion for celebrating Match Month, but it can be particularly effective when paired with some of our other top ideas. We recommend adding a quick line mentioning matching gift opportunities to all of your team members’ email signatures.
More than likely, your organization sends a ton of emails—from donation appeals to thank-you messages and even nonprofit programming outreach. By incorporating matching gifts in automatic signatures, you can use every piece of communication with your cause as a way to promote donation-matching.
While you could add a simple blurb beneath an individual’s name and contact information, making it stand out can produce great results. For that reason, consider getting a graphic made and added to each person’s signature.
You can even use the space to link to additional resources where recipients can learn more.
10. Consider matching challenge grants.
Corporate matching gifts aren’t the only type of match opportunity your organization should keep an eye out for—they’re just the most widely available. But other match-based initiatives, like challenge grants, also have the potential to multiply the impact of a group’s fundraising success.
Rather than a company matching the donations its employees make to charitable causes, challenge grants are facilitated as a way to offer a donation match to all of a nonprofit’s supporters. Typically offered by a generous major donor, corporation, or foundation, these programs are generally organized according to a set time frame (e.g., a 24-hour period) or predetermined threshold (such as up to $10,000). Then, any individual who gives within the time frame prior to the match fund being depleted will have their gift doubled for your cause by the challenge grant supplier.
It’s important to remember, too, that challenge grants and matching gifts are usually not mutually exclusive. That means you can layer a few matching gift opportunities on top of one another (for example, a donor’s gift being matched through a challenge grant and by their employing company) to further amplify your efforts.
And that’s what we recommend doing to celebrate Matching Gift Month!
Bonus: Make matching easy.
Our final idea for celebrating Matching Gift Month is one that will benefit your organization well beyond the 28 (or 29) days of February. A lot of our previous recommendations involve raising awareness of program opportunities in the first place. Now, we suggest going a few steps further and driving matches by simplifying the processes involved.
After all, donors love matching gifts. They love getting the opportunity to multiply their contribution impact. But even your most dedicated supporters might not follow through when the process is too complicated or time-consuming.
That’s why we recommend fundraising organizations employ matching gift software to streamline and simplify the process. For example, Double the Donation empowers nonprofits to:
Identify eligibility with the industry’s most comprehensive matching gift database and corresponding search tool, making it quick and easy for donors to locate the information they need to participate.
Provide employer-specific matching gift program guidelines (minimum and maximum donation amounts, qualifying employees and nonprofit causes, match ratios, and more) and direct links to online submission forms, thus driving more requests to completion with actionable next steps.
Enable innovative auto-submission capabilities, allowing eligible donors to complete the match request process directly from the organization’s giving page and removing critical roadblocks facing traditional matching gift submissions.
Trigger automated and personalized matching gift follow-up messaging to remind donors about matching gift availability and encourage them to take the next steps in their companies’ request processes.
Seamlessly implement a matching gift solution into their existing fundraising ecosystem thanks to ready-built integrations with nearly all leading donation tools, peer-to-peer platforms, CRMs, and more—empowering organizations to get up and running with gift-matching strategies in minutes!
Not only does this benefit your donors by making matching programs more accessible, but it also ensures more back-end efficiency for your internal team and results in matching gift revenue growth of more than 61%.
Drawing inspiration from other nonprofits’ Matching Gift Month efforts can be highly beneficial for organizations strategizing their own campaigns. Not only can successful examples provide invaluable ideas and insights, but they can also spark creativity among your team and establish a deeper understanding of what resonates with nonprofit audiences.
That said, take a look at these Match Month campaigns to aspire to.
Example #1: Matching Gift Month Social Media Post
This independent Massachusetts private school took to Facebook and other social media platforms to promote the corporate matching gift opportunity last Match Month.
This institution uses the post as a way to promote matching gifts and encourage unprecedented individual giving. Not to mention, it links to the school’s matching gifts page and company search tool. These resources can supply additional information and assist supporters in getting started!
Example #2: Matching Gifts Web Page
One university opts to use its matching gift web page as a way to increase awareness about Match Month celebrations.
The blurb, which is embedded in the web page, encourages users to research their companies’ matching gift programs and double their giving impact if they qualify. It also includes an informational matching gift video that uses animated graphics to visualize the institution’s matching gift efforts.
Example #3: Match Month Landing Page
This organization published a dedicated landing page on its website as a way to drive awareness of Matching Gift Month among its supporters.
The page begins with a flashy and eye-catching graphic, shares specific performance metrics that reiterate matching gift impact, and implements an embedded company search tool. It even includes a template supporters can use to advocate for matching gift efforts when their employers lack such programming.
Example #4: Matching Gift Month Blog Post
In order to encourage Match Month participation among its supporters, this nonprofit published an informational blog post on its website.
The article outlines the basics of Matching Gift Month, emphasizes the importance of matching gifts for the organization’s mission, and shares additional resources donors can use to pursue matching gift opportunities (such as a direct link to the dedicated Match Page and integrated search tool). Plus, it uses illustrated statistics to communicate the availability of employee gift-matching in a user-friendly way!
Matching gifts have the potential to elevate your organization’s fundraising, bringing your overall community impact to new heights. February’s celebrations can be a fantastic opportunity to jumpstart or scale up your efforts. But it’s certainly not the only time to pursue this funding source.
As you aim to drive awareness of (and participation in) the programs this month, remember that the value of a long-term matching gift strategy can boost your fundraising for years to come. Keep in mind that the practices outlined above—and powering your team with the right tools and resources—can help!
Looking for more helpful matching gift resources? Check out our other recommended blog posts to continue learning:
Complete Guide to Matching Gifts
Dive into the basics and beyond with this complete guide to corporate matching gift programs.
Find out everything from common guidelines and well-known programs to streamlining your efforts with matching gift software.
Not all match-eligible donors will complete their submission processes right away. Discover several impactful strategies for driving more matches to completion with this smart guide.
https://doublethedonation.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/DTD_The-Complete-Guide-to-Celebrating-Matching-Gift-Month_Feature.png6001600Adam Weingerhttps://doublethedonation.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/DTD-horizontal-logo-300x63.pngAdam Weinger2024-02-01 16:05:182025-09-23 15:10:02Here’s How You Can Celebrate Matching Gift Month This February
https://doublethedonation.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Alumni-Websites_Feature.png6001600Adam Weingerhttps://doublethedonation.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/DTD-horizontal-logo-300x63.pngAdam Weinger2024-02-01 15:30:362025-10-01 12:15:559 Best Alumni Websites & How to Drive Engagement with Yours
You likely gather many details about your donors—those who support your cause with their funds, time, or resources. Perhaps you collect names, contact information, engagement history, interests, and hobbies. The more comprehensive an understanding you have of each supporter, the better you can tailor your fundraising strategy to effectively reach your target audience.
However, one critical piece of the puzzle that’s often overlooked is employment data. Knowing where your donors work can play a significant role in how you relate to them in terms of fundraising, corporate giving opportunities, and more. And if you don’t already have this data point on file? That’s where employer appends come in.
In this guide, we’ll provide a walkthrough of all things employer appends—including:
Understanding your donors’ employment status can elevate your fundraising efforts in huge ways. You won’t want to discard the wealth of information gathered through employer appends, nor the amplified impact it brings.
Let’s get started!
The Basics of Data Appends
Data appends are a particular type of data enhancement strategy that allows nonprofits and other fundraising groups to learn more about the individuals in their networks. These efforts aim to provide organizations with more comprehensive and up-to-date information, often concerning their donors and other supporters. This empowers fundraisers to adjust their messaging and overall engagement strategies by better discerning who a donor is and what makes them tick.
Organizations typically provide the information they do have to a company dedicated to data enhancement services. The company then compares donor information against a mega-database of individual data, filling in the details the organization lacks as they go.
Employer appends, in particular, empower organizations to collect new and optimized data regarding the companies their supporters work for. Beyond employer information, other common types of data appends include mailing addresses, email addresses, birth dates, and phone numbers.
As you’ll notice, these types of appends primarily fill in missing or outdated contact information. That makes connecting with supporters easy for email outreach, phonathon fundraisers, direct mail solicitations, and other campaigns.
What Are Employer Appends?
Employer appends are one of the most common types of data appends for nonprofits, schools, and other fundraising organizations. In this case, the unknown information an organization seeks is that of a donor’s employer.
By providing other data points—such as the person’s name, location, phone number, education experience, etc.—the intended result is to locate the company that the individual works for (and sometimes even their job title!). In the end, the organization receives invaluable insights that can help uncover matching gift and other workplace giving opportunities, estimate wealth data, and more.
How Employer Appends Work for Fundraisers
The employer appends process is simple. After locating a data appending service (we’ll cover what to look for below), you’ll want to collect as much data about your donors as possible. This should include:
Name
Unique ID number
Mailing address (home, business, or both)
Region (state, city, and country)
Email address(es)
Phone number(s)
College or university (along with class year and major/degree, if available)
Last gift amount
Date of last donation
Date the entry was last updated
You will likely not have every data point available for each donor. And that’s okay! However, starting with as much information as possible increases the likelihood that the appending service provider can locate and match supporter records to the right employer information.
From there, the appending service will conduct its own research, typically scanning a number of public and privately held databases, which may include government records, SEC filings, social media profiles, business registrations, and more.
When the service provider is able to match a donor record with an employing company, they make a note of the identified information, check the newly collected data for accuracy, and share their findings with the organization. Ultimately, the organization is able to utilize the information to its best advantage in terms of optimal fundraising and donor relations.
Benefits of Employer Appends for Nonprofits and Universities
Employer appends can bring big results to nonprofit fundraising. Knowing where your donors and other key supporters work plays a significant role in overall engagement strategies, not to mention enabling targeted efforts regarding available workplace giving opportunities.
Specifically, employer appending can help your team:
Determine matching gift eligibility —
Thousands of companies offer matching gift programs where they agree to match employee donations to charitable organizations.
However, you likely won’t know which donors are eligible for (and, as a result, which to follow up with about) matching opportunities if you don’t know where they work. In fact, this knowledge gap even results in over $4 to $7 billion in matching gift funding going unclaimed each year!
Once you have the information you need, however, you’ll be able to prompt qualifying donors to complete the match process and secure additional funding on your organization’s behalf. This is true not only in the form of corporate match revenue but in elevated individual giving (and donor engagement), as well.
Keep in mind that matching gift services—like Double the Donation—can help nonprofits target and follow up with matching gift opportunities as well. However, employer appends are often able to provide additional data points with which to guide an organization’s strategy, allowing fundraisers to capture supporter information even if the individual is not currently in the donation pipeline.
Here’s an example: “Jody, did you know that your employer, the Home Depot, matches full- and part-time employee donations up to $3,000 per person each year? Click here to request your matching gift!”
Uncover volunteer grant opportunities —
Similarly, if your organization has a supporter base of dedicated volunteers, corporate volunteer grants can help stretch their donated time even further. These are additional giving programs offered by philanthropic-minded businesses, the difference being that employers contribute monetary funds to the organizations with which their employees volunteer their time. Volunteer grants, which are also referred to as “dollars for doers,” can be an excellent way to multiply the impact of volunteer time for your organization, and supporters love being able to get involved in that way as well.
But again, you’ll need to know which companies your volunteers work for, which is where your employer appends come in. That way, you can be sure to inform them about the opportunities, encourage participation, and direct them to their employers’ request processes to get involved.
Here’s an example: “Thanks for all of your help at the shelter this weekend and over the past several months, Sam!As a Verizon employee, your volunteer hours likely qualify you to request a corporate volunteer grant on our behalf. Click here to learn more about how to request your grant!”
Identify potential corporate sponsorships —
Corporate sponsors can bring your nonprofit’s next fundraising event to the next level, and knowing which companies your supporters work for can aid in determining top prospective sponsors and help get your foot in the door! Once you know where your donors work, leverage the information as an in with a potential sponsor or encourage donors to advocate for a partnership on your behalf.
Here’s an example: “Ashley, it’s great to connect with the Microsoft team. More than 100 of our nonprofit’s donors work for Microsoft, and we’ve received thousands of dollars in matching gifts from your company in the past. As it’s clear that we already have a lot in common, would you be interested in sponsoring our upcoming event?”
Estimate wealth data —
Your donors’ wealth levels can play a significant role in their ability to give charitably, and understanding their limits can help organizations determine ideal fundraising asks. Knowing which companies your donors work for, their roles in the businesses, and more can help shed light on their estimated incomes and, by extension, giving abilities.
Here’s an example: “Sarah, we thank you for your continued support of our nonprofit cause. Will you consider making a $10,000 donation to help us reach our year-end giving goal?”
Tailor donor communications —
You want your donor outreach to be as personal and targeted as possible. Including direct references to donor-specific information helps develop relationships and shows that you’re not sending the same copied-and-pasted message to each person in your contacts. And, as you likely know, targeted messaging can be one of the best ways to develop strengthened, beyond-surface-level donor relationships, build connections with the cause, and ultimately drive more nonprofit involvement among supporters.
Highlighting an individual’s employing company can be a great way to do so, especially regarding getting involved with workplace giving programs. And if you don’t already have your donors’ employment information, that’s where employer appends can help.
Here’s an example: “Jeffrey, the Walt Disney Corporation offers a range of corporate giving opportunities that can benefit our organization in big ways. As a member of the Disney team, you have the chance to participate in matching gifts, volunteer grants, and more.”
Learn more about your supporters —
The more you know about your supporters—donors, volunteers, and prospects alike—the better you can connect with the individuals who make your mission possible. Since most people’s careers are a key component of their lives and what makes them who they are, understanding where they work and what they do can be a key piece of the “getting to know your donors” puzzle. Plus, it can even help shine a light on their own interests and hobbies.
Here’s an example: “As a Petco employee, you likely care about the wellbeing of the little, furry friends in our community. That’s exactly what our organization, the Atlanta Animal Shelter, is dedicated to, as well. Learn more about how you can get involved with the cause here!”
Overall, employer records are an extremely beneficial tool for designing targeted and effective outreach. However, you likely don’t have that information on file for all of your supporters. By leveraging employer appends, you can collect the information you need to guide your organization’s engagement efforts toward success.
Employer Appends Services | What to Look For
It’s possible to conduct donor research on your own; however, your organization is significantly more likely to uncover accurate and up-to-date information about more donors more quickly when you outsource the efforts to a third-party provider. And employer appends services are dedicated to doing just that in the most effective and efficient ways possible.
So how can you select the right employer (or other donor data) appends provider for your needs? Be sure to do your research beforehand.
For example, here’s how it works with Double the Donation:
Organizations typically see successful appends rates between 20% and 50% of the records they provide to the appending service (which is significantly higher than the industry average).
Employer appends are typically completed and provided within a few days of the organization submitting their inputs.
Appends records are assigned an accuracy rating. This takes into account the uniqueness of a donor’s name and the level of detailed inputs initially provided, as well as the comprehensiveness and recency of the data source used.
As an added bonus, previously unknown corporate executives are often identified and flagged as potential major donors.
Multiple appending options are available, including real-time employer appends for Double the Donation users, as well as one-time bulk appends services for any organization.
Employer appends can be uploaded into Double the Donation to trigger matching gift emails and other automated donor outreach.
Other Frequently Asked Questions
Where does Double the Donation get its employer data?
Our propriety screening method combines data from both publicly and privately available sources. These sources include public government records, SEC filings, social media profiles, business registrations, and a variety of other sources.
What hit rate should our organization expect?
We typically see append rates which range from 20%-50%. This is based on a variety of factors such as:
Donor demographics (higher append rates among organizations which have a greater percentage of donors still in the workforce)
Average donation amount (higher append rates for wealthier donors)
Type of nonprofit (higher append rates for higher education)
How does Double the Donation determine its “accuracy score” for each record?
Our accuracy score is based on a number of factors including:
Uniqueness of donor names: With only a name it can be tough to determine whether we’ve identified the correct individual. The number of individuals with the same name plays a role in our accuracy score. A search for a common name such as “Steve Smith” will have a much lower accuracy score than a more unique / one of a kind name.
Level of detail provided on a record: The more information that you provide on each record, the greater the accuracy score. Even though there may be 1,000 individuals named “Steve Smith” if we’re able to match additional fields such as a phone number or mailing address it increases the accuracy score for that record.
Our data source / date the data source was updated:
We recognize that not all of our data sources are created equal. The data source, as well as the update frequency, plays a role in each individual record’s accuracy score.
Which types of nonprofits see the highest append rates and the most accurate results?
Our ability to append employer data is dependent upon the input file an organization provides to us. Organizations which keep their databases up-to-date see the best results.
For instance:
Do you have an up-to-date email address?
Do you have an up-to-date mailing address?
For higher education institutions, can you provide us with the years your donor / alumni graduated?
How complete are the input files that nonprofits normally send to Double the Donation?
It depends. Very rarely does an organization have comprehensive data on all of its donors, especially when you consider an organization which raises funds from multiple channels (mail, online, phone, in-person, etc.)
We do request that you provide us with as much data as you can as it helps us locate and match your records to the appropriate individual.
Are subsidiaries and alternate spelling variations listed separately or all in a single subsidiary field?
Our matching gift database is comprised of the following two tables:
A table mapping subsidiaries to parent companies
A table mapping all company details to a single parent company
These tables are then joined using a unique ID that ties all the data together.
Can I use employer append files I already have with Double the Donation?
An organization navigates to the “import wizard” to upload its employer appends CSV file.
The organization previews record uploads to ensure the data has been mapped properly.
The organization leverages employer append workflows to match Unknown Eligibility donors with the correct employers.
You can learn more about leveraging bulk employer appends files alongside Double the Donation with our Knowledge Base article on the topic here.
Concluding Thoughts
The more you know about your donors, the more effectively you can target and attract them to your cause. Not to mention, having employment data on file empowers organizations to seek workplace giving opportunities as well.
You may have a solid base of information pertaining to donors’ employing companies already. However, employer appends can go a long way toward filling in the blanks and connecting the dots. This is especially true in terms of matching gift programs, volunteer grants, and more.
Interested in further developing your organization’s donor data strategy? Dive into these other forms of data appends services—and how they can benefit your team—below:
What Is a Date of Birth Append? A Comprehensive Guide. Uncover more about your organization’s supporters with date of birth appending. Find out donors’ ages for strategic segmentation, send birthday outreach, and more.
https://doublethedonation.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/DTD-The-Ultimate-Guide-to-Employer-Appends-for-Fundraisers.png3801000Adam Weingerhttps://doublethedonation.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/DTD-horizontal-logo-300x63.pngAdam Weinger2024-01-28 19:14:372025-09-16 03:28:04The Ultimate Guide to Employer Appends for Fundraisers
For many students, attending an institution of higher education is a transformative experience. This is all thanks to the professors you hire, the programs you offer, the facilities you maintain, and the scholarships you grant. To continue presenting your students with the resources they need to fulfill all their academic and personal goals, however, you need funding.
Most schools immediately turn to alumni fundraising to acquire these funds—and it’s not hard to see why. Even though they’ve left your campus, your alumni will always have a special connection to your institution. In this comprehensive guide, we’ll walk through all you need to know to maximize alumni giving:
The more engaged your alumni are, the stronger your school’s community will be. Set your current and upcoming students for success by improving your alumni fundraising strategy.
Why is alumni fundraising important?
Colleges and universities undertake a variety of projects, initiatives, and improvements to create fulfilling experiences for their students. By securing alumni gifts, your school can:
Fund more scholarships. According to Hanover Research’s U.S. alumni survey, 74% of alumni indicate that their top inspiration for giving to their alma mater would be to either make education more affordable for other students or because they want to give back. Alumni donations are a stellar way for them to “pay it forward” and make your institution more accessible to aspiring scholars.
Create enriching programs and events. Alumni fundraising allows you to increase the value that students receive during their years of study. For instance, you might hire nutritionists to host informational healthy eating sessions, open up more study abroad opportunities, or expand your music program with new course offerings.
Improve campus facilities. Whether you’re seeking to construct a new dormitory building or renovate old classrooms, alumni gifts can provide you with the necessary funds to embark on such projects and improve the student experience on campus.
Upgrade technology. While new technology can be a considerable upfront investment, state-of-the-art tools like laser projectors, 360-degree lecture recording cameras, and interactive whiteboards can significantly boost student engagement.
Provide more student services. More students than ever are struggling with their mental health, with 44% reporting symptoms of depression and 37% indicating that they have experienced anxiety. Alumni gifts can go toward essential student support services such as mental health counseling, career planning, and tutoring.
It’s clear that alumni fundraising can have a significant impact on students and your institution as a whole, so much so that there are even higher education conferences dedicated to it. Understanding and communicating why gifts are so important can go a long way toward raising more from your graduates.
6 Strategies to Encourage Alumni Giving
Your school equips its students with the skills, knowledge, and connections they need to thrive in the professional world. After they’ve received their diplomas and launched their careers, invite them to give back and set the next generation up for success. Follow these six strategies for requesting donations from alumni:
1. Conduct prospect research.
Your alumni are just as diverse as your student base. This means that, especially if you’re trying to secure a major or annual gift, some alumni will be more promising than others. Prospect research refers to the process of using philanthropic and wealth indicators to identify individuals who have both an affinity for your institution and the capacity to give.
Typically, you’ll search your alumni database for information such as:
Past engagement history with your institution, such as volunteering.
Personal interests related to your funding goals, such as an affinity for the arts.
Previous gifts made to your institution.
Real estate ownership.
Business connections.
Stock ownership.
By conducting prospect research, your school will determine which alumni to prioritize for your mid-size or major gift outreach. If this process seems too intensive for your team, there are plenty of prospect research services that can sift through your data and build a list of prospective donors for you to solicit.
2. Segment your alumni.
Before you begin crafting your fundraising messages and reaching out to alumni, take the time to segment your audience. This step involves separating your alumni into various groups based on shared characteristics so you can tailor your communications to resonate with each individual’s giving capacity, interests, and preferences.
An effective way to pinpoint the most promising groups for your segmented alumni outreach is to create a donor persona. According to Fifty and Fifty, a persona is useful for fleshing out your understanding of your target audience and pinpointing common overlapping traits. Here’s an example of a donor persona that could be useful for alumni fundraising:
Name: Melanie Martin
Age: 35-45
Gender: Female
Family Status: Married with young children
Location: Suburban
Education Level: Bachelor’s and Master’s Degrees
Occupation: Middle management in a marketing firm
Values: Community involvement, paying support they received in previous years forward
Interests: Connecting with fellow alumni, attending family-friendly events
Challenges/Pain Points: Limited time due to professional and family life, feels disconnected from the school since she graduated over ten years prior
From this persona, you could reasonably infer that Melanie’s main motivation for giving back is to support the programs that got her where she is today. Also, she would rather attend annual, family-friendly, reunion-style events. This allows her to reconnect with her alma mater while juggling the other important aspects of her life. Additionally, you could recommend that she signs up to donate smaller recurring gifts since they are much more convenient and manageable.
You can make personas like this for all your most influential donor segments. Just ensure you regularly revisit and update them with necessary information as your donor base evolves.
3. Promote matching gifts.
Your alumni give because they want to make an impact on your school and the students attending it. With matching gifts, they can double or even triple their donation amount at no additional cost. Many companies have a matching gift program as part of their corporate social responsibility initiatives, in which they’ll match employee gifts made to your institution at typically a 1:1 ratio.
However, an estimated $6-$10 billion in matching gift funds goes unclaimed every year, simply because donors aren’t aware of these opportunities. Ensure your alumni don’t miss out by promoting matching gifts across your various platforms. For example, consider:
Including basic information about these programs in a section of your email newsletter.
Sending follow-up emails after a match-eligible graduate makes a gift.
Producing eye-catching social media posts to spread awareness of matching gifts.
Creating a dedicated matching gifts page on your school website with detailed instructions about the process.
For alumni who are worried that they won’t be able to give enough to make a meaningful difference, learning about matching gifts could provide them with the motivation they need to follow through.
Check out our short video on matching gift best practices to unlock additional insights for improving your alumni fundraising strategy:
As the video suggests, your school can even turn to a matching gift expert for specialized assistance in using matching gifts to boost your fundraising efforts.
4. Invest in tools that facilitate alumni giving.
Modern technology has opened up many possibilities for your school to raise funds. The more options you provide your alumni, the more likely they are to donate. Some game-changing fundraising tools that are worth investing in are:
Matching gift software. A matching gift platform like Double the Donation makes it easy for your institution to identify match-eligible donors and send automated follow-up emails with all the information they need to request a match. Plus, with the latest auto-submission feature, alumni who work for a company with CSR software that integrates with Double the Donation can simply input their corporate email address when they donate and let the technology complete the entire request process for them.
Text-to-give platform. 85% of all Americans own a smartphone. Embrace the popularity of these devices by using a text-to-give platform that allows your alumni to donate directly from their phones. All they have to do is text your chosen keyword to your text-to-give number and receive a link that takes them to your mobile-responsive donation page.
Peer-to-peer fundraising software. Empower your most passionate graduates to fundraise on your behalf with peer-to-peer fundraising software. With this software, alumni can create individual branded donation pages to which they can direct their friends and family.
Event software. Hosting alumni events is an effective way to both keep them engaged and raise revenue for your school. By leveraging event planning and management tools, you can set up registration fees, plan in-person, virtual, and hybrid events, and create a memorable experience for all your attendees.
Online donation pages. Create a dedicated online donation page to house your alumni fundraising efforts. Include a matching gift FAQ, eligible funding programs, and an easy-to-use donation form. The philanthropic sectors of universities are also eligible for the Google Ad Grant, which you can use to enhance your donation page’s online visibility and appear on the top of Google’s search results page for keywords related to your institution.
Review your goals and budget before researching specific software solutions to implement for your institution. Take the time to read online reviews and request demos to determine which options will work best for your needs.
5. Provide a variety of opportunities to contribute.
Not every one of your graduates will be a major donor. However, that doesn’t mean many of them aren’t willing and eager to contribute in other ways. Keep these alumni involved by sharing a variety of opportunities for them to support your school, such as:
Planned giving. Alumni can set up planned, or legacy, gifts that your institution will receive after they pass. There are multiple types of planned giving, including bequests and charitable gift annuities. These gifts allow alumni donors to leave a legacy without having to worry about factoring donations into their day-to-day financial obligations.
Volunteering. While your recent graduates may not have the capacity to make large gifts, they can demonstrate their commitment to your school by contributing their time and skills instead. In fact, the average number of alumni who engage in volunteering is higher among those zero to five years out from graduating than any other cohort. Plus, if their employers offer volunteer grants, you can earn a certain amount of revenue based on the number of volunteer hours your alumni serve.
Fundraising. Encourage your alumni to participate in a peer-to-peer fundraising campaign or start a birthday fundraiser on your school’s behalf. This way, they can support your fundraising efforts by reaching out to their friends and family members for donations.
Attending events. Alumni can register for your events or participate as speakers. For example, they could lend a hand by serving as a mentor for a current student or using their professional expertise to hold workshops on important topics such as financial literacy.
To open up more opportunities that appeal to your alumni, consider sending out a survey to find out what they’re most interested in. You could ask them about the types of events they prefer or what skills they would like to apply as volunteers.
6. Focus on building strong alumni relationships.
At the heart of it, alumni fundraising is anything but transactional. The key to success lies in building strong, meaningful relationships with your alumni. Start by collecting information on and abiding by their communication preferences. Hanover Research found that 7 in 10 alumni donors want to hear from their institution at least quarterly.
Stay connected beyond fundraising appeals by sharing relevant news, updating donors on the impact of their gifts, and interacting with graduates on social media. Remember to practice frequent, thoughtful recognition to demonstrate just how much alumni mean to your school. Rather than sending generic thank-you emails, consider these popular ideas to appreciate your alumni:
Send an eCard. Level up your thank-you’s by producing branded eCards that your team can effortlessly personalize with each recipient’s name and details related to their specific contribution. Dedicated eCard platforms like eCardWidget provide all the tools you’ll need to create your designs, add engaging animations, schedule your eCards, and more.
Gift branded merchandise. Whether you send them a t-shirt or a set of stickers, your alumni will be glad to have the chance to display their connection to your school. This type of appreciation has the added benefit of providing extra marketing for your institution as well.
Add spotlights to your website. Set up a dedicated page on your school’s website to publicly recognize some of your top alumni donors. Ask for permission to feature individual names, photos, and quotes to turn these spotlights into an inspiring resource for other alumni who are considering making a gift.
Whatever thank-you methods you choose, remember to emphasize how your alumni have made an impact on your institution and the lives of its current students to keep them continually invested in your success.
Alumni Fundraising Letter Template
When it comes time to reach out to your alumni, what do you say? Use this template as a jumping-off point for your alumni fundraising letter:
[School Letterhead/Logo]
Dear [Recipient’s Name],
We hope this letter finds you well. As a cherished alumn(us/a) of our [Institution Name] family, you know that we’re on a constant journey to provide our current and incoming students with the highest quality of education. In our pursuit of excellence, we’ve accomplished quite a lot in the past few years, including [one or two recent accomplishments].
This year, we’re taking on a new initiative to [fundraising goal]. By raising $[fundraising goal amount], we’ll be able to [impact on the institution and students].
Today, we kindly ask you to take a moment and reflect on your time at [Institution Name]. Will you join in our efforts to create more valuable experiences for our students, so that they can go on to pursue their career aspirations and lifelong dreams?
Any gift, no matter the size, will leave a lasting impact on our students, faculty, and institution as a whole. To make a contribution, [specific instructions on how to donate, such as visit your online donation page]. If you’d like to learn about other ways to support our initiative, please visit our website to explore volunteering opportunities, upcoming events, and more.
Thank you for being an integral part of our institution’s history and helping us shape a brighter future for [Institution Name] and our students.
Sincerely,
[Signature]
[Name]
[Title]
Popular Alumni Fundraising Ideas
Once you’ve developed a foundation of strong alumni relationships for your institution, get creative to maximize participation. Some popular alumni fundraising ideas to consider include:
Silent auction. Go beyond simply requesting donations from alumni by hosting a virtual or hybrid silent auction. No matter where they’re located, your attendees can bid on desirable items such as concert tickets, artwork, travel packages, and more—all while supporting your school. Procure items that you know will appeal to your alumni to encourage higher bidding and participation.
Cookbook. Your alumni may move away from campus, but that doesn’t mean they can’t feel close to your school’s community anymore. Ask your graduates to submit their best-loved recipes and compile them into a cookbook that you can sell to alumni, parents, and other supporters of your institution.
Sports watch party. Sports are a tried-and-true way to rally your alumni together and rekindle their love for your school. Organize watch parties for your next major sporting event and ask attendees to pay a small registration fee for the experience. These can be wonderful opportunities for alumni to bond and make connections with others in their area.
Brick fundraiser. Is your school planning to construct a new building or renovate an area on campus? Start a brick fundraiser that allows your alumni to purchase a personalized brick or tile with their name on it. You’ll be able to raise funds and your alumni will be able to leave a lasting, physical mark on your institution.
Alumni reunion. An alumni reunion gives your graduates a chance to reminisce about their time at your school and revisit old memories on campus. Beyond charging registration fees, you can earn additional revenue by selling branded merchandise and holding raffles during the event.
After each fundraiser, review key metrics such as your attendance rate and average gift amount to determine which ideas resonate most with your alumni. Use these insights to tailor your alumni fundraising strategy to increase participation moving forward.
Wrapping Up: Maximizing the Potential of Alumni Fundraising
The success of your alumni fundraising efforts depends upon building relationships that harken back to the value you provided graduates during their studies and call attention to the impact they can have on the students who come after them. Make all your alumni feel included by sharing a variety of ways they can contribute to your goals. Then, as they continue to grow and flourish in their lives, they’ll be able to respond to more opportunities to give.
To learn more tips and best practices for connecting with your alumni and raising funds for your school, check out these additional resources:
https://doublethedonation.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Alumni-Fundraising_Feature.jpg6001600Adam Weingerhttps://doublethedonation.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/DTD-horizontal-logo-300x63.pngAdam Weinger2024-01-25 19:23:382025-02-27 21:38:33Alumni Fundraising: A Complete Guide to Winning More Support
