This complete guide covers everything you need to know about digital marketing for nonprofits.

Digital Marketing for Nonprofits: The Ultimate Guide

/in , /by

As a nonprofit marketer, brand awareness is at the top of your priorities list. While nonprofits have limited funding to grow their prospect lists, digital marketing for nonprofits opens up a world of opportunities for causes trying to get the most out of their budgets. Plus, your potential reach has never been so large! You can reach supporters across the globe in a matter of mere seconds, whether you’re promoting matching gifts, marketing your products and services, or sharing volunteering opportunities.

From social media to email to search engine marketing, you have so many incredible, low-cost options at your disposal to make your cause known. If you really want to stand out online, you’ve come to the right place! We’re here to help you harness the power of digital marketing for nonprofits by covering these key topics:

Here at Double the Donation, we work with nonprofits to raise more money through matching gifts. A big part of that involves nonprofits proactively marketing corporate giving opportunities to supporters, and we’ve seen the power the online space holds. We’re hoping to share some of what we’ve learned so you can expand your reach.

With a little research, you’ll be a nonprofit digital marketing whiz in no time! However, if you need a bit of guidance for your nonprofit’s digital marketing strategy, we recommend turning to the experts at Nexus Marketing. They specialize in search engine optimization (SEO) marketing and offer services tailored to nonprofits that sell products and services.

Looking to promote your nonprofit's products and service offerings online? Get help from the SEO experts at Nexus Marketing. Contact Nexus Marketing.

What Is Digital Marketing for Nonprofits?

Digital marketing for nonprofits is a specific subset of marketing for organizations that relies on the internet and online-dependent technologies, such as desktop computers and mobile devices. Nonprofits use digital outlets to spread mission awareness, solicit donations, sell products and services, increase volunteer numbers, promote events, and publicize their services.

Common outreach strategies include social media, texting, search engine optimization, search advertising, or any other internet-based approach at an organization’s disposal.

Why Is Digital Marketing for Nonprofits Important?

A strong digital presence is a must for any organization that wants to thrive in the modern age. You might be wondering, “What exactly will establishing a digital presence do for my cause?” Great question!

Here’s a breakdown of some of the best parts of effective online marketing for nonprofit organizations like yours:

The benefits of digital marketing for nonprofits, listed below.

  • Eliminate geographical barriers. Supporters are more accessible than ever. By sending an email, publishing on social media, or sending a mass text, you can connect with people within seconds.
  • Make supporting your nonprofit convenient. Your supporters are already online. They’re scrolling through social media, shopping, and Googling stuff they care about. Going digital allows you to make learning about and donating to your cause easy.
  • Generating leads for products and services. Many nonprofits sell products and services to benefit their communities. If this description fits your nonprofit, then digital marketing channels can help you discover and build relationships with high-quality sales leads to grow your customer base. 
  • Open up two-way communication. Just like going digital makes your supporters more accessible, it does the same for your marketing team! Instead of talking at your supporters, you can engage in meaningful conversations when they comment on your social media posts or email you.
  • Raise more. By engaging in storytelling tactics and leveraging online fundraising tools, you can inspire people to donate to your cause. You can also promote engaging fundraising opportunities, like corporate giving!
  • Reduce marketing costs. We already touched on this, but digital marketing for nonprofits has minimal upfront costs, making it a cost-effective option.

The list of pros goes on and on! The examples above only scratch the surface. To experience any benefits, you’ll need a strong nonprofit digital marketing strategy to serve as the foundation of your outreach.

Creating Your Nonprofit Digital Marketing Strategy

It’s no secret that digital marketing for nonprofits is insanely powerful. However, it’s not enough to post on social media sporadically or send generic emails to constituents. The online space is competitive, so you need a holistic strategy that defines your objectives and how you’ll reach them. Otherwise, your efforts might be disjointed and not contribute much to strengthening your digital presence.

While each nonprofit’s marketing strategy will vary, there are some common steps to craft a plan that works for your cause. Let’s walk through those now!

Online marketing for nonprofits requires a few steps.

1. Define your nonprofit’s digital marketing goals.

Laying out clear goals will help you craft the right messages to the right audiences who will get you there. Every digital communication you send will get you one step closer to reaching whatever goals you set, so spend plenty of time hashing your objectives out with your marketing team.

Generally speaking, you might want to boost awareness for corporate giving, increase membership renewals, or increase sales for your nonprofit’s services. Think through how these goals correlate with your overall mission and how your digital marketing efforts can support that. Let’s take a look at a specific example of a bad goal vs. a SMART goal:

Goal 1) Grow our email subscriber list and use that channel to earn more sales.

Goal 2) Add 1,000 more subscribers to our email list and use that channel to raise an additional $50,000 in sales revenue by the end of the year.

Notice how the second goal is much clearer, defines how your nonprofit’s digital marketing can support your mission, and gives you solid metrics to work toward. That’s because it’s what we call a SMART goal.

The SMART Goal Framework

As a marketer, you might already be aware of this approach. The SMART goal framework allows you to set clear goals that anyone on your team can understand. The acronym stands for:

  • Specific: Be as clear as possible when setting nonprofit digital marketing goals. That way, everyone will know what you’re attempting to achieve! Returning to our example above, we’re clearly aiming to raise more money specifically through matching gifts by leveraging email rather than all channels.
  • Measurable: Your goal should have clear metrics attached to measure performance. In our example, the key performance indicators are 1,000 more subscribers and $5,000 in matching gift revenue sourced from that channel.
  • Attainable: Your goal should be reasonable yet still aspirational. You want to challenge your team without deterring them. For example, let’s say that you grew your email list by 800 subscribers and sourced $4,250 in matching gifts through that channel last year. That makes your new goal attainable yet aspirational!
  • Relevant: Your nonprofit’s digital marketing goal should play into your overall mission. In the example above, it’s clear that growing email subscriptions will provide valuable fundraising dollars.
  • Time-Based: Your goal needs a clear deadline to establish a sense of urgency! In the example above, we made the goal time-based by setting the end of the year as the deadline.

By following this framework, you can set objectives that make sense for your organization, make the most of digital outlets, and push your mission forward in meaningful ways.

2. Choose the right nonprofit digital marketing platforms.

There’s no shortage of nonprofit digital marketing platforms that you can leverage. Whether you’re trying to reach tech-savvy teens or email-reliant boomers, there’s a platform for reaching every segment of your audience.

Let’s walk through some of the most common ones:

  • Search ads. Paid advertising is a fantastic way to promote your cause. Plus, many paid digital marketing platforms offer free or discounted rates for nonprofits. For example, the Google Ad Grants program offers $10,000 in free monthly funding to eligible nonprofit organizations that apply. Then, these nonprofits can spend that funding to create ads promoting their website at the top of Google search results pages for mission-specific keywords. Using search ads like Google Ads, you can promote anything from donation forms to educational content, bringing more visibility to your cause on search engines.
  • SEO. In contrast to paid search ads, nonprofits can also drive website traffic with organic search results through search engine optimization, also known as SEO. Ranking number one among organic search results is a free way to attract new visitors to your website, which can be especially beneficial for nonprofits that depend on revenue-generating sales. However, to rank highly, nonprofits need to create content likely to get picked up and seen as valuable by search engines, which is where SEO comes in. SEO is the process of creating and adapting your content to be search engine friendly to boost online traffic. 
  • Social media. Channels like Instagram and Facebook are great organic channels for nonprofit digital marketing. Regularly post updates, engage in visual storytelling, and expand your audience by encouraging social sharing. Platforms like Facebook even offer unique fundraising features for supporters to drive donations on your behalf. 
  • Email. As our nonprofit fundraising statistics page explains, email-based marketing and promotional campaigns generate around 28% of all online nonprofit revenue. That makes email an essential channel for your nonprofit’s digital marketing strategy! Create eye-catching subject lines, send a regular newsletter, and promote relevant opportunities to each supporter group using your email marketing platform’s segmentation tools.
  • Texting. SMS marketing has an incredible open rate of over 98%, compared to just 20% for emails. By leveraging texting in your online outreach, you can send succinct updates directly to supporters’ phones and tap into fundraising tools like text-to-give. While a great way to connect with supporters, this nonprofit digital marketing channel isn’t for every organization! Organizations that find this strategy most useful are those with younger audiences.

When using digital marketing for nonprofits, focus on these main channels.

These platforms will serve as the foundation of your organization’s outreach. When getting started, think through your audience for each platform carefully. Then, craft messages that support your objectives and play to each channel’s strengths.

For example, if you’re aiming to boost awareness for your animal shelter’s adoption services, you might use search ads to amplify your adoption page, social media to share a testimonial video about an animal that found its forever home, email to promote an upcoming adoption event, and text to share a quick announcement and a link to your adoption page.

Pro tip: Use a mixture of platforms to connect with supporters. Multichannel marketing allows you to expand the number of people you’re able to reach, bringing more exposure to your cause online.

3. Push your digital marketing campaign live.

At this point, you’ll need to write your digital marketing messages and publish them on relevant platforms.

There’s a lot of competition online, so your team needs to do everything it can to stand out online. Get creative in how you present your messages. Lean into storytelling tactics, use visual techniques like video and images, and offer different engagement opportunities to garner as much attention as possible.

Remember, digital marketing for nonprofits offers two-way communication opportunities, so pay attention to people’s interactions with your posts and messages. You might like their comments, respond to their emails, or show them you appreciate their interactions with your team in some other way.

Finally, you’ll want to create a schedule for each platform, so your team creates a pattern of consistency. That way, supporters will regularly see your nonprofit’s updates in their inboxes and newsfeeds, keeping your cause top of mind.

Need campaign ideas to drive greater results through online marketing for nonprofits? Check out these creative marketing ideas from Getting Attention!

4. Monitor your nonprofit’s digital marketing performance.

Once you send your first round of outreach, the work’s just beginning! One of the best parts of going digital is that you can gather insightful metrics to inform future campaigns. Data-driven digital marketing for nonprofits is a must if you want to proactively grow your digital presence and provide value to your supporters.

During and after your campaigns, evaluate how successful your nonprofit digital marketing efforts are. Modern platforms make it easy to pull performance metrics and create reports to see how your efforts measure up against your goals.

Let’s break down the most common key performance indicators (KPIs) you can measure on each platform:

  • Email: Open rates, click-through rate (CTR), and unsubscribe rates are a few engagement metrics that your team should pay attention to.
  • Search ads: Your CTR and conversions (e.g., donations, event registrations, etc.) are the best metrics for determining the effectiveness of your search ads.
  • SEO. SEO shares many of the same metrics as search ads but also takes rankings into account. What keywords you rank for, fluctuations in your rankings, and whether ranking pages see increased traffic and lead generation should all be monitored.
  • Social media: Likes, shares, comments, and impressions can help you estimate your reach and engagement.
  • Text: Delivery rate, opt-out rate, and conversions can let you know if your text outreach is performing as expected.

If your outreach is underperforming, make adjustments as you go. Do you have low email open rates? Experiment with your subject lines to capture more attention. Do you have exceptionally high social media impressions but minimal shares, likes, and comments? Your content might be reaching plenty of people, but it’s not quite doing the trick and inspiring them.

Do you have low delivery rates for texts? That may mean your supporters have changed their phone numbers. Don’t worry; this happens! Use a phone number append to make sure you have accurate phone numbers for supporters if your delivery rate is alarmingly low.

No matter what metrics you monitor, you need to pay attention to your performance. Successful digital marketing for nonprofits rides on these numbers!

Tips To Take Online Marketing for Nonprofits Up a Notch

There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to digital marketing for nonprofits. As you get into the swing of things, test out different strategies to discover what works for your organization!

Let’s explore several best practices you can use to tailor your plan and maximize your marketing ROI.

Promote Your Website with Google Ads.

We touched on Google Ads earlier, but there’s so much more to it than what we’ve covered! Search ads are one of the most effective digital marketing outlets for nonprofits.

In fact, Getting Attention’s Google Ad Grant Impact Report explains that search ads have the highest ROI of any nonprofit paid advertising channel, returning an incredible $4.78 for every dollar spent.

As we touched on, you’ll need to apply for the Google Grants program and meet the eligibility requirements to receive the $10,000 in ad credits. From here, you can create ads that promote your website’s content and use your free funding to bid on relevant keywords.

You can promote pretty much any valuable content, whether you want to bring attention to your donation form, services, volunteer opportunities, events, or something else. You can even use Google Ads to promote matching gifts! Here’s a quick example of how The Nature Conservancy, Rainforest Trust, and Greenpeace USA all targeted donors using Google Ads:

Here's an example of how organizations can use Google Ads to strengthen digital marketing for nonprofits.

With a thoughtful bidding strategy, you can bring more visibility to your cause than ever before. Plus, the grant will automatically renew every month, so you’ll have a reliable source of funding as long as you comply with the compliance requirements.

It’ll take some time to learn the intricacies of the program, which is why we recommend working with a Google Grants manager. Our preferred agency is Getting Attention! They work with you to craft your nonprofit’s digital marketing strategy for Google Ads. They’ll help you apply for the program, create your ads, and monitor metrics to make sure you’re driving meaningful results.

To leverage one of the best nonprofit marketing ideas, work with the Google Ad Grant experts at Getting Attention.

Optimize your website for search engines.

Your website is the hub of all your nonprofit’s digital marketing efforts. It’s where first-time supporters go to learn more about your cause and long-term supporters go to find new engagement opportunities. It also enables you to raise online donations and sell your products and services. 

As such, your website should be as easy to find as possible. With SEO, you can attract new customers for your services and products through search engine traffic. To improve your SEO rankings, nonprofits should get started with:

  • Keyword research. What words and phrases are your target audience likely searching for? For example, a nonprofit selling products related to continuing education courses might check the search results for keywords like “adult education classes.” By creating content targeting relevant keywords, you can attract audiences interested in your nonprofit’s offerings. 
  • Content creation. After identifying target keywords, consider what type of content is needed by users searching for that keyword. Then, be the organization that creates that high-value, original content. Doing so will cause visitors who click on your website to engage with your content, share it with others, and potentially make a conversion. 
  • Partnership building. Search engines evaluate websites based on several factors, including what websites link to yours. By building relationships with other organizations in your space, you can get your content in front of their audience and also improve your search engine rankings by building your pages’ linking profiles. 

SEO can be a particularly effective sales lead-generation tool for nonprofits that sell products and services. If this description fits your nonprofit, consider partnering with our favorite SEO agency, Nexus Marketing. 

Nexus Marketing’s approach to SEO is designed to turn search engine platforms into revenue-generating channels. With keyword research and strategic partnerships, Nexus Marketing will create high-quality content that showcases your products and thought leadership to prospective buyers and boosts your search engine rankings.

Generate sales leads and grow your audience with our favorite marketing consultant, Nexus Marketing.

Automate your nonprofit’s digital marketing when possible.

Marketing automation allows you to automate monotonous marketing work. With the right tools, your marketing team can automate routine tasks such as email marketing, social media posting, and ad campaigns. Not only will this boost efficiency, but it’ll help you provide a personalized experience for your supporters.

While automation certainly doesn’t replace manual outreach, the two can be used in conjunction to provide a timely, valuable experience to your supporters. This can lay the ground for healthy, long-term relationships.

Let’s take a look at a few areas where you can leverage automation:

  • Email streams. Let’s say you set up an email stream for a volunteer opportunity. The second someone registers to volunteer, your software might trigger a confirmation email. Then, you might have a reminder email within this stream to follow up a few days before the actual volunteer event. After the opportunity, you can automatically follow up with a well-written volunteer thank-you letter that’s customized with their volunteer details.
  • Google Ads. Google Ad Grants can be confusing, which is why Google’s advertising platform allows you to leverage search ad automation tools. Using features like responsive search ads (RSAs), your ads will adapt to show relevant messages to users. You’ll submit a variety of headlines and descriptions. Then, Google will swap them out to find the best fit for users and improve your results.
  • Matching gifts. Through the use of our matching gift tools, you can drive more corporate giving revenue through automation. You can set up email streams that follow up with match-eligible donors, encouraging them to submit their employer requests. We also launched an autosubmission function, which allows donors to skip steps in the employer request submission process. By selecting a box on your donation confirmation page, they can opt-in to have our tools automatically check their eligibility and submit their requests to their employers on their behalf. No need for your team to step in when you have automation handling the hard work for you!

Use autosubmission to automate your nonprofit digital marketing for matching gifts.

No matter how you leverage it, automation can be a powerful strategy when it comes to digital marketing for nonprofits. Think carefully about how it can play into your plans without risking the personalized touch of manual outreach, and explore the best tools to help you leverage marketing automation. Depending on your needs and existing technology, these might include matching gift tools, nonprofit Salesforce apps, or software designed to automate communications on a specific channel, like a text marketing app.

Tailor your outreach with segmentation.

Generic outreach won’t get you very far. Instead, personalize your outreach. This conveys that you care about your supporters, helping to capture their attention and build a stronger connection with each message you send.

Put yourself in a donor’s shoes. You receive an email that starts with “Dear generous donor.” Chances are, you won’t read the whole email. At the most, you might skim it. Your nonprofit’s online marketing tools should make it easy to customize your emails with recipients’ names.

Personalization should go further than adding their name to an email, though. That’s where segmentation comes into play!

You’ll want to create meaningful supporter segments, so you can send relevant appeals to those who are most likely to engage. To get started, you might create segments based on:

  • Past engagement history. Try creating groups based on past engagement with your organization—whether they’ve donated, attended events, volunteered, or engaged in other ways. That way, you can send volunteer opportunities primarily to volunteers, fundraising campaign details to committed donors, and so on. Common segments include first-time donors, recurring donors, match-eligible donors, volunteers, advocates, and peer-to-peer fundraisers.
  • Contact method. As you can tell by how many digital marketing outlets there are, there are countless ways to contact supporters. Consider noting their preferred communication methods in your CRM. That way, you can be sure to contact them using the channels to which they’re most responsive.
  • Age. Categorizing supporters by age allows you to determine the types of messages and platforms your supporters will be most receptive to. Even if they haven’t indicated their communication preferences, you can predict the best channels to use for each supporter. For instance, those under 25 might be more active on social media or be likely to interact with text messages, while supporters over 45 might prefer email.

Thoughtful segmentation can go a long way toward improving your nonprofit’s digital marketing. While primarily used in email marketing for nonprofits, it’s also a great strategy for any other channel!

Improve your nonprofit’s website.

With all that rides on your website, it’s well worth putting some thought behind your site’s design to create a valuable experience for each visitor. As a starting point, follow these best practices:

  • Use a mobile-responsive design. Half of all nonprofit web traffic comes from mobile users. By optimizing your site for mobile users, you’ll make it easy for all supporters to learn about your cause, no matter what device they’re using! Use a mobile-responsive CMS to resize your web content to fit any device automatically. From here, compress your images, minimize the number of pop-ups you include, and reduce the number of fields you include on any form.
  • Reduce load time. The longer it takes your website to load, the more likely people are to leave. In fact, research from Google estimates that the probability of bounce increases by 32% as page load time goes from 1 to 3 seconds. Page speed also plays a pivotal role in your SEO performance since Google uses it as one of its ranking factors. To reduce your site’s load time, compress images, reduce redirects, enable browser caching, and minify any unnecessary coding.
  • Feature corporate giving. Your website is the perfect place to increase awareness for corporate giving! Include our employer search tool on your donation form to encourage more users to research their eligibility for their employers’ programs. Then, get crafty by developing a dedicated matching gifts page that defines what they are, covers common guidelines, and walks through the process. If you already have a Ways to Give page, you can include information about matching gifts, volunteer grants, and other corporate giving opportunities there, too!

There’s plenty you can do to make your website as valuable as possible for your nonprofit marketing strategy. For other recommendations, we recommend checking out the site requirements for Google Ad Grants. While specific to the program, these rules provide guidance tailored for all nonprofits to help them create valuable web content that speaks to their mission and inspires supporters to donate, volunteer, and buy their products and services.

Wrapping Up

Digital marketing for nonprofits is an incredible opportunity to spread more awareness for your mission than ever before. From promoting corporate giving to increasing event attendance, there’s no limit to what you can accomplish for your mission.

Remember to spend time crafting a thoughtful nonprofit digital marketing strategy that plays to your organization’s strengths and connects you with your unique audience. Leverage all sorts of channels like social media, Google search ads, and email to make a lasting impression on supporters. In no time, you’ll strengthen your digital presence and drive greater outcomes for your work.

To continue enhancing your nonprofit’s outreach, explore these resources:

Work with Getting Attention to strengthen your nonprofit digital marketing strategy with the Google Ad Grant.

Top Fundraisers with Standout Matching Gift Success

5 Fundraisers with Standout Matching Gift Success

/in , , /by

Double the Donation works with thousands of clients in the nonprofit and educational fundraising spaces. And just about all of our clients have seen significant matching gift success when employing our tools!

In this post, we wanted to spotlight a few standout examples of impactful matching gift strategies from top fundraisers. These include:

  1. Leukemia and Lymphoma Society
  2. The Greater Boston Food Bank
  3. Southern California Public Radio
  4. Humane Society International
  5. Marietta College

As we explore tried-and-true practices exemplified by these notable organizations, make a note of the strategies you can leverage in your own team’s matching gift fundraising efforts.

Matching gift success story: LLS

Matching Gift Success Story #1: Leukemia and Lymphoma Society

Founded in 1949, the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society is one of the largest medical research organizations in the world. With a specific dedication to blood cancer treatment, the nonprofit averages over $285 million in annual contributions and has funded more than $1.6 billion in groundbreaking advancements.

LLS also hosts a few of the largest peer-to-peer-focused nonprofit fundraising events. This includes its Light the Night Walk, which collects more than $70,000,000 from over 1 million participants each year.

And a significant portion of their workplace giving fundraising has been made available through corporate matching gift programs!

Matching Gift Facts and Figures

  • LLS began leveraging Double the Donation’s matching gift automation platform in June 2017.
  • Since getting started with Double the Donation, the organization increased its matching gift revenue year-over-year by more than 48%, bringing in an additional $3.4 million through corporate matching for the cause.
  • More than 1,500,00+ LLS donors interact with Double the Donation tools throughout and following the donation process itself.

Let’s take a look at some of the main functionality leveraged by the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society in regard to their matching gift growth:

  • Email domain screening and streamlined search tool on donation forms to identify match-eligible gifts;
  • Detailed matching gift program results and forms on donation confirmation/thank-you page;
  • Automated messaging to match-eligible and unknown donors with customized email sending logic, branding, sending domain (from @lls.org), subject lines, graphics, and more;
  • Matching gift plugin across multiple websites and forms;
  • Outbound calling to top match prospect opportunities;
  • Custom sending limits for major and recurring gifts;
  • Top-notch data security measures, including data encryption, intrusion detection software, intrusion penetration software, multi-factor logins, malware detection, and vulnerability scanning;
  • Full CRM sync to make the most of donor data collected through matching gift strategies.

Want to see it in action? View Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s matching gifts page here:

LLS matching gift page

Matching gift success story: Greater Boston Food Bank

Matching Gift Success Story #2: The Greater Boston Food Bank

The Greater Boston Food Bank was founded in 1981 and has since grown into the largest hunger relief organization in all of New England. Through free mobile markets, SNAP assistance, forward-thinking research, and more, GBFB empowers those struggling with food insecurity in Eastern Massachusetts.

With over 80,000 donors annually supporting their efforts, the Greater Boston Food Bank brings in more than $175 million in total revenue each year.

Matching Gift Facts and Figures

  • The GBFB saw a 56% increase in its annual matching gift revenue after getting started with Double the Donation’s automated solution.
  • In their first year using the tools, GBFB matching gift revenue grew from $1,188,585 to over $1,853,036⁠—a difference of more than $660,000.
  • Over $790,000 worth of match-eligible dollars were identified by Double the Donation’s software in a twelve-month period.

Here are the primary components of our matching gift solution employed by the Greater Boston Food Bank:

  • Email domain screening and streamlined search tool on donation forms, which enables the organization to quickly and easily uncover match opportunities;
  • Full, company-specific matching gift program guidelines and links to request forms automatically populating on donation confirmation pages;
  • Custom restrictions and email logic, and organization-specific sending domain, providing a targeted outreach experience for each donor;
  • Automated donor segmentation by match eligibility (likely match-eligible, likely match-ineligible, unknown eligibility) with personalized next steps for each type.

See what they’re doing to drive success! View The Greater Boston Food Bank’s matching gifts page here:

Greater Boston Food Bank matching gift page

Matching gift success story: SCPR

Matching Gift Success Story #3: Southern California Public Radio

Southern California Public Radio (SCPR) is a member-supported public media network operating multiple radio stations in the Southern California region. Its primary station (formerly known as KPCC and since re-branded as LAist 89.3) is a non-commercial educational radio provider.

Together, the network of stations reaches more than 800,000 listeners, with a goal to provide high-quality news and other informational content to its audiences. SCPR has a total annual revenue of over $40 million through individual and corporate contributions alike.

Matching Gift Facts and Figures

  • Southern California Public Radio saw a 55% increase in matching gift revenue after employing Double the Donation’s automated solution to increase awareness of match opportunities among donors.
  • More than 75,000 SCPR donors interact with Double the Donation technology, from the company search tool and program guideline plugin to follow-up emails and submission portal links.

Here’s how SCPR is using Double the Donation to drive more matching gifts to completion:

  • Multiple donor screening methods to identify and follow up on available matches⁠—including email domain screening and our matching gift database search tool;
  • Full matching gift company guidelines available on gift confirmation screens, providing details such as minimum and maximum donation amounts, match ratios, qualifying nonprofit and employee types, submission deadlines, and links to request forms;
  • Automated and custom-branded email messaging for match-eligible and unknown donors;
  • Personalized donor experiences, encouraging supporters to take outlined next steps and pursue matching gifts using custom email sending logic;
  • Access to matching gift search tool plugin across multiple website domains and online giving forms, ensuring donors have easy access to the information they need;
  • Custom sending limits for recurring and major gift donors, complete with email blocklist and unsubscribe functionality;
  • High levels of data security, including data encryption, IDS, IPS, multi-factor login, and malware and vulnerability scanning to keep donor information safe and secure.

See for yourself! View Southern California Public Radio’s matching gifts page here:

SCPR matching gift page

Matching gift success story: Humane Society International

Matching Gift Success Story #4: Humane Society International

Since 1991, Humane Society International (also known as HSI) has served in the animal welfare space to promote positive relations between humans and animals across the globe. With an annual revenue nearly totaling $24 million, HSI leverages individual donors, corporate support, and more to make a difference in the lives of creatures everywhere.

Matching Gift Facts and Figures

  • HSI saw an increase of more than 17% in its matching gift revenue year-over-year by employing Double the Donation’s fully automated solution.
  • $234,000+ match-eligible donations were identified in the first year using matching gift automation.
  • Over 68,000 matching gift emails were sent in a twelve-month period⁠—including matching gift program guidelines, submission reminders, and more.

Specifically, Humane Society International leveraged Double the Donation to enable:

  • Easy match-eligible donor identification (through email domain screening, donation form search tools, etc.);
  • Detailed matching program guidelines and next steps, providing easy access to company match criteria, deadlines, and submission instructions;
  • Automated matching gift messaging, such as program eligibility and reminders;
  • Customized email functionality (e.g., sending logic, limits and restrictions, sending domains, subject lines, image branding, and more) to ensure personalized donor communications;
  • High-level data security measures (including encryption, intrusion detection, and vulnerability scanning).

Take a look for yourself⁠—click here to see Humane Society International’s matching gifts page:

Humane Society International matching gift page

Matching gift success story: Marietta College

Matching Gift Success Story #5: Marietta College

Established in 1835 in Marietta, Ohio, Marietta College is a private liberal arts school. Offering more than 50 undergraduate and graduate majors, Marietta College provides focus areas across arts, sciences, humanities, and more.

All in all, the college receives over $70 million in annual revenue per year, with nearly $46 million coming from tuition and fees and more than $22 million from donor funding and grants⁠—including corporate matching.

Matching Gift Facts and Figures

  • Marietta College identified more than $40,000 in match-eligible donations in the first year of using Double the Donation.
  • The school boasts an open rate of 60% for their automated matching gift emails, which is approximately three times the industry average open rate of 20%.

Here’s how Marietta College and Double the Donation teamed up to maximize matching gifts with these key features:

  • Corporate email domain screening and donation form search fields to collect employment information;
  • Complete match results auto-populating through confirmation screens, email follow-ups, and match page searches;
  • Customization of email sending logic, company restrictions, message sending limits, email domains, subject lines, and more.
  • Automated email follow-ups for donors identifies as match-eligible, match-ineligible, and unknown employment status, providing detailed next steps and actionable insights to drive matching gifts.

Get schooled! View Marietta College’s matching gifts page here:

Marietta College matching gift page

Wrapping Up

Most nonprofits receive some amount of matching gift revenue even without a dedicated plan in place. However, a much smaller percentage of organizations have a well-thought-out strategy with the tools to implement it. Ultimately, the latter group comprises those that are making the most of the opportunity at hand.

When you take a long look at these groups (such as those highlighted above), you can uncover the practices that produce standout matching gift success. Then, begin emulating such tips and tricks in your own team’s efforts with strategic matching gift training and access to innovative technology. And Double the Donation is here to help!

Double donations with our matching gift marketing plan template

Interested in learning more about matching gift fundraising and how your nonprofit can maximize revenue through the source? Check out our other educational resources below:

Bring matching gift success to your own organization with Double the Donation

Alternative Fundraising Avenues: Recouping After Lost Funding Sources

Alternative Fundraising Avenues: Recouping After Lost Funding Sources

/in , , /by

There are many different funding types at the disposal of nonprofit causes. These sources empower organizations like yours to bankroll mission programming and behind-the-scenes operations alike. Still, most fundraisers end up relying on a few primary channels to power the brunt of their operations.

So what happens when one of those key sources becomes unavailable? Oftentimes, that means it’s time to begin searching for alternative fundraising avenues.

And we’re here to help! In this guide, we’ll cover:

Ready to dive in? Let’s start at the beginning.

Why your nonprofit might lose a funding source

The loss of a nonprofit funding source can be jarring⁠, and you might not always see it coming. However, understanding common causes behind lost fundraising avenues can make a big difference in preparing to overcome whatever obstacles are thrown your way.

Some scenarios in which your organization finds itself without a key funding source might include losses of major donors (whether due to passing, changing financial circumstances, or other reasoning), specific grants not coming through, and more.

One of the most prominent⁠—and widespread⁠—examples of this occurred at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in March of 2020. Still, the lingering effects remained for years after the fact. And that’s when organizations across the globe that had been previously dependent on revenue generated through in-person fundraising events were now without access to the source.

Luckily, all was not lost! Instead, organizations went to work rapidly transitioning events to the virtual realm in order to maintain donor engagement and giving.

Another, more recent instance? The cessation of Amazon’s philanthropic initiative, AmazonSmile, in February 2023. This program had been a fairly effortless source of income for over one million local and national causes, producing more than $365 million for participating organizations. Once the closing of the program was announced, tons of nonprofits began scrambling to locate new ways to make up the income they’d been depending on.

And that brings us to our next section!

Next steps after losing a funding source

If your nonprofit has just lost a key source of funding, you may be tempted to enter panic mode. But first, we recommend taking a few easy steps to get your organization back on track for financial success.

Determine how much was lost from the source.

First and foremost, start by gauging exactly how much was lost from the source.

If you were expecting a particular grant payout or a donor had been contributing a static amount year after year, you could fairly simply determine the amount you were accounting for. On the other hand, more variable sources⁠—e.g., fundraising events or programs like AmazonSmile⁠—can be estimated by calculating the average dollar amounts received over a period of time, such as the last months or years.

For example, many organizations are (understandably) fretting about the AmazonSmile program shutting down. However, reports indicate that the average annual payout for the program was a mere $230.

Looking at it this way can help contextualize the loss and make an actionable plan to compensate for the lack of funding.

Pursue new fundraising avenues.

Now, begin brainstorming ways to make up for the lost funding. When one door closes, another one may be opening. That means it might be time to pursue a brand new funding avenue.

A few examples may include:

  • Launching an online store (such as selling branded merchandise for your cause!)
  • Exploring fee-for-service models (e.g., summer camp, youth programming, etc.)
  • Hosting a nonprofit crowdfunding campaign

Keep in mind that this idea can look vastly different from one organization to the next. After all, there’s a world of opportunities readily available.

Ramp up existing (yet often underutilized) funding types.

What about those revenue streams that produce some funding for your cause, but you don’t have a particularly built-out strategy for making the most of the resource? It’s a great chance to optimize your efforts regarding those funding types, as well!

For many organizations, this is where corporate giving programs fall. Perhaps you’ve received a number of matching donations, maybe even a few volunteer grants. However, you might generally rely on individual supporters to pursue those avenues on their own. In that case, now might be the best opportunity to ramp up your efforts to help ensure no matches are ultimately going unclaimed.

Diversifying funds with 10+ alternative revenue streams

When you rely too heavily on any one type of funding, you run the risk of financial instability should something happen to that source. Thus, one of the best ways to prepare your organization prior to losing potential revenue streams is to ensure a well-rounded and sustainable funding model.

Example alternative fundraising avenues to pursue

Let’s take a look at some of the most popular⁠—and impactful⁠—kinds of nonprofit funding to consider. Keep in mind that a versatile fundraising strategy likely incorporates many, if not all, of these earning types.

1. Corporate Giving

According to corporate giving research, corporations contribute, on average, over $21 billion each year. Much of this funding is donated through generous programs, such as:

  • Matching gifts
  • Volunteer grants
  • Sponsorships
  • Corporate grants

However, billions of dollars in workplace giving revenue is left on the table each year, largely due to a lack of knowledge surrounding the programs.

Want to increase participation in corporate philanthropy and drive additional corporate funding to your cause? Identify the right opportunities (such as by using a database like Double the Donation) and raise awareness among supporters. You can even encourage them to get their employers involved! Don’t worry: we’ll share more on matching gifts later.)

2. Individual Gifts

Many nonprofits make up the majority of their annual fundraising revenue through individual donor giving. This typically includes a number of specific giving types, such as:

  • Small-dollar gifts
  • Mid-size gifts
  • Major gifts
  • Planned gifts

In order to maximize individual giving, be sure to send personalized and targeted fundraising appeals. You’ll also want to emphasize the tangible impact of generous donations on your nonprofit’s mission.

Plus, the above-cited research shows that simply highlighting matching gifts in donation asks results in a 71% increase in response rate and a 51% increase in average gift amount.

3. Grants

Nonprofit (or fundraising) grants are a specific type of monetary contribution made to a charitable cause. They are typically larger than the average donation amount and are often restricted to funding a particular project or program.

Grants can be made by a range of different institutions but generally fall into one of the following categories:

  • Foundation grants
  • Government grants (federal, state, and local)
  • Corporate grants

Most grants require some sort of application process and may include a dedicated proposal to be submitted. In order to secure more grant funding for your organization, it’s a good idea to spend some time researching opportunities and creating optimized proposal materials.

4. Event Revenue

Nonprofit fundraising events can certainly be fan-favorite experiences⁠—and can range from informal run/walk/ride competitions to elegant gala affairs. And each event typically encompasses multiple opportunities for generating revenue.

For example, your event may collect funding from:

  • Ticket sales or entrance fees
  • Auction bids
  • Merchandise sales
  • Individual donations
  • Event sponsorships

When you choose to host a fundraising event for your organization, be sure to invest time and resources into marketing the opportunity effectively beforehand. After all, your audience would love to participate to support your cause, but they need to know the event is happening in order to attend.

5. Online Giving

In line with the digital revolution, online giving has increased steadily, seeing consistent year-over-year growth throughout the past decade and beyond.

Remember: donors want an easy digital giving experience, so the tools you use to power online donations are a critical component of your strategy.

(Hint: Double the Donation partners with some of the greatest online donation platforms in the industry. Check out our integrations to learn more!)

6. Direct Mail Donations

Though many assume that direct mail is an outdated fundraising strategy, the truth is that it remains an excellent way to engage with your donors in an offline manner.

In fact, recent fundraising statistics report that direct mail is the second-highest reported giving preference among Baby Boomer donors worldwide. At the same time, it’s one of the top four most inspirational channels to drive action among supporters in Millennial, Gen X, and Baby Boomer generations alike.

One way to modernize the giving avenue, however, is to provide an online option for giving⁠—even when an individual is being prompted through a direct mail ask. For example, you might include a scannable QR code or an easy-to-type digital giving page URL.

7. Peer-to-Peer Fundraising

Also known as social or P2P fundraising, peer-to-peer fundraising is an impactful way for nonprofits to raise substantial levels of funding while also expanding their campaign reach to new heights.

In these initiatives, organizations equip dedicated supporters with the tools they need to raise money on behalf of their favorite causes. Volunteer fundraisers then solicit donations from their own networks of friends, family members, and more.

In the end, P2P campaigns often culminate in an engaging event experience, such as a walk-a-thon!

8. Membership Fees

Some nonprofits take a membership-based approach to supplement their other existing funding sources. This is a particularly popular model among school PTAs, community programming organizations, and more. And it can be a great way to incentivize giving and foster a sense of camaraderie among members!

Organizations that choose to enact membership fees (sometimes referred to as dues) typically provide exclusive perks for those who join and aim to set their prices at an affordable monthly or yearly rate.

9. Recurring Gifts

Recurring donations offer a wide range of benefits for the nonprofits receiving them. Not only do individual supporters typically end up giving more through these programs, but it also aids organizations in estimating incoming revenue.

And leveling up your recurring gifts can be as easy as incorporating a button on your online donation pages! You may be pleasantly surprised as to how many donors opt to become regular supporters of your cause when presented with the easy opportunity to do so. In fact, average online monthly giving grew by over 40% as recurring donation options became an increasingly popular choice among online supporters.

10. In-Kind Donations

While not a direct source of funding, in-kind donations (i.e., any non-cash gifts of goods, services, or time) are an essential component of nonprofit fundraising. After all, these types of contributions empower organizations to stretch their budgets further than otherwise possible. And that allows them to allocate revenue to other areas of their operations.

To drive more in-kind donations, make sure to market the opportunity to your donors! Many individuals love supporting nonprofits by providing gifts-in-kind and seeing the impact that their tangible purchases can have on their favorite causes. Plus, Amazon still offers an easy way for charities to create and share online wishlists from which their supporters can purchase and send items directly to the organization.

Our favorite fundraising avenue: employee matching gifts!

While all of the above funding sources can provide significant benefits for the nonprofits who choose to establish the initiatives, our #1 favorite method is employee matching gifts. After all, this top alternative fundraising avenue has huge potential⁠—though it’s still going largely underutilized.

In fact, Double the Donation research indicates that an estimated $2 – $3 billion is donated through matching gift programs each year. However, an additional $4 – $7 billion goes unclaimed on an annual basis.

Not to mention, corporate matching gifts are an opportunity that nearly all nonprofit organizations qualify to participate in. Over 26 million individuals work for companies with matching gift programs, including over 65% of the Fortune 500. More than likely, a key segment of your existing and prospective donors falls into that matching-gift-eligible group.

When you highlight the widespread availability of these programs, your organization can benefit not only from increased corporate funding but from elevated donor giving, as well. The above-mentioned studies also show that individual supporters are more likely to give (71% growth in gift conversion rates) and to give more (51% higher average transaction amount) when matching gifts are promoted. Thus, in the end, your organization receives additional revenue streams and new opportunities for communication and engagement. Talk about a win-win!

Plus, if you’re looking for a particularly impactful source of fundraising revenue that doesn’t require a ton of staff time and resources, dedicated matching gift technology is the way to go. Leveraging a matching gift automation tool (like Double the Donation’s solution) increases matching gift funds for nonprofits by over 61%, with innovative new auto-submission functionality projected to yield more than an 80% increase in match revenue.

360MatchPro and DonorDrive provide value to your nonprofit

 

And in the face of adversity, you generally won’t have to worry about a negative impact on matching gifts. In reality, many companies were reported to have developed new and improved employee matching initiatives in the wake of COVID-19 and other economic downturns. Besides, should one company roll back its programming, you’ll likely have a number of additional matching opportunities to pursue⁠—making it a particularly sustainable fundraising practice over time.

Final Thoughts

Preparing your team with a range of diversified revenue can go a long way toward continuous operational success⁠. Even in the midst of lost funding avenues, you’ll have a number of alternative fundraising streams supporting your organization.

And when you have a plan in place for optimizing passive income opportunities (such as employer matching gifts and more), you can continue driving forward mission impact despite losing access to other sources.

Ready to dive deeper into some of our favorite alternative fundraising avenues for nonprofits and schools? Check out these additional resources below:

Diversify your fundraising avenues with Double the Donation

This guide explains how your nonprofit can manage and optimize its Google Ad Grant account.

Google Grant Optimization: Nonprofit Grant Management Tips

/in , , /by

Organizations with effective nonprofit marketing strategies utilize many tools to reach their audiences. From email blasts to social media posts, these organizations leverage numerous platforms to communicate valuable information. Among all these platforms, one source of truth remains constant—your nonprofit’s website. Whether you’re promoting matching gifts or an upcoming fundraising event, most communications point back to your nonprofit’s website for more information.

If your nonprofit takes advantage of the $10,000 Ad Grant from Google, you’re taking the right steps to promote your site and your organization’s most valuable information. However, the Google Ad Grant program isn’t a single-step process.

Nonprofits are not only required to maintain their eligibility for the Google Ad Grant but also must optimize their ads and accounts to drive real results from the program. In this guide, we’ll show you how to optimize your Google Grant by covering the following topics:

Truly making the most of this grant means managing it on a regular basis. When you do, you’ll expand your outreach as you increase website traffic and consistently appeal to new internet searchers. Understand what it means to optimize your Google Grant so you can develop a strategy that will effectively reach a large audience of potential supporters.

Click this graphic to learn more about the Google Ad Grant and how it can help promote your nonprofit’s matching gift program.

This section defines Google Grant account optimization.

What is Google Grant optimization?

Google Grant optimization means managing your nonprofit’s Google Ad Grant account and the advertisements you’ve created to ensure everything stays compliant with Google’s management policies and relevant to users’ search intents. Although you can optimize almost any aspect of your Google Ad Grant participation, some common areas for improvement include:

  • Keyword specificity: Ensure your ads target specific keywords (preferably long-tail, non-competitive terms). Look for opportunities to refine your keyword choices so that they’re more relevant to your organization’s current operations or goals. For example, an increase in the kitten population during the spring months might prompt an animal shelter to target keywords such as “spring kitten adoptions.”
  • Data organization: In order to keep keywords relevant to your cause, your nonprofit will have to keep hygienic keyword data. This means regularly checking the quality and relevance of your keywords so that you can adjust any keywords that aren’t performing well. An animal shelter might remove the keyword “pet adoptions as Christmas gifts” in February when it becomes irrelevant to the ad’s landing page. To determine when a keyword becomes outdated or nonvaluable, nonprofits should track keyword metrics, such as click-through rate (CTR), to understand how the keyword is performing.
  • Website improvements: Ensure that your website is relevant to the advertisement and provides a positive user experience for searchers who click on your ad. For starters, you can check to make sure the page is branded to your nonprofit, provides valuable information for the user, and includes the keyword targeted in the ad. Don’t stop at your landing page, though; ensure your website as a whole is valuable and easy to use for its visitors.
  • Account structure: Google’s guidelines for the way you use your Google Ad Grants account require nonprofits to maintain an orderly account structure. For example, you must include more than one ad per ad group and at least two ad groups per campaign. If your nonprofit doesn’t already follow this structure, you’re not only at risk of account deactivation but also missing out on valuable keyword insight.

These aspects of your Google Ad Grant participation are just a few elements that need regular maintenance. Remember, there are countless opportunities for optimization, and it’s a crucial part of leveraging Google Ads for your nonprofit’s outreach efforts. Both the account itself and the ads you create must be refreshed to meet your audience’s needs.

It’s natural for this to seem overwhelming—after all, the Google Ad Grant is free marketing funding. Shouldn’t it make nonprofit marketing easier? If you didn’t want a Google Ad Grant agency’s help during the application process, this is where their services can be especially helpful. They’ll manage your account so that all optimization tasks are completely handled while your nonprofit’s leaders focus on fulfilling your mission.

This section explains how your nonprofit can optimize its Google Ad Grant account to meet compliance requirements.

How to manage your nonprofit’s Google Ad Grant compliance

To break down optimization even further, it can be approached in two stages: account compliance and ad updates. Start with your account—make sure you’re in compliance with all the Google Ad Grant requirements. After all, optimized ads will be no good if your account is suspended!

The list of requirements is long, but there are a few crucial ones that your nonprofit should keep in mind:

  • Maintain regular activity within your account.
  • Make sure your ads are specifically targeted and relevant to your nonprofit.
  • Conduct monthly keyword research and optimize your list where necessary.
  • Maintain a minimum of a 5% click-through rate (CTR).
  • Track and report conversions and CTR.

Since your ads will lead users to your nonprofit’s website, Google also has specific website guidelines, including:

  • Your nonprofit must own the domain.
  • You must add any additional domains that your nonprofit owns to your Google Grants account.
  • Your website should host high-quality and well-maintained web pages.
  • Avoid commercial activity that is irrelevant to your nonprofit’s mission.

Bookmark Google’s guidelines and check regularly for updates. You’ll be notified when anything big changes, but it’s always a good idea to stay on top of the rules and make sure your account is compliant. Especially as you optimize your website and advertisements, keep the account criteria in mind so you don’t accidentally violate the guidelines amidst new changes.

This section gives an overview of Google Ad campaign performance tracking so your nonprofit can identify areas that need optimization.

How to gauge your nonprofit’s campaign performance

You may have heard the saying about not trying to fix something that isn’t broken. The implied first step in that statement is actually knowing something is broken. In the same way, your nonprofit will have to gauge its campaign performance before knowing what should be optimized. Evaluate your campaign performance by tracking:

  • CTR. Compare the number of people who clicked on your ad to the amount that saw it. A high click-through rate might indicate that your ad is compelling enough to prompt viewers to take action. Consider how you can adjust your other ads to match this quality or plan how your future ads will be similar.
  • Conversion data. Conversions, which refer to the users who take a desired action after seeing your ad, are likely the goal of your campaign. Track this data to determine if your Google Ads are producing the desired results. For example, an ad that invites users to register for a volunteer event is effective if the number of volunteer registrations has increased due to your Google Ad.
  • Cost-per-conversion. Consider the cost of your desired results. How much did an ad and keyword cost your nonprofit? How many conversions can you attribute to this ad? Although you won’t specifically pay for conversions, this comparison can give your nonprofit an estimate of how much of its budget is spent producing the ad’s desired results.

Most metrics can be tracked by Google Analytics when you link your accounts. However, you’ll need to compare this to your organization-specific metrics to see the tangible impact of your Google Ads performance. For example, to see the impact of a Google Ad on your matching gift program, you’ll have to combine your own data of the number of gifts matched with the ad’s CTR.

For this reason, it’s crucial that you keep your own data organized, as well. Consider using a database to host all this information in the same place, or hiring a Google Ad Grant agency to track and report your data for you.

This section explains how to optimize your nonprofit’s Google Grant account ads.

How to optimize your nonprofit’s Google Grant account ads

As you evaluate your campaign metrics, change your perspective of underperformance. Optimization doesn’t strictly target failing elements of your Google Ad Grant efforts but makes every aspect of your advertising more successful.

As you narrow your optimization from account structure to individual ads, consider which ones produce the greatest results. Then, adjust the rest of your ads to mimic this strategy. For example, if you find that your highest-performing ad highlights a unique attribute of your organization’s work, you might incorporate that fact into the copy of your other ads. In general, to improve your ads, you can:

  • Rephrase your ad copy. The ad copy is the meat of your advertisement. Make it compelling but concise, and use the keyword or its variations to draw in your audience. A tempting call to action will also prompt searchers to click on your ad, especially if it’s specific and relevant to the search.
  • Link to targeted landing pages. You’ll have varying ads for different keywords, and specificity here is key. If your ad’s headline is misleading, users will quickly become disinterested in the content of your landing page. In contrast, a landing page that is highly specific to the purpose of the ad will retain site visitors and ultimately prompt them to get involved.
  • Revise your ad groups. Make sure that the associated keywords for your ad groups are still relevant to your target audience. Also, build out your ads so that you’re using 3-5 ads per group. This variety allows you to try different targeting methods to determine what tactic is most successful.
  • Organize your campaigns. Campaign management can also impact the way you plan and develop your ads. Assign a theme to each campaign and use those categories to target broader ideas with specific keywords. For example, an animal shelter’s campaign theme might be “adoptions” and the targeted keywords for different ad groups could be “spring kitten adoptions” and “no-fee dog adoptions.” Another theme would be “animal fosters” with keywords such as “dog foster application” and “cat foster fees.”

Although some tactics for Google Ad Grant management require technical account optimization and research, your actual ads are the component that has the potential to convert a user into a supporter. Adjust your ads based on what you know about your supporters and revisit them regularly to make changes as needed.

This section provides concluding remarks and additional resources to use for more information about Google Grant optimization.

Conclusion and additional resources

Once you’ve identified the changes you need to make to your Google Grant account, you can proceed with optimizations to ensure you’re making the most of this free marketing funding. Remember, optimization is not a one-time update. It’s important that you frequently check your Google Grant account and advertisements and make adjustments whenever it’s necessary.

This can be a big undertaking, both initially and as optimizations become a regular part of your account maintenance. Research Google Ad Grant agencies to determine if hiring one will benefit your nonprofit. Our recommendation, Getting Attention, is a full-service agency that can manage every aspect of your grant.

If you’re interested in other types of free marketing funding or methods of donor engagement, check out these additional resources:

Click this graphic to learn more about expert Google Grant optimization from the top professional Ad Grant agency, Getting Attention.

What to Know About Our Standard Matching Gift Request Form

What to Know About Double the Donation’s Standard Matching Gift Form

/in , , , /by

Corporate matching gifts can offer a significant revenue source for charitable organizations. In order to leverage the programs, a nonprofit’s donors typically must submit a matching gift form to their employers. The form essentially allows an individual to provide details about their own qualifying donation and request an associated corporate match.

Unfortunately, this has long been a critical drop-off point for organizations looking to make the most of available matching opportunities. Many donors lack an understanding of the request process that is required of them. That’s why, for more than a decade, Double the Donation has created software aimed to simplify the process by providing company-specific details, next steps, and more.

Now, we’re taking it a step further with our easier-than-ever-before standard matching gift form. And in this guide, we’ll tell you all about it as we walk through the basics:

Unclaimed matches hinder the impact potential of charitable organizations, their donors, and the businesses partaking in workplace giving programs alike. By streamlining and automating the request process altogether, we can take an additional step toward maximal usage.

Let’s see how Double the Donation’s intuitive standard matching gift request form can help.

Top tip! Consider working with one of our suggested CSR platforms as your #1 choice for workplace giving program management. But if you’re not ready for that, our standard matching gift form is a great backup!

What is Double the Donation’s standard matching gift form?

There is a range of ways that a donor can submit a matching gift request to their employing company, and a lot of that depends on the company the individual works for. For example, one old-fashioned company might still accept paper forms that require employees to complete and scan or mail back to process. At the same time, a different business may have moved to a completely online system using a digital submission portal.

Regardless of the method with which documentation is completed, a matching gift form generally encapsulates the same information. Most often, these include three types of data points:

  • Donor Information ⁠— Details about the donors themselves; Frequently some combination of name, contact information, and perhaps an employee identification number.
  • Recipient Nonprofit Information ⁠— Provides an overview of the nonprofit the individual donor supported; Typically asks for the organization name, mailing address, EIN, and other contact information.
  • Donation Information ⁠— Pertaining to the recent transaction; Generally involves a donation amount and date.

Here's an example of Double the Donation's standard matching gift request form

As you might guess, a lot of the above information can be a bit redundant for the donor. Now, Double the Donation’s standard matching gift form pulls the necessary data points directly from the transaction, as well as information collected from nonprofits, to automatically fill in the document. Once completed, a PDF is immediately sent to the matching gift coordinator via email designated by the company.

It’s an easier process for donors and ultimately results in a greater matching gift program impact.

How does the standard matching gift request form work?

Perhaps you’re thinking, “sounds great⁠—but how does it actually work?” In that case, let’s see the process in action for participating companies, step by step.

1. An individual makes a donation to their favorite nonprofit cause, entering their employer’s name in Double the Donation’s company search tool.

If their employing company has enabled matching gift e-submission through our standard request form, the donor will be prompted to authorize Double the Donation to submit a match on their behalf. (Typically, all the individual is required to do is enter their corporate email address and check a box!)

Donors can complete the matching gift request process from the confirmation page when their employer uses Double the Donation's standard matching gift form

2. Double the Donation automatically fills in the blanks on our standard matching gift form to provide the employing company with the information they need.

Generally, donor and transaction information is pulled from the donation record itself, while nonprofit details are made available through pre-filled organization profiles within Double the Donation.

Here's an example of Double the Donation's completed standard matching gift request form

 

3. The auto-filled match request form is emailed in a PDF document to the matching gift coordinator identified by the company.

From there, the employer reviews the match request, as usual, to ensure the initial donation meets the company’s predetermined match eligibility criteria. Assuming it does, the match is approved, and funding is provided to the nonprofit cause!

Standard matching gift form confirmation

Key benefits of our standard form for donors, nonprofits, and companies

The more you can simplify the matching gift process, the better your overall results will be. This is true whether you’re on the corporate or the nonprofit side of things. And luckily, Double the Donation’s standard match request form is designed to do just that for both parties⁠—plus your common denominator, employee donors.

Let’s dive into a few key advantages for each perspective.

For Donors

Donors love participating in matching gift programs (in fact, 84% of individuals report being more likely to give if they know a match is being offered). But when the process involved gets too complicated or time-consuming, even dedicated and eligible donors sometimes fail to complete the task.

When all that’s asked of them is to enter their corporate email address, on the other hand, individuals will be much more likely to follow through. And in doing so, participating donors receive the benefit of knowing their support is going twice as far for a cause they care about.

For Nonprofits

According to matching gift research, only 8% of eligible donors know their employers offer a matching gift program and know how to go about submitting a match request. This significant knowledge gap plays a huge role in more than $4 to $7 billion in available match funding going unclaimed each year.

By simplifying the request process and providing an easy way for donors to submit requests to their companies, Double the Donation’s standard match form results in increased funding for nonprofit organizations.

For Companies

Companies that accept the standard matching gift form receive all the benefits of offering a matching gift program in the first place⁠—in larger quantities. After all, the more a business donates to charitable causes, the better its overall CSR. Optimal CSR leads to elevated employee engagement (productivity, longevity, recruitment, etc.), improved image (increased sales and brand loyalty), and more.

Leveraging Double the Donation’s standard match form simplifies employee participation, thus maximizing program use levels.

Getting started with our matching gift request form

We’ve designed our standard matching gift form to be as simple as possible⁠—while still accomplishing the intended task. And that includes the ease with which organizations and businesses can get set up.

Interested in taking the next steps? Here’s how you can quickly begin leveraging the benefits of the common match request form for your team.

For Nonprofits

If your nonprofit employs Double the Donation’s matching gift automation solution, there’s good news! Your donors are already set to partake in streamlined e-submission through our standard request form. When a qualifying individual makes a donation using your online giving form and selects their employer during the donation experience, they’ll be prompted to submit their match request automatically from your gift confirmation screen.

To ensure the match form is completed with accurate information, be sure to fill out your Organization Profile in Double the Donation. This also increases the likelihood that matches are approved by participating companies. And it simplifies the process for you, your donors, and their employers.

If your organization has yet to get started with Double the Donation, you can schedule a demo here to see our tools in action⁠—and learn more about the impact of the standard match form.

For Companies

Double the Donation’s matching gift form can certainly simplify the matching gift request process for employees. Still, we recommend that companies leverage a complete corporate giving platform to manage their philanthropic efforts. But if you’re looking for a temporary solution to streamline matching gifts from the donor’s perspective or would like to accept our standard matching gift form in addition to your more built-out process, getting started is quick and easy.

Here’s how:

If your company has developed an employee matching program for the first time, click here to add your initiative to our comprehensive database. As you provide information about your company’s submission process, be sure to select that you’d like to use Double the Donation’s standard form.

On the other hand, if your company’s existing program is already listed in Double the Donation’s database, click here to suggest updates to your program guidelines. Then, indicate that you’d like to accept the standard match form. You’ll be prompted to enter the name, phone number, and email of the person who manages the company’s giving initiatives.

And that’s it! From there, the specified contact person will receive completed match request forms each time an employee makes a donation to a qualifying nonprofit and selects the automated e-submission choice.

Final Thoughts

The future of matching gifts is here, and it’s increasingly reliant on innovative technology to streamline and simplify the process. Double the Donation’s standard matching gift form is one example of this. As corporate philanthropy continues to become a higher priority by companies across the globe, the demand for matching gifts⁠—and standardized processes with them⁠—will continue to grow.

Ready to learn more about corporate matching gift programs and the tools that power them? Check out our other recommended resources:

Learn more about our standard matching gift form and auto-submission offerings

New and Improved Functionality: Matching Gift Form E-Sign

New and Improved Functionality: Matching Gift Form E-Sign

/in , , , /by

Matching gift programs have been revolutionized in the last several years, with companies of all shapes and sizes getting involved. And with this transformation is also that of matching gift forms. Ideally, employers want to offer a request process that is quick and easy for team members to participate and reduces administrative workload behind the scenes. So where does matching gift form e-sign come in?

Dive in to explore key trends and current happenings regarding employee match fundraising, particularly in terms of matching gift e-sign. We’ll walk through:

Double the Donation has long been at the forefront of corporate giving innovation. That’s why we’re here to provide your team with the context you need to understand matching gift technology, functionality, and more.

The historical significance of matching gifts form e-sign functionality

Historically, many companies required donors to submit matching gift request forms on paper. After all, General Electric launched the very first matching gift program in 1954, when electronic mail was still the stuff of science fiction. Over the next few decades, many matching gift programs used the paper form model for their original program launches as they were created.

Now, let’s fast forward to 2011 when Double the Donation was established. Some forward-thinking companies have already begun offering online submissions to simplify the matching gift process for their employees. As a result, Double the Donation was perfectly positioned to help these donors submit their matching gift requests by linking directly to those online portals. However, some companies were dragging their feet and still requiring paper-matching gift forms.

How could Double the Donation support donors whose companies required paper forms? Our solution was to develop cutting-edge matching gift form e-sign functionality. With Double the Donation e-sign, donors could simply complete a pre-filled online PDF and send it to their company’s matching gift program managers that way.

And it worked! We saw an immediate increase in the percentage of these paper-only donors who submitted matching gift requests. But at the same time, the transition to electronic-only submission in the industry was already accelerating.

The move away from paper-matching gift forms

As online submissions are increasing, the inverse is true for historic paper forms⁠—in the past few years, we’ve seen paper forms becoming significantly less popular.

For context, when Double the Donation got its start, about 70% of match-eligible employees had a paper or PDF option for submitting their matching gift requests. But by 2017, the percentage of match-eligible employees eligible to submit a paper form dropped all the way to 7.1%. And the number who actually chose to use the forms was even lower.

That’s because online portal submission is easier, faster, more secure, and all-around better for donors, the companies they work for, and the organizations they support. It’s been proven time and time again: When both an electronic submission option and a paper one are offered to the same employee group, more matching gift submissions are completed through the online process.

In fact, some of the most well-known philanthropic companies have adapted to an online-only submission process over the past few years. Check out these quotes from the following employers:

  • IBM: “New process for 2017. Next year, we will introduce an online process for matching grants and eliminate the use of printed applications.”
  • Merck: “Please discontinue the use of all paper request forms. Matching gift funds should be submitted via the Merck website.”
  • Alliant Energy: “We moved to an online request process only in 2015. This will provide a more efficient method for our Foundation.”
  • Prudential: “We will no longer offer paper forms for the Matching Gifts Program.”

And that was just the tip of the iceberg!

Discontinuation of Double the Donation’s prior matching gift form e-sign feature

So what did this mean for us?

With these process changes occurring, the percentage of donors submitting paper match requests continued to fall. By the end of 2018, only an estimated 4% of donors ⁠used the historical paper-only approach—and that figure has decreased steadily since then.

All these factors led us to the easy decision to shift our focus away from the e-signing of paper forms and toward the future of matching gifts.

Now, you might ask⁠—But haven’t you heard the statistic that 50% of companies use paper-matching gift forms?

We certainly have! But it’s important to remember that in a changing industry, statistics and assumptions have to be continually re-assessed. Double the Donation commits to always looking into the data to recognize when we need to re-evaluate. This is one of those situations.

It may have been true years ago that 50% (or so) of companies required paper-matching gift form submission. However, more recent analysis has shown that this statistic is not just outdated⁠—it doesn’t tell the full story.

Think about the different companies that have matching gift programs. Businesses of all shapes and sizes come to mind, from Home Depot with half a million employees to the local pizzeria that employs five individuals. Home Depot requires electronic form submission, while the local pizza joint requires paper forms. You can see that Home Depot’s program affects significantly more donors than the pizzeria.

In other words, ask yourself this:

What is more useful for your organization to know in this scenario: that 50%—or at this point, likely less⁠—of companies require paper forms or that a tiny percentage of match-eligible donors use paper forms? Which statistic should you base your fundraising decisions on?

Our answer to the previous question is exactly why we’ve started weighing our analysis by employee count⁠. And the resulting statistics tell a compelling story. The biggest matching gift programs affecting the largest percentages of donors have already moved away from paper matching gift forms. And we’re seeing smaller programs following suit, as well!

Therefore, at Double the Donation, we’re doing the same with our own development priorities.

The future of matching gift fundraising

The move to online matching isn’t the only trend we’re seeing in corporate social responsibility. In the past decade, we’ve also kept our fingers on the pulse of another trend: the increasing consolidation of workplace-giving solutions.

More and more often, companies are turning to workplace-giving platforms like Benevity, CyberGrants, YourCause, and more to help facilitate their matching gift programs. And it’s not just the Fortune 500 companies that are doing so! In fact, many breakthrough solutions⁠—such as Millie, Selflessly, Givinga, and POINT—have been designed specifically to aid small and mid-sized businesses in offering powerful matching gift programs.

Leveraging this type of software empowers charitable companies to do more with their philanthropic initiatives while minimizing the administrative workload. Meanwhile, we’ve also noticed that companies that outsource the facilitation of their giving process can offer more streamlined and optimized processes for employees wanting to get involved. This tends to result in elevated program usage, highly engaged team members, and more dollars funneling into nonprofit causes overall.

Breakthrough auto-submission with CSR partners

In the spirit of continuous improvement when it comes to matching gift technology and the match request process, Double the Donation has recently released a new game-changing feature⁠—auto-submission.

This innovative functionality, made possible through strategic integrations with forward-thinking corporate giving platforms, enables employees to request matches directly from an organization’s gift confirmation screen. This allows them to bypass the request process almost entirely. All they typically have to do is provide their email address and authorize Double the Donation to submit their match.

Auto-submission and matching gift form e-sign process

We’ve certainly come a long way since paper forms; now, some donors don’t have to complete a form at all! And this benefits every party involved. Employee donors can request their matches in less time and with fewer roadblocks. Nonprofit organizations receive increased match funding and more highly engaged supporters. Companies see elevated program usage, satisfied employees, and better public images.

Benefits of auto-submission and matching gift form e-sign

E-submission with our standard matching gift form

And that’s not all! The Double the Donation team has also developed a standard online matching gift form that employers can use to authorize automated electronic submissions themselves.

We recommend that all companies participating in workplace giving enlist the aid of a dedicated CSR platform. But for companies that may not be ready to take that next step but are interested in simplifying the matching gift request process, it’s now quick and easy to get started with our new standard submission form.

Matching gift form e-sign with Double the Donation's standard matching gift form

This basic form collects all the data an employer would need to review and approve a match request. This includes:

  • Donor information ⁠such as their name, corporate email address, and/or employee ID number;
  • Donation information ⁠such as donation amount and transaction date;
  • Nonprofit information ⁠such as name, website, mailing address, EIN, and more.

And it’s all automated so that donors can submit their matches quickly and easily, ultimately removing common roadblocks and driving more matching gifts to completion.

Top tip! Nonprofits looking to make the most of matching gift auto-submission and Double the Donation’s standard matching gift form should be sure to fill out their Organization Profile in Double the Donation. This allows the right information to be incorporated into the automated submission form, making it more likely that the match is ultimately approved and paid out.

Final thoughts

Matching gift submission processes are becoming increasingly standardized, centralized, and digitized. So how can we support nonprofits, schools, and other fundraising organizations in this shifting environment? The answer lies in guiding donors through the electronic portal submission process.

At Double the Donation, we focus on giving donors confidence, speed, and accuracy when submitting their matching gift requests. That means prioritizing personalized automation flows and database accuracy.

We’re heading into the future, and we hope you’ll join us!

Interested in learning more about Double the Donation’s innovative matching gift tips and tools? Check out these other educational resources:

Learn more about Double the Donation matching gift form e-sign auto-submission

This guide explores how nonprofits can start a donor retention program.

How to Start A Donor Retention Program for Your Nonprofit

/in , , /by

The importance of donor engagement is no mystery to nonprofit leaders. Engaged donors are loyal to your organization, meaning they’re more likely to support your nonprofit long-term. These supporters provide reliable revenue, attend events, and promote your cause to those around them. 

For donors to form strong connections that inspire continued support, your nonprofit will need an effective donor retention program. 

A structured donor retention program, backed by the right strategies and software, can keep your supporters coming back for years or even decades to come. In this guide, we’ll explore everything you need to know about standardizing your nonprofit’s donor retention practices:

Returning donors are fundamental for a nonprofit’s success. However, nonprofits are likely to approach creating a donor retention program in numerous ways. Let’s start our deep dive into how to retain more donors by going over the fundamentals.

Get connected with one of the most powerful retention strategies: matching gifts. Download our guide.

What are donor retention programs?

Donor retention refers to the rate at which a nonprofit’s donors continue to give after their first gift. Retained donors continue to give repeatedly over time and often participate in other activities the nonprofit offers, such as volunteering, attending events, or buying branded merchandise. 

A donor retention program is the standardized process your organization follows for implementing donor retention strategies. Taking a wholly unique approach to relationship cultivation with each donor is not practical or even possible for most nonprofits. Donor retention programs provide set guidelines your nonprofit can follow for nearly every donor to encourage them to continue giving. 

In order to engage first-time donors, donor retention programs should take into account their entire support journey. This timeline includes:

The graphic depicts the donor retention program cycle, written out below.

  • Before the donation. During initial contact, nonprofits should aim to inspire interest and an emotional connection to their cause. To pivot potential first-time donors to recurring supporters smoothly, nonprofits should consider emphasizing the importance of continued support in their outreach. 
  • During the donation process. Many donors will decide whether they will offer recurring support while making a donation. Ensure the process is streamlined, and make becoming a recurring donor as easy as checking a box or pressing a button. 
  • Donation confirmation. Confirm to donors that you successfully processed their gift. Follow up your initial confirmation and donation receipt delivery with a thank-you message within 48 hours of when the gift was made. 
  • Follow-up. Stay in touch with new donors to stoke their interest in your nonprofit and encourage them to pursue other engagement opportunities. For example, you might invite them to subscribe to your newsletter, explore your website’s content, attend an event, or volunteer. 
  • The next donation request. For supporters who did not opt into recurring donations, plan to ask for a follow-up donation after a reasonable amount of time has passed since their last donation. For supporters who choose to become recurring donors, continue engaging them and thanking them for each gift. 

Additionally, a donor retention program also takes lapsed donors into account. These donors used to give regularly but have recently stopped. The recapture rate for lapsed donors is only 4%, which means it’s often more effective for nonprofits to proactively focus on identifying donors at risk of lapsing and re-engaging them rather than waiting until they’ve stopped giving to take action.

What are the benefits of a donor retention program?

It’s easy to get caught up in the drive to attract new donors. After all, nonprofits need to continually grow their donor bases to scale their programs and better serve their beneficiaries. Acquiring new donors is also often a long and resource-intensive process, with it taking about eight touchpoints on average to earn a conversion. 

With such high costs, nonprofits can maximize their resources by earning recurring support from as many donors as possible. For example, if you attract five new donors who only give once, you have to pay the costs for attracting them five times. However, if you attract one new donor who gives five times, you only spend the resources to earn those five donations once. 

Along with being cost-effective, a donor retention program also systemizes your supporter engagement strategy. With processes in place for how to thank, communicate with, and re-engage donors, you can act more quickly, remove indecision paralysis, and grow your donor base. 

How to calculate donor retention rate

You can calculate your donor retention rate by dividing the number of donors who gave in a previous year by the number of donors who gave in the present year. Then, multiply the quotient by 100 to get a percentage.

This graphic illustrates the equation for calculating donor retention rate.

For example, let’s say 500 donors gave to your nonprofit last year and 275 of them gave again this year. 275 returning donors divided by 500 previous donors, multiplied by 100, would give you a 55% donor retention rate. This statistic means that more than half of last year’s donors stayed involved, beating the nonprofit sector average of 42.6%!

This graphic illustrates a 55% donor retention rate from the example in the text above.

After calculating your retention rate, determine what that rate means for your organization and what rate you’d like to achieve. For example, you might make the following determinations about different retention rates:

  • 0%-25%: Your nonprofit may have a lower rate in its early stages when cause and brand awareness are low. In this stage, share compelling calls to action that encourage active supporters to continue engaging with your nonprofit and focus on building relationships, such as by creating an email welcome series introducing them to your nonprofit. If you’re seeing rates like these, and your organization is not newly established, this should be a wake-up call that it’s time to make changes and reassess your donor outreach strategy. 
  • 25%-50%: If your donor retention rate falls in the 25-50% range, you’re likely about at or just below that nonprofit industry average. Pay close attention to your donors to spot signs that they may be at risk of lapsing and reach out before that can happen. 
  • 50%-75%: This range of retention is on the higher end, and your nonprofit should feel proud of its ability to forge strong connections with supporters. Keep hosting your engagement activities, showing your appreciation, and building a positive community that keeps supporters invested in your cause.  

Keep in mind that donors give for all sorts of reasons, and attaining a 100% retention rate is virtually impossible. For instance, if you run a peer-to-peer campaign, your nonprofit will likely get a burst of support from new donors who give to your cause because of a personal connection to one of your fundraisers. Most of these new supporters will be one-time donors, but their support for that specific campaign is still valuable.

Tools to help retain donors

You wouldn’t start cooking before making sure you have all the ingredients, and the same is true about starting a donor retention program. Consider what tools you’ll need to reach out to and build connections with donors. We recommend exploring the following software solutions.  

Auto-submission

What’s better than receiving regular gifts from a donor? Receiving regular gifts that are then doubled without your supporters having to spend a penny more!

Matching gifts are contributions corporations make to nonprofits that supplement their employees’ gifts, usually at a dollar-per-dollar ratio. For instance, if a donor regularly gives just $25 monthly but qualifies for a matching gift program, their employer will give an additional $25, totaling $50 each month. Over the course of a year, that donor and their employer will donate $600 to your nonprofit, all while barely impacting the donor’s budget. 

However, the matching gift request process does require donors to take extra steps after making their initial contribution, which can result in them deciding that pursuing a match isn’t worth the effort, especially if they have to do it every time they give. 

Fortunately, with Double the Donation’s matching gift auto-submission tool, your donors will have drastically less work to request a match. Auto-submission technology lets supporters jump from step two in the matching gift process all the way to step seven:

This graphic shows each step of making a matching gift from a donor’s point of view and how autosubmission can simplify that process.

The normal process goes something like this:

  1. Donor makes a gift.
  2. Donor determines their matching gift eligibility.
  3. Donor searches for the necessary forms and guidelines.
  4. Donor fills out a matching gift request.
  5. Donor submits the request. 
  6. The company assesses the donor’s match request. 
  7. The company approves the donor’s matching gift application. 
  8. Your nonprofit receives the matching gift funds. 

With auto-submission, donors are done as soon as they determine their matching gift eligibility and agree to use auto-submission. From there, the tool completes the form for them and sends it off to their employer. Interested in learning a bit more about just how auto-submission technology accomplishes this? Here’s a breakdown of our revolutionary new tool:

To get started with matching gift auto-submission, your nonprofit will need matching gift software. Currently, Double the Donation is proud to be the only matching gift vendor that offers this cutting-edge feature. Qualifying supporters will also need to work for a company that uses CSR software that integrates with Double the Donation. This means not all of your recurring donors can take advantage of auto-submission, but those who can will have the easiest matching experience of their lives. 

Interested in learning more about matching gifts technology? Discover auto-submission!

eCards

Picture this: you make two donations, one to nonprofit A and one to nonprofit B. 

Nonprofit B sends you a confirmation email, but you don’t hear from them again until they send another donation request a month later. 

Nonprofit A sends a personalized thank-you message shortly after your confirmation email. Then, they get in touch to give you an update on the program you donated to support. The following week, they let you know about an upcoming event in your area where you can meet other supporters in your community. Finally, they send a request for another donation. 

Which nonprofit’s follow-up donation request are you more likely to answer? Most would say nonprofit A because they showed appreciation, helped the donor understand their impact, and made an effort to get them involved in their community rather than just jumping straight to asking for more money. 

To be like nonprofit A, you need to follow the first essential step of showing your appreciation. There are numerous ways to recognize your donors, and one technology-driven strategy combines timeliness with memorability: eCards. 

eCards are digital greeting cards that allow you to send eye-catching messages to donors through email, text, and even social media. Here’s a breakdown of how to use eCards in your retention strategy: 

  • Create branded eCards. Most eCard platforms will have basic templates you can use to start designing your cards, including image assets and fun fonts. To make your cards memorable, upload your brand images and any other graphic design elements you might want to include. Then, create a series of eCards you can send off to donors to thank them for their support, celebrate special occasions, invite them to events, or engage them in any other way you want. 
  • Determine when they’ll get sent out. You can set your eCards to get sent off automatically in response to a trigger, like a supporter donating, or you can choose to send out an entire batch of eCards at once. For instance, you might send all of your donors an eCard around the holiday season to remind them to get their gifts in before the end of the year.
  • Continue sending cards. Don’t just send one eCard after a donor’s first gift! Continue designing and sending eCards throughout the year to keep your nonprofit fresh in your donors’ minds. You can even set up your donation process so supporters can send eCards to their friends and family after making a gift, spreading awareness of your nonprofit even further. 

So just what does an eCard look like? eCards are fully customizable, which means they can look like just about anything! However, they’ll usually be a decorative postcard-like image next to a short but meaningful message. For example, consider this eCard created by the Maryland Food Bank:

This screenshot shows an eCard created by the Maryland food bank, which retains donors by piquing their interest in the card’s message.

Donor database

Most donor engagement strategies depend heavily on communication. Use the donor data you’ve gathered from your supporters’ past involvement with your organization to send personalized messages that make supporters feel remembered, recognized, and valued.

To target your outreach, you’ll need organized donor data. Invest in a donor database to track important donor information, such as:

  • Contact information
  • Preferred method of communication
  • Giving and involvement history
  • Participation in other organizations
  • Employer information
  • Payment method preference

Properly managed data is the key to collecting and using this information. If you’re missing data, consider conducting a data append to find missing or updated information, such as birthdays and mailing addresses. As you update information, look out for duplicate entries or irrelevant details that are cluttering your database.

Even if you only have a few details about your donors, you can encourage them to continue giving in specific ways. For example, with only a donor’s contact information and giving history, you might notice they only give at in-person events. Send an email inviting that donor to your next in-person fundraiser for a higher chance of retaining them.

Donor retention program strategies

Once you’ve set a target retention goal and acquired the tools you need, it’s time to develop your program’s strategies. The right approach depends on your unique community of supporters, but some time-tested strategies include: 

Identify at-risk donors.

The best way to combat donor lapse is to catch them before they’re gone. To do that, you need to understand why donors stop giving. Gather data about your lapsed donors to analyze patterns in their behavior before they stopped giving by:

  • Surveying lapsed donors. Most of your lapsed donors are gone, but a few of them might still be willing to answer a few questions about their decision. Ask straightforward questions, and be prepared for tough responses, such as not feeling appreciated, forgetting about your organization, or assuming your nonprofit doesn’t need their gifts anymore. 
  • Analyzing engagement data. For most of your lapsed donors, the signs were likely there. For instance, many lapsed donors will stop opening your emails or engaging with your content weeks or even months in advance before they finally cancel their donations. 
  • Considering external factors. Sometimes donors stop giving not because they no longer support your cause but because of outside factors. These can be as easily fixed as a recurring donor’s on-file credit card expiring or more troubling like supporters needing to tighten their budgets in times of economic downturn. 

With this data, craft an at-risk donor strategy. For instance, if donors tend to drop during times of economic hardship, keep them engaged during the rough patch with non-giving related opportunities. Or, if a donor stops opening your emails, send them ones with subject lines that are likely to catch their attention by acknowledging the situation, like “It’s been a while since we’ve heard from you, [donor name]!”

Personalize communication.

Donors engage with nonprofits that offer activities that interest them. Of course, it’s unlikely that a single donor will want to engage with every activity your nonprofit has to offer. Personalize your outreach to share the opportunities that are the most relevant to each donor. 

For instance, when promoting your planned giving program, younger donors and supporters new to your profit are unlikely to show much interest. Show your donors that you understand their individual preferences by tailoring the content you send to their interests. 

You can better personalize your communication by dividing your donors into segments. Donor segments are groups of supporters who share relevant characteristics, and nonprofit CRMs often come equipped with segmentation features to simplify this process. For instance, you might divide your donors based on:

  • Location 
  • Age
  • Gift size
  • Length of time giving to your organization 

After determining your segments, create messaging strategies for each group. You can use email templates to help you get started, then use the information stored in your donor database to personalize each message even further by referencing donors’ names, past donation amounts, and engagement history.

Make opting into recurring donations easy. 

The easiest way to retain supporters is to make giving automatic with a recurring donation program. Recurring donations are gifts donors make automatically, usually on a monthly basis. Since these gifts are deducted from donors’ bank accounts without needing any additional input from the supporter, they’re a simple set-it-and-forget-it method of donor retention. 

Make joining your recurring donation program as easy as possible. You can do this by including a check box to make the gift recurring on your donation form. Or, offer suggested recurring donation amounts alongside higher suggested giving amounts for one-time donors to subtly push them toward becoming recurring supporters. 

The image depicts suggested monthly giving amounts with monthly donations significantly lower than one-time donations.

Recurring donations are lower than one-time donation amounts but add up over time. When donors see the low financial commitment of a recurring gift in comparison to higher one-time amounts, they may decide a recurring gift is the way to go. 

Keep in mind that research shows that when offered a range of giving options, donors are most likely to choose the second lowest option. Additionally, always let donors enter a custom amount to give in case they want to give more or less than your suggested options.

Show your gratitude.

We’ve already discussed how you can use eCards to express your gratitude, but there’s even more you can do to show donors you care. For example, you could:

  • Send letters in the mail. eCards are an amazing piece of technology, but traditional mail still has its place in many nonprofits’ donor appreciation strategies. Write personalized donor thank-you letters your supporters will want to hold onto and send out fundraising appeals at strategic times of the year, such as the week before Giving Tuesday to remind supporters to send in their gifts. 
  • Call donors. For donations above a certain amount, get on the phone, and give your donors a brief call. Write a script that volunteers can easily follow to knock out these calls, or go the extra mile and get your board members involved to make donors feel extra important. 
  • Send gifts. Celebrate the donors who have been with you for years by sending physical gifts in the mail. For example, on a donor’s birthday, you might mail them a t-shirt branded to your organization, or you might put together a welcome package to new donors who gave over a certain amount to persuade them to stick around. 

These ideas are just the beginning, but if you need more inspiration for how to thank your donors, there’s an easy solution: ask them. Send out a survey asking donors how they want to be recognized so you can be sure you’re showing your thanks in a way they’ll appreciate. 

Promote non-giving engagement opportunities.

As discussed in our earlier example of nonprofits A and B, if your only communication with supporters is strictly about donations, donations are likely to go down. Give your supporters more opportunities to get involved with your cause that don’t require spending, like: 

  • Volunteering. Invite your donors to take a more hands-on approach to supporting your mission by promoting volunteer opportunities. If your donors’ employers have a volunteer grant program, often called dollars-for-doers, they can fill out an application with their company and get their employer to donate to your nonprofit depending on how much they volunteered. 
  • Attending events. If a donor makes friends with other supporters in your community, they’re more likely to continue engaging with your nonprofit. The easiest way to introduce donors to the rest of your community is to invite them to events, whether they’re in-person or online, formal or casual, or meant for appreciation, fundraising, or spreading awareness. 
  • Exploring your content. Written a new blog post? Hosted a webinar or lecture about topics relevant to your cause? Or maybe you recorded a new video of your volunteers in action? Whatever your latest content is, let your supporters know about it. Giving them regular updates on your mission and inviting them to visit your website shows your community that your nonprofit is an active, dynamic organization that’s putting its donations to good use. 

Not every donor will become a dedicated member of your community who wants to participate in extra opportunities. However, even for donors who are content to give quietly, seeing that your nonprofit does care about them beyond just cashing in their monthly gift is likely to make them think more highly of your nonprofit.

Conclusion and Additional Resources

After creating your retention program, keep testing and revising it as needed based on your donors’ changing needs. Track your donor retention rate to measure your progress, and get feedback from supporters to see how you can improve your program. Remember, donor retention is always ongoing, and the strategies that work today will need to adapt to keep up with your donor base five years from now. 

For more information about revamping your strategy or expanding your audience, check out these additional resources:

Retain donors and earn more at the same time. Try out our cutting-edge matching gift platform. Request a demo.

This article explores what data appending is and why nonprofits should consider using this service.

What is a Data Append and Why Does it Matter for Nonprofits?

/in , , /by

Today’s marketers rely on customer data to make informed decisions to inspire interest, increase engagement, and ultimately sell their products and services. 

In the nonprofit space, nonprofit marketing and fundraising professionals stand to gain from strategically collecting, maintaining, and leveraging the donor data stored in their organization’s CRMs. But your supporters move, get new email addresses, and their information changes over time. That means your data can quickly become outdated, which is where data appending swoops in to save the day.

Updating and gathering data manually can be a taxing process, but data appending uses automation to streamline the work for you. We’ll clear up confusion surrounding the process to help you transform your CRM into an effective tool your nonprofit’s fundraising and marketing efforts can rely on.

 

What Is A Data Append?

A data append is the process of adding missing or updating existing data points in an organization’s database. The process involves comparing the information in the nonprofit’s current database to that stored in a larger, more comprehensive data source. Data append services use external data sources to fill gaps in data, including:

  • Contact details
  • Demographic data
  • Behavioral information
  • Employment details

All kinds of organizations use data appends, including for-profit businesses, charitable nonprofits, and political campaigns. For example, have you ever gotten a text message promoting a candidate in an upcoming election even though you can’t recall sharing your phone number with any political causes? Chances are they got your information—your name, phone number, and political party registration—from a data append. 

For nonprofits, specifically, data appends allow them to maintain clean donor data and gain more comprehensive insights into their supporters when they have limited information. Ultimately, accurate data can help your organization learn more about your supporters, leading to better tailored fundraising and donor cultivation strategies.

Why Is Data Appending Important?

At its core, data appending enhances your data quality by filling in gaps and correcting inaccuracies. With this information, you can strengthen your donor management and make the most of each dollar spent on your data append. 

There are all sorts of situations nonprofits might find themselves in where a data append is the right answer, including:

  • Missing key information. Do all of your nonprofit’s various forms require supporters to complete all core fields? For instance, your email newsletter subscription might only ask supporters for their name and email, meaning you’ll miss all of those supporters’ phone numbers. Not to mention information you’re unlikely to ask supporters for but is still useful, like demographic data. 
  • Current information is outdated. As mentioned, your supporters aren’t static, and many donors aren’t going to think to update your nonprofit when they change addresses, start using a new email, or even change their names. An append keeps you up to date, helping you maintain your connections to each supporter over time. 
  • Data got lost. It’s not ideal but it happens: your nonprofit lost data when migrating systems, something with your technology went wrong and information needs to be deleted, or someone just made a mistake and got rid of data you needed. Appends are your nonprofit’s lifeline in these scenarios. 

But beyond simply cleaning up your donor database, you stand to benefit a lot from the appending process. Backed by accurate and complete data from the append, you can:

  • Personalize outreach: Marketers use data to personalize communication, content, and offers to match each recipient’s needs and preferences. Customizing outreach to suit individual donors makes for a memorable supporter experience. Appending demographic and behavioral data can help nonprofits personalize communication.
  • Update contact information: When a supporter’s information does change, appending emails, phone numbers, and other contact information allows you to stay connected without needing to get in touch with them. 
  • Cultivate donor relationships: Sending appeals based on accurate data allows you to present valuable engagement opportunities and communicate that you care about each individual donor. When you send messages that fit donors’ interests and demographic details, they’re more likely to respond positively to your outreach.

Ultimately, data appending can enhance your understanding of supporters, which will shine through in your outreach. With your append, you get the data you need to drive greater fundraising outcomes and forge stronger supporter relationships.

 

How Data Appending Works

At the surface level, data appending seems like a simple process, but there’s a lot that goes on behind the scenes to ensure accuracy and completeness. For the most part, your provider will take care of all the nitty-gritty details, such as gathering the data, ensuring it’s accurate, and formatting it to easily fit into your CRM. 

Here, we offer a look behind the scenes of what your provider will do to make sure the data will be usable for your nonprofit:

These are the steps a data append service provider will follow.

  1. Format the data from the nonprofit to be consistent, usually in a comma-separated value (CSV) format, in order to be analyzed correctly.
  2. Upload the data into a single file and send it via the service’s secure file transfer protocol.
  3. Match the organization’s database with the data in the external source by using your donors’ unique identifiers, such as their names, addresses, and phone numbers.
  4. Enhance the data by filling in missing information and correcting inaccurate data based on the corresponding records in the organization’s database.
  5. Verify and validate the appended data to ensure accuracy and completeness. This ensures the supplemental data is high-quality and will be useful for the client, which in this case is your nonprofit. 
  6. Send the data file to the client to be downloaded for their use. The file can be offered in essentially any format your nonprofit needs.

On your nonprofit’s end, the process is much simpler. From the nonprofit perspective, all you need to do is send your constituent information to a provider. You can streamline the process by taking the time to clean your database beforehand by removing duplicate information, unnecessary data, and donor profiles you don’t need (such as the information of deceased and long-since lapsed donors). 

But if you just want to send your data append provider your database information in its current state, you can do that, too. Whatever the state of your database, your service provider will take it from there! 

Types of Data You Can Append

As a nonprofit marketer, you’re likely flooded with new data points at every turn. With all the constituent data you collect through volunteer registrations, event sign-ups, and donations, it can be challenging to filter it down to the most helpful details.

When it comes to data appending, we already know the burning question on everyone’s mind: What information is actually worth appending?

Before getting an append, ensure you know which information will actually propel your marketing and fundraising efforts forward. While the append service will be happy to take you as a client, purchasing data you don’t need is far from the best use of your nonprofit’s resources.

Of course, what is the right data depends on your nonprofit’s unique situation. To help you get an idea of what you should request, here’s an overview of the most common types of data nonprofits need from appends:

Types of donor data points to append

As the graphic shows, there are a wide number of specific data points you can get from an append, but all of these can be sorted into roughly three categories.

Contact Information

Like we’ve touched on, your constituents move, change their phone numbers, and get new email addresses all the time. Having accurate contact information allows you to successfully deliver appeals and stay in contact without interruption.

Leverage data appending to verify contact information, including:

  • Phone numbers. Contacting donors via text or phone call is one of the most personal ways you can connect with your supporters. It also opens the door to innovative fundraising strategies like text banking and text-to-give. Phone number appends ensure you have the right phone number for each supporter at all times.
  • Email addresses. Email marketing remains one of the most lucrative digital marketing avenues for nonprofits. Whether you’re making fundraising appeals, sending out volunteer schedules, or providing an update on your latest project, make sure you have the right email addresses for supporters with this data append.
  • Postal addresses. Digital marketing might be the default for your outreach, but some supporters still prefer the personal touch of direct mail. Plus, knowing people’s addresses allows you to send them engagement opportunities based on their location, such as inviting nearby supporters to in-person events and remote ones to virtual activities. Ensure your solicitations, thank-you letters, and event invitations are delivered to the right addresses with a postal address append.
  • Social profiles. As a marketer, you know the immense power that social media holds to connect you with a global audience. Get in touch with current supporters and inspire them to share your cause online by finding their social media profiles. Boost your presence online by reaching out to loyal supporters to ask them to follow you and share your posts. 

Communication is the foundation of nearly all nonprofit’s fundraising efforts, making this one of the most helpful types of data appends. If your email bounce rates have skyrocketed or you get sent straight to voicemail, a data append can verify whether you have the right contact details for constituents.

Employer Data

We can’t emphasize the importance of corporate philanthropy enough. Between matching gifts and volunteer grants, your nonprofit has a lot to gain from promoting these opportunities to supporters.

However, to promote these opportunities to the right supporters who actually qualify, you need accurate employer data for constituents. That’s where an employer append comes in handy. NXUnite’s guide to data appending explains that knowing employment details empowers your team to:

  • Uncover corporate giving opportunities. Knowing where your donors and volunteers work enables you to find their employers’ corporate social responsibility (CSR) guidelines. Then, you can determine your supporters’ eligibility for matching donations and volunteer grants.
  • Identify corporate partnerships. If several of your supporters work for the same company, that’s an indicator that the business might be a strong candidate for a corporate partnership, such as a sponsorship or an arranged corporate volunteer day. Use that information to kickstart a conversation with the company. You might even have supporters facilitate introductions with company leaders.
  • Estimate wealth data. While not a direct wealth indicator, knowing who employs your donors and what their roles are can help you estimate their incomes and giving abilities. Though append services can’t provide you with donors’ salary information, some may be able to provide job titles, which at the very least lets you know if a donor is working in an entry-level position or has risen to a senior management position. 

Between driving donor engagement and establishing meaningful corporate partnerships, employer appending has quite a few benefits worth looking into. We recommend pulling this information if you’re looking to tap into the world of corporate giving or need help identifying major giving prospects.

 

Demographics

A supporter’s demographics can give you insight into their backgrounds, values, and philanthropic priorities. This type of data append allows you to extract important background details like:

  • Net worth
  • Ages and dates of birth
  • Gender
  • Ethnicity and race
  • Marital status
  • Political affiliation
  • Lifestyle attributes like hobbies and interests

Whether you want to send a birthday gift or verify contacts have a certain political affiliation, demographic data appends allow you to deliver highly personalized outreach that speaks to supporters’ interests.

Other Resources to Explore

Appends provide nonprofits with the data they need to strengthen their support relationships, build lasting connections, and make strategic marketing decisions. Supplement and update your database with the information you need to stay current with your supporters’ busy lives. 

The right append for your nonprofit depends on your engagement strategy and current data-gathering practices. Curious to learn more about data appending? Check out these breakdowns on specific append types: 

 

How to Manage Your CyberGrants Portal For Smart Nonprofits

How to Manage Your CyberGrants Portal [For Smart Nonprofits]

/in , , /by

Corporate matching gifts are one of the best ways for nonprofits to maximize their fundraising with bonus donations and increased donor engagement. And how exactly do nonprofit organizations receive funding through these matching programs? It all starts with a request from the initial donor and typically is processed through a corporate giving or CSR platform.

In terms of CSR platforms, one key platform to keep in mind is CyberGrants.

Corporate giving platforms like CyberGrants are sold to corporations looking to manage their philanthropy. But there’s another side of the platform that is designed specifically for nonprofits⁠—a portal with which fundraisers can manage their incoming matches, verify initial donations, facilitate volunteer grant requests, and more. And best of all? It’s free!

If you’re interested in learning more about CyberGrants for nonprofits and how to best manage your CyberGrants portal for maximal success, you’ve certainly come to the right place. In this guide, we’ll walk you through the following:

In the end, you should have a solid foundation of knowledge surrounding CyberGrants and its nonprofit-specific tools that can lead your organization in the right direction.

Ready to dive in? Let’s get started with the basics.

What to Know About CyberGrants

With over 400 corporate customers, CyberGrants is one of the largest providers of matching gift and corporate giving software for companies⁠, and it’s known for allowing the most customization of any CSR platform. In summary, each company that organizes a matching gift program through CyberGrants can adjust its donation verification process, types of gifts to match, email notifications, number of subaccounts, and more.

From the perspective of the organizations receiving the matches, this can sometimes lead to an overwhelming process. That’s why we recommend nonprofits setting themselves up for CyberGrants success by documenting and keeping up with the information they need to complete their end of the matching gift process. And we’re here to provide you with tips and tricks on how to do so!

How to Manage Your CyberGrants Portal - and what to know about CyberGrants

Benefits of CyberGrants for Nonprofits

Some of the largest matching gift companies in the world⁠—including Verizon, General Electric, Johnson & Johnson, PepsiCo, American Express, and many more⁠—use CyberGrants to manage their corporate giving. The more companies that utilize any particular platform, the more likely your organization is to qualify for matching gifts made available through said platform. Thus, CyberGrants is a particularly beneficial portal to get started with.

Learn how to manage your CyberGrants portal so you can accept matches from companies like these.

From there, registering your organization with the nonprofit portal will allow you to increase the visibility of your cause among charitable givers, elevate your matching gift eligibility, and simplify matching gift requests for your donors⁠—all of which elevate the likelihood of matches being driven to completion.

Not to mention, pre-registering your cause with platforms like CyberGrants will streamline the process for you and your team when matching gifts do become available. You’ll already have the legwork down, meaning you’re ready to verify gifts and accept matches with ease.

CyberGrants’ Matching Gift Verification Process Overview

The exact matching gift process⁠—from initial donation and employer match request to nonprofit verification and corporate match disbursement⁠—can vary greatly from one company to the next. On the nonprofit end, one of the biggest priorities has to do with verifying with the company that an employee donor’s contribution was actually made.

Today, the majority of companies that use CyberGrants require the NPO in question to verify that the organization received the employee’s initial donation. However, other employers do not require manual verification at all, instead opting to authenticate donations through gift receipts or rely on the goodwill of their employees.

For each matching gift request from CyberGrants, the NPO will receive a unique Gift ID to identify that donation via automated email. From there, the Gift ID and donor’s last name will be used to verify the donation in the CyberGrants portal. Depending on the company’s settings, a donation amount, contribution date, and access code may be provided as well.

Take a look at this example of a matching gift request;

Learn how to manage your CyberGrants portal with sample emails.

Meanwhile, here’s a sample matching gift request with different information, including an access code;

Learn how to manage your CyberGrants portal with sample emails.

In each sample email, the organization is prompted to follow the instructions provided by CyberGrants on behalf of the donor’s employer. In both cases, the matching gift recipient is asked to navigate to the CyberGrants website, enter the supplied information, and verify the donor’s gift.

From there, the company can approve the match and disburse the appropriate funding to the organization.

FAQ | How to Manage Your CyberGrants Portal

Still have questions? Many organizations do⁠. We’ve compiled a list of some of the most-asked questions (and answers) from nonprofits looking to manage their CyberGrants portals to produce the greatest results.

What is FrontDoor?

FrontDoor is CyberGrants’ consolidated portal with which nonprofits can register to manage and verify gifts across employers and programs with ease.

Currently, companies that utilize CyberGrants for matching gift management have the choice to opt into participating via FrontDoor’s portal. At this time, CyberGrants is actively advocating for more companies to get started with FrontDoor⁠ and make the most of innovative features, such as the Donations Tab. This allows nonprofit users to verify donations in a single window, rather than requiring that they manually log into each company or subaccount’s portal through a separate URL.

Here’s what it looks like for nonprofit users;

How to manage your CyberGrants portal using FrontDoor

Overall, FrontDoor makes the verification process faster and easier for users and enables nonprofits like yours to get more out of available matching programs.

What are subaccounts?

Subaccounts are essentially additional accounts nested within an organization’s main account and can be created by the nonprofit itself or by a donor, depending on a company’s subaccount creation and management settings.

Let’s take a look at a company with a few subaccounts nested in their main portal;

How to manage your CyberGrants portal with subaccounts

And here’s a company that chose to create a central portal with no subaccounts;

How to manage your CyberGrants portal with no subaccounts

Generally, subaccounts can reflect an organization’s multiple chapters, branches, or locations within the organization, or they can be nominated by a donor who didn’t see an account that reflected their desired organization. However, it’s important to keep in mind that the more subaccounts in a portal, the greater the likelihood that there will be matching gift requests that end up “hiding” from them.

Most companies have subaccounts within their company portal. The number of subaccounts able to be created is dictated by the company (for example, there might be an unlimited number of subaccounts that can be created or this ability may not even be available to their employees). Some have over 70, while others have only a central portal or 2-3 subaccounts.

Why do we receive grants from companies for which we have not confirmed any matching gift requests?

Not all companies require verification from the organization for matching gifts and volunteer grant requests. Typically, if a company doesn’t ask the nonprofit to verify a gift or volunteer hours, it is because the employee has already verified the gift by attaching a donation receipt or proof of hours volunteered with their submission request.

Some, but not all, of these companies will send email notices of approved requests that let the nonprofit know when a payment is on the way. Companies may also utilize CyberGrants to allow their employees to make payroll deductions to an organization, which may or may not result in an email notification being triggered through the system.

What happens if we receive a request we don’t qualify for?

Occasionally, your organization may receive a gift verification request from a company even though your cause doesn’t qualify for the company’s matching program. For example, this may occur in cases where a company matches solely to educational institutions or won’t match to religious or politically affiliated organizations, and your organization falls into an excluded category.

However, regardless of the company’s requirements, employees can still submit match requests, which is why your team may see ineligible verification requests flowing in. Even if your organization verifies the initial gift in your portal, it’s likely that the company will reject the match request and no payment will be sent.

Will all pending matching gift and volunteer grant requests show up on the Donations Tab?

Unfortunately, not all requests will show up in FrontDoor’s Donations Tab. Some companies have opted out of using the tab entirely, whereas others have opted in only partially. In these cases, some requests may not populate in your organization’s Donations Tab.

To know if a particular company has opted in, you can submit a support request to the company via CyberGrants. From there, we recommend recording and organizing their response so your organization can develop the proper verification process in the future.

Why is there a gift under the Donations Tab that is from a company not listed under the Company Portals Tab?

If a gift is listed under the Donations Tab and not under the Company Portals Tab, the company might be new to CyberGrants and is still being configured. Or alternatively, this is your organization’s first gift request from the company.

The gift can be confirmed in the Donations Tab, but you will likely want to add the company to your sidebar for easier access to future gifts. To do so, input the donor’s last name and the gift ID into the Add Company section at the bottom of the portal’s sidebar. Submit and confirm access, and the company should be visible immediately after refreshing the page. If not, you can send a support ticket, and CyberGrants should be able to add the company from their end.

Best Practices for Nonprofits Using CyberGrants

Now that you understand the basics of CyberGrants, let’s go over a few tried-and-true tips for making the most of the platform.

To simplify the process as much as possible and minimize the amount of overhead required, we recommend the following;

1. Create a login sheet.

Companies that have yet to fully transition to CyberGrants’ FrontDoor have a different link to their company portal that cannot be accessed through the main FrontDoor link.
As such, it’s a good idea for organizations to identify those that don’t use FrontDoor and establish and maintain detailed documentation for these companies⁠—including the URL and login information for each.

Additionally, it’s ideal that an organization uses the same contact information for each company portal beyond FrontDoor. Most essentially, be sure to utilize a single email address for your CyberGrants logins as the main notification channel for gift verifications. This will establish that all emails requesting confirmation of gifts will be sent to the correct inbox that your staff will have access to and know to check on a regular basis.

2. Establish a process for locating “hidden” gifts.

Each company that uses CyberGrants can configure if and how they want to notify organizations about new matching gift requests⁠—and some companies opt not to enable notifications at all.

As a result, nonprofits should have an established system in place to regularly check for matching gift requests that either ⁠—

  • Don’t show up in the Donations Tab;
  • Haven’t been automatically emailed to the organization.

Fortunately, these “hidden” gift requests should make up a small percentage of the total gift requests that the nonprofit receives, so these checks could be infrequent⁠—such as a few times a year.

Keep in mind that although many companies allow twelve or more months for submitted requests to be approved by the organization, some offer as little as 90 days from the date of submission. Thus, teams should factor each company’s deadlines into their decision-making process regarding exactly how frequently to check that company’s portal for gifts.

3. Make a plan for subaccounts.

Sometimes, an organization will receive an email from CyberGrants informing them that a company’s employee has nominated the nonprofit for inclusion in their Employee Giving Program. When this occurs, the organization has a few options regarding how it can respond.

For example, the nonprofit can choose to follow the instructions provided in the email to review and edit the information in the nomination request. Then, they can later confirm it, which will create a new subaccount in that company’s portal.

Alternatively, the organization can respond to the request and ask that CyberGrants associate the nominated account with one of the existing subaccounts for that company. This option can be helpful when the organization has several existing subaccounts and does not want any more to manage and follow up with. (Hint: Nonprofits should especially monitor and limit the number of subaccounts created in portals that utilize hidden gifts.)

4. Produce a “Portal Information” document.

To simplify gift verification, we recommend that nonprofits have a dedicated document they can reference while confirming initial donations. This document should host basic details about your organization (such as mailing address, contact information, EIN, and more) and ACH information, if applicable.

Each company requires different data for its verification process. Some ask for little to no information, while others may request a list of current board members, race/ethnicity breakdowns of the population served, and even the nonprofit’s annual budget. Having a unified location from which to derive all these particulars will make it significantly easier for the organization to confirm its pending gift requests.

CyberGrants is an invaluable tool for nonprofits looking to make the most of matching gifts. By managing your organization’s portal well and taking steps to streamline and standardize matching gift requests, you can set your team up for ongoing success using all the resources at your disposal.

Interested in learning more about matching gift programs and best practices to maximize your organization’s success? Check out our other educational resources:

Get started with matching gift best practices, with Double the Donation.