Typical Obstacles Facing Large Nonprofits Looking to Maximize Match Revenue
It’s true, maximizing matching gift revenue is tough. Most organizations we’ve spoken with know they can be doing so much more but don’t have the resources to be as successful as they’d like.
Do you ever find yourself thinking:
- We don’t have accurate and up-to-date employer data
- We don’t know what companies across the country match donations or who of our donors work for those companies
- We don’t have enough staff resources to focus on matching gifts
- We don’t have processes in place to manage the flow of matching gift information to the appropriate donors.
If so, know that you aren’t alone.
That why Double the Donation created its comprehensive matching gift offering geared towards the nation’s largest nonprofits.
Outsourced Matching Gift Solutions
We partner with large nonprofits to create a comprehensive matching gift solution that includes our entire suite of product offerings as well as customized marketing plans and consulting. This includes:
- Embedded website tools
- Appending employer information to identify match eligible donors
- Segmentation and customized email, mail, and phone marketing
- Customer support for your donors
- Vendor relationship management
State of the Art Tools
Successful matching gift efforts involve more than talented, hard working, and passionate staff members. Well designed tools are an essential component.
Double the Donation is focused exclusively on helping nonprofits raise money from employee matching gifts, so our developers have created a wide array of tools that are utilized by our “Account Executives.” These include
- Lookup plugins for your nonprofit’s website
- Employer screening
- Bulk matching gift screenings
- Automated segmentation to match eligible donors based on a variety of factors
- Marketing software
Fully Managed by a Team of Matching Gift Experts
Identifying your donors who are match eligible, segmenting and managing your matching gift marketing efforts, and following up with all of the administrative efforts can be a challenge for an organization.
Double the Donation’s team of matching gift experts has developed a wide range of matching gift processes to ensure your organization maximizes its matching gift revenue.
Everything You Need
Our comprehensive matching gift service provides everything you need to manage your matching gift efforts. It’s like having your own in-house team of employees who focus exclusively on matching gifts.
We handle all match eligible identification efforts, marketing, and administrative tasks such as form processing and reporting.
Common Questions
How is the baseline matching gift amount determined?
We typically ask you to pull your last three years of matching gift revenue and share that information with us. We’ll then combine this information with a quick review of your organization’s donor records to come up with a mutually agreeable baseline.
For instance, lets say your past matching gift revenue is as follows:
- One year ago – $523,000
- Two years ago – $581,000
- Three years ago – $490,000
We may propose a baseline of $525,000 since it’s close to the average of your historical matching gift revenue.
If we choose to go with the percentage based approach is this off all donations or only incremental matching gift revenue?
Our goal is to align our interest with yours by only taking a percentage of the incremental matching gift revenue. So if we establish your baseline as $525,000 and we don’t help you raise more than that, we would not take a percentage of any matching gift revenue.
Who manages the outreach to our nonprofit’s donors?
It depends. During the sign-up process we’ll decide on a marketing plan that fits with your organization’s goals. For instance:
Email Communications:
For donors who are segmented to receive emails we can either send the matching gift emails or provide you with the customized email files so you can send them through your standard email provider.
Paper Mailings:
For donors who are segmented to receive paper letters and forms we can print and mail the appropriate match forms to donors using our print house or we can provide the appropriate files to your organization and your organization’s printing company.
Phone Calls:
Our team can call donors which we’ve segmented to receive matching gift solicitations over the phone or you can use your organization’s own team.
Is the year-over-year growth in matching gift revenue calculated? What if we sign-up either mid-calendar year or mid-fiscal year?
Your account consultant will work with you during the sign-up stage to determine the exact time period we’ll use to measure year-over-year growth.
For instance, let’s say you approach Double the Donation on March 5th regarding partnering with us on our comprehensive matching gift service. Your fiscal year begins July 1st but you want to get started immediately. If reaching an agreement for the comprehensive matching gift offering takes four weeks we may declare your Double the Donation year runs from April 15th – April 14th. We’ll work with you to pull matching gift data from the prior year during the same period to help us establish your organization’s baseline matching gift revenue.
Does the percentage based pricing model conflict with AFP fundraising standards?
No, we’ve been advised that our pricing structure complies with AFP fundraising standards, similar to revenue sharing on car donations, in-person auction software, and donation platforms.
Why does Double the Donation charge a start-up fee for the comprehensive matching gift offering?
We need ensure the nonprofits who come to us to use our comprehensive matching gift service are as committed to increasing matching gift revenue as we are.
While our preference is an entirely percentage based approach on incremental matching revenue, we rely on your organization to be a good partner in the matching gift fundraising effort.
By requiring a nominal start-up fee (far less than it costs us to provide the service) we ensure that everyone in an organization has signed off on the partnership and is fully committed to working together to increase match revenue.
What matching gift tools are included in the comprehensive offering?
We provide our full suite of matching gift tools including:
- Integration of our matching gift plugin
- Employer screenings – Automate the task of taking a list of donors and mining databases to append employer names
- Bulk screen lists of records with employer data to identify match eligible donors
What marketing support is provided?
Effectively marketing matching gifts is the key to increasing matching gift revenue. We’ll work with you to:
- Segment donors based on donation amount, employer / match certainty levels, ease of submission process, etc.
- Promote matching gifts by phone, mail, and email depending upon nonprofit preferences
What administrative support is provided?
We can provide complete in-house administrative support including:
- Donor support when they have questions
- Processing of paper and electronic matching gift forms
- Reporting
