Matching Gifts in Practice Tips, Strategies From Your Peers

Matching Gifts in Practice: Tips, Strategies From Your Peers

The power of matching gifts is a well-kept secret in the world of nonprofit fundraising—and putting that power into practice can feel daunting. That’s why we’re excited to bring you key takeaways from the recent Virtual Workplace Fundraising Summit, where some of the brightest minds in nonprofit development came together to share real-world strategies, successes, and lessons learned around matching gift programs.

In this post, we’re distilling insights straight from the experts—development professionals and matching gift champions who are actively working in the field. This specific session, Matching Gifts in Practice: Tips and Strategies From Your Peers, featured…

Whether your team is just beginning to explore matching gifts for the first time or you’re looking to refine your current program, these peer-driven strategies can help you unlock more funding and deepen donor engagement. Let’s get started!

Watch the Virtual Summit Replays to learn more.

How would you describe your institution’s current employer matching gift strategy and your journey to get there?

Save the Children kicks off the conversation by stating that their team has shifted from passivity to a fully proactive matching gift strategy, particularly as they noticed the landscape around matching gifts shifting and growing. This multifaceted fundraising plan has focused heavily on educating the public around matching gifts and the largely unclaimed opportunity that’s at stake. Specifically, it’s deployed a series of organic and paid social posts, text messages, and more, reminding their audience that there are matching gifts likely available and to check to see if their employer participates. In addition, the team has begun incorporating matching gift language throughout its newsletters to get the message out there as much as possible.

Meanwhile, Duke School also shifted from a passive strategy to a more active one, with the most significant change being the implementation of Double the Donation’s software. In the past, nobody on their small development team was dedicated to matching gifts, and their efforts were primarily focused on manual research and communication. With Double the Donation, they were able to automate the identification and outreach surrounding matching gifts, and the results have been magnificent.

Finally, the Air Force Academy Foundation shares that its most considerable strategy shift has involved securing buy-in. That’s not just within its gift processing department but across its customer service teams, major gift officers, annual giving department, and more⁠—ensuring that everyone in the organization is positioned to be the best advocates for matching gifts possible.

What tips, strategies, or tools have made the biggest impact on your matching gift efforts?

According to Duke School, its most impactful matching gift strategies have centered around visibility, data, and community engagement. First, the team has made it a priority to include matching gift messaging everywhere—during in-person events, in thank-you letters, and even via QR codes linking to their dedicated matching gift page. This constant reinforcement keeps the opportunity top-of-mind for donors.

Second, they’ve put focused effort into identifying “unicorn” companies—or particularly generous employers that offer double or triple matching gift programs—and then locating donors within their community who work at those organizations. One such donor from Fidelity became a vocal advocate, sharing her personal impact story in fundraising appeals and even speaking at events to encourage others to participate.

Next, the Air Force Academy Foundation adds that its key strategies come from leveraging its donor database to drive matching gift success. A primary focus is collecting and maintaining detailed employment information from graduates, parents, and friends of the institution. This data allows the team to pinpoint donors who work at companies with strong matching gift programs and tailor their outreach accordingly.

Finally, Save the Children highlights the importance of fully utilizing Double the Donation as a central part of their matching gift strategy. Echoing the approaches shared by others, they emphasize embedding the matching gift search tool across all public-facing materials—including their workplace giving and matching gift landing page, as well as every donation form.

By driving traffic to these resources through various visibility tactics and strategic link placement, the team can then track donor engagement on the back end of the platform. This allows them to monitor growth in their pool of match-eligible donors and attribute increases to specific outreach efforts.

How do you measure the impact of your matching gift programs? Are there KPIs you track, and what do you do with the data?

At the Air Force Academy Foundation, measuring the impact of matching gift efforts is a core component of their strategy—and it’s something they consistently share with senior leadership to highlight both progress and potential. One of the primary KPIs they track is the amount of matching gift revenue received compared to the number of match-eligible donations identified. This comparison helps the team understand not only how many opportunities exist but also how effectively they’re converting those opportunities into actual dollars.

Another crucial metric is employer participation⁠—or which companies are generating the highest volume of matching gifts. By identifying top-performing employers, the team proactively educates themselves on each company’s matching gift process, allowing them to better assist donors when questions arise, removing friction from the process, and increasing the likelihood of follow-through.

At Save the Children, tracking year-over-year revenue growth is a foundational way to measure the success of their matching gift program. While it may seem like a standard metric, it provides a clear sense of momentum and helps set strategic goals for future fundraising efforts.

Additionally, Save the Children places a strong emphasis on corporate partner performance. They closely monitor matching gift revenue from key sectors like tech and finance—industries with high employee counts and generous giving programs—to evaluate how well those relationships are growing year over year.

At Duke School, matching gift tracking is still evolving as the program grows, but even in these early stages, the team has implemented consistent reporting practices to keep progress visible and top-of-mind. Each week, they distribute a data report that includes current matching gift figures, ensuring it stays on the radar of school leadership and development staff. This regular visibility also highlights the role Double the Donation plays in helping secure those matches.

Why and how do you engage other members of your team or volunteer advocates in your matching gift strategy?

At Duke School, engaging volunteer advocates has played a key role in building momentum around their matching gift program. One standout example is a family of donors who not only embraced the concept of matching gifts but proactively asked how they could help educate the broader community. The school has since involved them in a variety of outreach efforts, including speaking to other parents, writing letters to fellow families, and piloting the Double the Donation process to identify any points of confusion.

Meanwhile, at Save the Children, cross-departmental collaboration is at the heart of their matching gift strategy. By working closely with teams across the organization—from marketing and communications to major gifts and broader agency staff—they ensure that matching gift awareness is woven into every level of donor engagement. On the major gifts side, there’s a two-way exchange of information: the matching gift team flags high-net-worth donors giving through workplace platforms, while major gift officers ensure their donors are aware of potential matching opportunities. Internally, the team has expanded its reach by participating in all-staff meetings and agency bulletins, reinforcing that matching gifts are everyone’s opportunity—not just a single team’s responsibility.

Finally, the Air Force Academy Foundation emphasizes educating every team member who has donor-facing responsibilities—whether in development, marketing, events, or IT—so they can confidently speak to matching gifts and help initiate the process. This all-hands approach ensures matching gift opportunities are highlighted consistently across touchpoints. From embedding Double the Donation’s search tool on giving forms to incorporating matching gift messaging in annual campaigns and Giving Day promotions, every department plays a role in spreading awareness. Even event teams are encouraged to bring up matching gifts during donor interactions.

What is the biggest challenge you face with matching gifts? How do you work to overcome it?

At Save the Children, managing a robust matching gift and workplace giving program comes with its fair share of hurdles—but the organization remains optimistic, driven by the significant growth potential in this space. One of their most pressing challenges is limited resourcing. Before building out their current strategy, matching gifts were handled by a single employee juggling multiple roles. Today, the program has grown into a two-person dedicated team, yet the workload remains substantial, given the size and complexity of their portfolio.

For the Air Force Academy Foundation, the biggest ongoing challenge in matching gifts is simply awareness. Many donors aren’t initially familiar with how matching gifts work, but once they go through the process once or twice, they’re more likely to build it into their regular giving routine. That’s why the foundation places a strong emphasis on targeting recurring donors, whether they give monthly or annually, and turning them into habitual match participants.

Finally, at Save the Children, the team has made great strides in building awareness and identifying match-eligible donors—but one of the biggest ongoing challenges is getting those donors to actually initiate the matching gift process. To bridge this gap, the team focuses on creating sustainable, capacity-friendly strategies that make it as easy as possible for donors to complete the match. Whether that means sending personalized links, offering phone support, or following up after initiation, the goal is to remove barriers and streamline the experience.

Watch the Virtual Summit Replays to learn more.

At this point in the event, the team moved on to audience-submitted questions. The first one is as follows:

My organization has been collecting employer information, but we haven‘t done anything with it. What would you advise as a first step?

If your organization has been collecting employer information but hasn’t yet tapped into its potential, Duke School suggests starting with a simple but powerful move: make time to strategize. One of the most effective things their team did was carve out space on the calendar to dive deep into the data and discuss how to act on it. From there, it’s all about creating a thoughtful plan. Start by segmenting your data—perhaps by identifying donors who have already made a gift or by focusing on the “unicorns,” the employers known for robust matching gift programs.

Next, Save the Children acknowledges a challenge many organizations face—being understaffed or under-resourced—especially when it comes to managing matching gift efforts. Their solution? Lean on other teams. Rather than trying to do everything solo, they recommend collaborating across departments. For example, they often partner with their employee engagement team, recognizing the natural overlap between workplace giving, matching gifts, and employee engagement.

Finally, the Air Force Academy Foundation emphasizes the power of data-driven advocacy and organization-wide buy-in when managing matching gifts. By using insights from tools like Double the Donation, they calculate the amount of potential matching dollars left unclaimed and share that data with senior leadership—who, in turn, pass it on to the board. This transparency helps create a culture that values matching gifts as a strategic priority and “low-hanging fruit” for fundraising.

So you recognize that all these dollars out there could be doubled. What are you actually doing to get more matches in the door?

To turn awareness into revenue, Save the Children recommends identifying employee champions—or individuals within companies who are passionate about the cause and can rally their colleagues to donate and pursue matching opportunities. These internal advocates help spark a domino effect of giving and matching, driving greater momentum for the organization.

Meanwhile, at Duke School, the approach to matching gifts is rooted in stewardship. Rather than seeing matching gift outreach as an extra task, they integrate it into their overall donor stewardship strategy. Donors are already being thanked for their contributions, so the goal is simply to add the matching gift opportunity to that communication, making it seamless and easy for them to take action.

At the Air Force Academy Foundation, the key to success in matching gifts is starting small and focusing on consistent donors. It can be overwhelming to think about educating a large audience all at once, so the Foundation recommends beginning with donors who already give regularly. By targeting these consistent contributors, the goal is to build a habit of matching gifts over time. From there, these advocates can help spread the word to colleagues, creating a ripple effect within organizations.

Do you have any suggestions for navigating or differentiating between challenge donor matches and employer matches?

Duke School has found that clear and consistent language is key to navigating the distinction between challenge gifts and employer matches. To reduce confusion, they use specific terminology as much as possible, referring to them as “challenge matches” and “employee matches” when discussing these options. One key suggestion is to define these terms clearly within your team and ensure everyone is using the same language when communicating with donors. This helps avoid confusion and ensures that both types of matches are understood correctly by those involved.

At the Air Force Academy Foundation, they approach challenge gifts and employer matches with distinct strategies, leveraging their communications and marketing teams to ensure clear messaging. Challenge gifts are typically used during specific, high-impact times of the year, such as end-of-year giving or a major day of giving. In contrast, employer matches are part of their ongoing, year-round messaging, with consistent reminders and communication to encourage donations eligible for matching gifts.

At Save the Children, one key strategy they employ is to get in front of donors as much as possible, especially during designated giving periods.

We’ve talked a lot about stewarding individuals. But are there any practical tips for stewarding the companies that are committed to matching?

At the Air Force Academy Foundation, stewarding the companies that support matching gifts is crucial, especially with a donor base connected to major corporations in industries like airlines and defense, which often have robust matching gift programs. Overall, the key takeaway is to get familiar with the matching gift policies of your most frequent corporate partners and ensure that the process for verifying and acknowledging donations is as efficient and personalized as possible.

At Duke School, their development team is taking proactive steps to build strong relationships with the companies that support matching gifts. Their approach includes tracking which employers are involved in matching gifts, thanking these companies at the end of the year, and building long-term partnerships that lay the groundwork for further collaboration.

Meanwhile, Save the Children emphasizes the importance of keeping their corporate partners informed and engaged through several key strategies, such as implementing regular communication, acknowledging support, and even building case studies to showcase successful partnerships.

How often are you all reaching out to matching gift donors?

Duke School has experimented with different approaches to reaching out to matching gift donors. In the past, they targeted two groups: those who donated last year but haven’t yet this year and those who gave during the year-end giving season. This year, however, the school is focusing on a more immediate approach, reaching out to donors as soon as a gift is made and they are identified as eligible for matching. After the initial contact, the team waits about three months before following up again.

Meanwhile, the Air Force Academy Foundation has streamlined its outreach to matching gift donors by leveraging Double the Donation. After a donor makes a gift, they receive an automated email through the platform informing them of their match eligibility and offering assistance. A follow-up email is sent within 72 hours, with a final reminder about 30 days later, nudging donors to initiate the matching gift process. While automation handles the bulk of communications, the Foundation still prioritizes personalized outreach for its highest-value individuals.

Save the Children also makes extensive use of Double the Donation’s automated emails, which handle the timing of outreach and reduce the manual workload. However, when it comes to more targeted communications, the organization focuses on creating personalized outreach for employees of their top 20-30 workplace giving and matching gift partners, especially in industries like finance and tech where they see significant growth.

What do you see as the future of employer matching gifts, and how can we prepare today?

Save the Children predicts that the future of employer matching gifts will increasingly involve the migration of large companies to third-party platforms like Benevity and YourCause. Additionally, the organization expects to see a rise in donor-advised fund (DAF) giving, with platforms becoming more accessible to smaller donations and making it easier for a broader range of donors to engage.

Meanwhile, the Air Force Academy Foundation envisions a future where corporate matching gift policies become more inclusive, extending eligibility more and more to part-time workers, retired employees, and other groups that are sometimes excluded. This inclusivity would encourage broader participation in matching gift programs. Another exciting possibility is the automation of the matching gift submission process, eliminating the manual work involved in verifying and submitting matches and greatly reducing the workload on gift administration teams. Additionally, the Foundation is intrigued by the potential of AI in this space. As AI becomes more integrated into nonprofit work, it could help identify employees who are eligible for matching gifts through data analysis, such as company affiliation or wealth scoring.

In the immediate future, Duke School recognizes the importance of adapting to the uncertainties of the economy. Employer matching gifts can be viewed as a supplemental stream of revenue that can help offset challenges that donors might face due to economic fluctuations. The focus will be on messaging that highlights the value of matching gifts, encouraging donors to leverage these programs to enhance the impact of their contributions.

Wrapping Up & Additional Resources

Matching gifts are a proven way to multiply impact without increasing donor spend—but it takes intention, coordination, and the right tools to make it work. Thanks to the generous insights shared during the Virtual Fundraising Summit, we now have a clearer picture of how nonprofits are successfully implementing these programs every day.

We hope this summary leaves you inspired and equipped with practical ideas to enhance your own matching gift strategy. From peer-tested outreach techniques to smart automation, there’s something here for every organization ready to level up their fundraising results.

Ready to learn more? Check out these additional resources:

Watch the Virtual Summit Replays to learn more.