Are you interested in doubling (or tripling!) your incoming donations with hardly any extra effort? If you would like to procure two gifts for each donation made to your organization, corporate matching gifts are an excellent way to do so. By encouraging eligible donors to request matching gifts from their employers, you can begin to…
Are you interested in doubling (or tripling!) your incoming donations with hardly any extra effort? If you would like to procure two gifts for each donation made to your organization, corporate matching gifts are an excellent way to do so.
By encouraging eligible donors to request matching gifts from their employers, you can begin to tap into this huge fundraising opportunity. Two gifts in one!
Even if this free money seems too good to be true, it’s not. An estimated $4-7 billion in matching gift funds are left unclaimed each year. This is largely due to the lack of awareness surrounding matching gift programs. 78% of donors who are eligible for their gifts to be matched have no idea, while only 7% of donors at eligible companies submit a match request!
By introducing a streamlined search process to check one’s eligibility, you can encourage matching gift requests to be submitted, and start to take advantage of those unclaimed funds. In doing so, you want to maintain the simplicity of both the matching gift search and of the donation process itself.
Many potential donors will be likely to exit out of your donation page or search tool if they come to a long, drawn-out, or complicated process— even if they had clicked into it intending to give. You don’t want to miss out on these donations!
As proud partners, Donorbox and Double the Donation are working together to provide a seamless donation process to help nonprofits increase donations through matching gifts.
A streamlined donation process plus integrated matching gift search options can supercharge your fundraising while offering a quick, efficient, and secure solution.
Let’s walk through exactly how these two elements can help to substantially increase your fundraising revenue:
By learning about these vital tips and tools, you will be ready to use matching gifts to take your nonprofit fundraising to the next level.
Ready to go? Let’s jump in.
Ensuring a user-friendly donation page should be a top priority for any nonprofit looking to gather donations online. All the marketing and promotions in the world won’t help you if your supporters are unable to give (or worse, simply give up!) due to a faulty or clunky donation page.
Ensuring a streamlined experience goes a very long way to minimize the risk that a donor will be deterred during the donation process. This is an absolute prerequisite if your nonprofit wants to start tapping into matching gift opportunities and keep that donor engaged in the long run. After all, you’ll be asking them to complete extra steps to submit their match request, so the least you can do is make the process as fast and simple as possible!
Your donation tool and its features should actively support your efforts. Your donation platform should allow you to fully customize the appearance of your form and the exact fields that it contains.
Implementing a user-friendly fundraising platform with these features will encourage donors to give, and to give more. This will increase the rate of follow-through as well as convert many one-time gifts into recurring ones.
Check out all of the features of the Donorbox platform for a great example of the range of intuitive options to look for. This kind of strong foundation will be extremely helpful as you look to increase matching gift revenue.
Once you have the perfect donation page, you can kick things up a notch by integrating matching gifts software into your donation forms.
To review, matching gifts are a type of corporate philanthropy in which employers financially match their employees’ donations to qualified nonprofit organizations.
The specifics depend on each donor’s employer. Companies may pay anywhere between $0.50 to $4 per every dollar donated by an employee, although the standard and most common is a 1:1 ratio. Other stipulations include minimum and maximum donation amounts that the company will match— over 90% of companies have a minimum of less than $50, and 80% of maximums fall between $500 and $10,000.
This kind of extra support for your nonprofit sounds good, right? So, how can you utilize matching gifts for your nonprofit and begin incorporating them into your broader strategies?
To take advantage of matching gifts to the highest extent, you will have to lay a good foundation first. The reason why eligible donors do not request matches is that they are unaware of those programs and their eligibility to use it.
Address both of these knowledge gaps by including a matching gift search tool on the pages where you most need donors to be aware of them. With Double the Donation’s company search widget, you can easily embed a tool on fundraising pages, donation confirmation screens, follow-up messages, and your ways-to-give page.
Check out this demo for steps to integrate Double the Donation’s employer database with your Donorbox donation form.
To truly tap into the power of corporate philanthropy for your nonprofit, you have to empower your donors to take those first critical steps. Building a simple process for checking eligibility right into the donation process itself is the most direct way to ensure no potential matches slip through the cracks.
The two biggest issues facing nonprofits looking to boost matching gift revenue are those of convenience and awareness. You are likely to lose donors because of an inconvenient donation process as much as from the lack of awareness surrounding matching gift programs.
Nonprofits must focus on offering an easy, streamlined and integrated approach. By utilizing a convenient online giving platform combined with an informative matching gifts widget, the donations will begin streaming in right away. Best of luck!
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