Giving Tuesday Matching Funds: Strategies for Driving Donations

It’s that time of year again: Giving Tuesday is right around the corner. While we anticipate this holiday every year, it’s no secret that this time around feels much different. Our fundraising landscape is changing, and it’s important to account for these shifts as we strategize our goals and set out to accomplish them.

While some of our fundraising avenues, like in-person events, are dwindling, there are certainly others that will make a real, positive impact this year. A perfect example of this is employer gift matching. Gift matching programs are designed to drive support for your organization without even asking your donors for more of their own dollars. In fact, this fundraising strategy is a great way to engage donors and increase revenue, and it can be executed completely online.

While this strategy can be very lucrative, we understand that it might seem a bit overwhelming to plan all on your own.

With these strategies, you are sure to easily and efficiently double or even triple your Giving Tuesday donations through matching funds! Here’s what we’ll cover:

• Communicate With Donors To Grow Revenue
• Create A Dedicated Web Page To Fuel Contributions
• Track Data & Analytics For Long-Term Fundraising Success

1. Communicate With Donors To Grow Revenue

When it comes to gift matching, donor communication is key. Your donors probably don’t know much about employer gift matching. In fact, 78% of match eligible donors are totally unaware that they qualify for a matching gift program. That’s a lot of donors considering 18 million individuals (or around 10% of the workforce) qualify for matching funds!

So we know that donors don’t know about matching gift programs, which means that they certainly don’t know how to submit a matching gift request. The positive spin on this is that it is truly an awareness gap and not a motivation gap that prevents your organization from reaching its matching gift potential. In fact, 84% of donors are actually more likely to donate if they know their gift will be matched.

When you think about it, this makes sense. Your donors are already connected and committed to your organization; why wouldn’t they want to increase their contribution at no additional cost? So how can we teach them how to double their donations leading up to Giving Tuesday when they are totally unaware of their matching gift potential?

Well, the good news is that you probably already have a pretty robust communication plan. Most nonprofits talk to their donors through multiple avenues, like email streams and newsletters. So why not just include matching gift information as a part of that outreach?

You can tell your donors about the top matching gift companies or the expanded matching gift programs resulting from COVID-19. These resources are excellent ways to inform your donors and help them make the most of their own matching programs.

360MatchPro, Double the Donation’s powerful matching gift tool, integrates with Kindful to make matching gift emails easier than ever. Once a donor submits a donation, you can configure this tool to automatically send matching gift follow-up emails. These messages can even contain an option for the donor to search for their employer and access a direct link to their matching gift submission page – making it incredibly easy for both your team and the donor to drive donations for your organization.

As you plan your Giving Tuesday outreach strategies, be sure to include matching gift communication tactics to educate donors and fuel your matching gift funds!

2. Create a Dedicated Web Page to Fuel Contributions

So we just discussed how to target your supporters and subscribers, but what about those who haven’t yet made a contribution or subscribed to your newsletters? While it’s great to educate active supporters about matching funds, it can also be valuable to inform potential donors and website visitors about these programs as well. In fact, mentioning matching funds in fundraising appeals can result in a 51% increase in donation amount – meaning your provided matching gift information can actually turn readers into donors!

We recommend that you create a matching gift page on your website. This page should include an overview of matching funds where you can explain how these programs work and vary from company to company. You should also include why matching funds are beneficial to your nonprofit. This will help you connect to your donors and show them that their matched contributions can do a lot for your cause.

A matching gift page also allows visitors to have a trusted source of matching gift information to reference in case they hear about these programs from a different source. They can use this page as a way to research matching funds and then transfer their knowledge into action!

Double the Donation also provides an easy solution for you to make your matching gift page even more powerful. By embedding the matching gift search bar, users can search for the name of their employer and then be taken directly to their matching gift submission form. This page will also automatically show matching gift guidelines and qualifications once a donor enters the name of their employer. This serves as an extra touchpoint for your donors and potential donors to understand the specifics of their own personal matching gift program so that they can drive more matches to completion.

Keep this strategy in mind for Giving Tuesday so that your website visitors can learn how to drive revenue for your organization through employer gift matching.

3. Track Data and Analytics for Long-Term Fundraising Success

Data, data, data: it seems that donor data is constantly being harped on in every fundraising strategy, and this is for good reason. Valuable and relevant metrics ensure that your Giving Tuesday campaign can be evaluated or updated – which are vital aspects of any campaign.

Employer gift matching strategies are no different. In order to take full advantage of these programs, you need to track donor insights. This might include your donors’ employers, matching gift guidelines, and responses to email messaging. Without these metrics, your Giving Tuesday matching funds campaign will not sustain success.

For example, if you have a donor who submits a matching gift for her Giving Tuesday contribution, don’t you want her to remember that information for future donations? Storing her information will allow your team to ask this donor to submit matching gift requests in the future. Similarly, tracking when a donor submits a request will allow you to send automated yet personalized gratitude messages to thank your donor for their doubled donation – and encourage them to donate again in the future.

Luckily, 360MatchPro tracks all of this information and more from its easy-to-navigate dashboard. Once integrated with your Kindful platform, 360MatchPro automatically syncs donor records into its system, making it simpler than ever to track donor gift matching data.

This dashboard provides valuable insights including where your donor is in the matching gift process, how they responded to matching gift emails, and how many of your donors are match eligible. Using these insights, you can plan future outreach strategies and target donors with the best matching gift programs – all through efficient and automated features.

Tracking your donor data is a surefire way to drive matching gift requests for your organization. Be sure to include each of these strategies as you craft your upcoming Giving Tuesday campaign.

For more resources on planning and executing your Giving Tuesday campaign, see our 2020 Giving Tuesday Resources for Nonprofits.