Key Matching Gift Strategies To Round Out Your Year-End Fundraising

If you’re looking to drive revenue with matching gifts this giving season, we recommend incorporating the following practices into your organization’s year-end fundraising strategy:

1. Leverage donor insights collected throughout the year.

2. Send targeted matching gift follow-ups after year-end donations.

3. Identify and pursue retroactive matching gift opportunities.

4. Automate your RENXT matching gift program with 360MatchPro

Even if you haven't made a concerted effort to go after matching gifts throughout the year, you can still pursue corporate matching funds to round out your year-end fundraising. In this guide, we’ll walk through each of the above-mentioned tips, exploring the ways in which your team can maximize corporate matching in the final few weeks of the year.
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1. Leverage donor insights collected throughout the year.

You'll need the right donor data in your arsenal to uncover and target match-eligible donations. One key piece of information you’ll need to know? Your donors’ employment statuses. While gathering this information throughout the year is ideal, it's not too late to begin collecting these essential details to make the most of matching gift opportunities.

A few key methods for locating employment insights might include:

• Requesting donor employment data directly within your fundraising appeals and donation forms;

• Scanning contact information provided to uncover corporate email addresses being used for online giving;

• Leveraging employer appends services to provide unknown employer information;

• Employing dedicated matching gift software alongside your traditional fundraising tools.

In the end, you will have the details needed to execute effective communication strategies to drive more matching gifts to completion at the end of the year.

To further simplify your efforts, consider a synchronized solution that integrates your donor management and matching gifts software. Using advanced technology, a two-way data sync can identify donors who are eligible for a matching gift and encourage them to kick off the matching process. With automated, configurable outreach, your organization can easily collect and standardize information regarding donors' match eligibility, with data flowing back into your donor management system for ease of use.

2. Send targeted matching gift follow-ups after year-end donations.

Double the Donation’s matching gift research reports that over $4 to $7 billion in available matching gift funding goes unclaimed each year. That’s a significant amount of revenue that should be going toward mission-driven causes but isn’t⁠—largely due to a lack of awareness of the programs’ existence in the first place. Another key drop-off point is when eligible donors simply do not follow through with the process required to submit their corporate matches.

By sending post-donation emails that explain corporate gift-matching opportunities to donors following their year-end donations, you can inform them about eligibility, provide necessary guidelines, and encourage donors to take follow-up steps to secure matching funds.

When you already have employment information on file, you can present donors with a direct link to their employer’s matching gift form. This typically also contains detailed information on the program, including match minimums and maximums, employee eligibility status, and an overview of the submission process.

3. Identify and pursue retroactive matching gift opportunities.

The end of the year is an excellent time to look back at your previous engagement efforts. This includes taking the opportunity to identify previously-made donations that may still be eligible for corporate matching.

We recommend doing so for a few reasons:

• Many companies set their matching gift deadlines in line with the end of the calendar year. This means that donors who contributed many months ago might be eligible for a match, though their window of opportunity is quickly closing.

• Donors tend to feel increasingly charitable-minded in the year-end giving season, thus increasing the likelihood that they would complete the steps to further your mission when asked.

• Matching gift opportunities allow supporters to amplify their personal donation impact without reaching back into their own wallets. Considering budgets can be tight at the end of the year, matching gifts are a great way to get involved without asking for additional monetary contributions.

Getting your gifts matched immediately following a donation is great, but the fact is that not all donors will do so. Rather than allowing potential match revenue to fall by the wayside, months-later follow-ups can help drive additional corporate donations toward your cause before it’s too late.

Doing so can be as simple as sending a message to donors who had been marked as likely eligible for a match earlier in the year, yet you have not seen a corresponding match come through.

Here’s a bit of sample text to build off of:

“Dear Jane, our records indicate that you made a generous donation of $100 on March 17th, 2022. This gift likely qualifies for a corporate match from your employer. Click here to determine eligibility and access your company’s matching gift request form!”
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4. Automate your RENXT matching gift program with 360MatchPro

Finally, technology can help automate all of these processes for you: RENXT has a deep, turnkey integration with 360MatchPro by Double the Donation. the industry-leading matching gift solution. This is a Partner solution in the Blackbaud Marketplace that streamlines matching gift fundraising for RENXT users, helping subscribers of both solutions to maximize their matching gift revenue.

The integration includes:

• Automated Engagement ⁠— Use automated and targeted donor engagement to enhance external communication. With 360MatchPro, you can customize the frequency and logic while also tracking metrics, segmenting donors, and managing subscriptions. Your team and your supporters benefit from personalized and timely donor messaging, all without manual intervention or concerns about prospects slipping through the cracks.

• Data and Analytics ⁠— RENXT empowers you with custom information reports; the 360MatchPro dashboard provides a comprehensive view of donor engagement. From there, you can leverage valuable insights on gift matching rates, response tendencies, and more directly from your organization’s portal, allowing your team to plan future outreach initiatives in accordance with your donor base.

• Branding and Customization ⁠— 360MatchPro helps you to maintain a consistent branding strategy by allowing your team to customize all aspects of your matching gift messaging. Donor communications come from your organization’s email address rather than a third party that your donor doesn’t recognize. Not to mention, it allows you to conserve your organization’s unique voice⁠—without having to invest additional time and effort.

A matching gift integration like this can help you double or even triple your organization’s matching gift revenue. From customizing emails to organizing donor information, you can tailor the matching gifts process to suit your organization. If you're already a subscriber to 360MatchPro, learn how to activate the integration, or get started with 360MatchPro by scheduling a personalized demo (mention you use Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT in your demo request form!).

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