There’s no doubt about it, we are in unprecedented times. People across the country need help, and many charities are paving the way to providing that help. But charities can’t do that without proper funding.

The normal event-based fundraising strategies for nonprofits and higher ed institutions no longer apply with social distancing rules. While industries and businesses navigate an ever-changing landscape, are they tamping down on matching employee donations or donating less to charities overall?

The answer may surprise you.

Large corporations are not only stepping up to the plate and donating more, but they are doing so in record fashion. Just like the rest of us who may tip a bit more on food delivery, donate to a local food bank, or give our alma mater a boost, companies want to help. While it’s true that smaller corporations or startups with less capital may be forced to re-evaluate their giving policies, the overwhelming majority are keeping or modifying their matching gift programs to offer more help to those in need.

With 10-15% of donors being matching gift eligible and a typical match ratio of 1:1 or sometimes even 2:1, matching gift donations can have a huge impact on fundraising revenue. In fact, it can increase overall annual giving totals in the range of 10%.

Corporate generosity has resulted in truly awe-inspiring charitable offerings that can help organizations fulfill their missions and thrive:

  • Apple increased the matching gift ratio to 2:1 and pledged a commitment of $15 million
  • Facebook included the public on their matching gift effort and is matching all donations up to $20 million
  • Google increased the matching gift maximum per employee from $10,000 to $20,000
  • PepsiCo increased their employee matching gift ratio from 1:1 to 2:1

What’s important for organizations to consider is that many gift matches are calculated on a calendar year basis. Some donations can be matched for up to 12 months from the date of gift. Why not look into the past year of donations to see if any are matching gift eligible? And for donations being made right now, matching gift revenue could continue rolling in a year later. The timeline is all dependent upon corporate matching gift rules and when a corporation concludes their fiscal year.

The biggest obstacles for charitable organizations and higher education institutions seeking to secure gift matching revenue is two-fold: identifying matching gift eligible donors and converting those opportunities into revenue.

The reality is that companies are frequently changing or adding to their programs and keeping up with these changes can be an impossible task for an internal team. Programs are multi-faceted with many details to gather, including deadlines, distribution dates, contacts, and designations, and paperwork has to be completed properly and within the required time-frame. In fact, some programs have up to 100 pieces of data to follow. For these reasons, many organizations leave their matching gift revenue opportunities to chance.

Auto Match and Match Lookup from Affinaquest offer easy donor identification of matching gift opportunities through an exhaustive database of 23,000+ corporate giving policies (7,000 more than the nearest competitor), and a customizable automated platform that follows up with donors to ensure revenue conversion. It’s a proven system that works – the average organization sees a 40% increase in fundraising revenue in the first year.

Keeping the corporate matching gift database up to date is no easy task, and we have a full research team solely dedicated to ensuring information is as close to near real-time as possible. We also rely on partnerships with corporations that we’ve built over 20 years. There is truly no other resource on the market that is as comprehensive and established. Our system can also upload all of your donor information, track their progress and send personalized automated reminders for paperwork to ensure matching gift opportunities are completed.

For organizations concerned about what the future holds, there is positive news to consider: based on historical giving data from the last recession, the upward donation trend of corporations will continue. The Affinaquest corporate giving database grew throughout the recession, and today, it continues to grow every single day.

Curious to see what donors in your database are matching gift eligible?

We can run a complementary Matching Gift Scorecard to identify these donors and provide a dollar estimate on your gift match revenue opportunity. To learn more, reach out to schedule a free demo of Affinaquest’s AffinityX2 Matching Gift tools today.

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