Securing Matching Gifts From Alumni This Holiday Season

Is your university making the most of matching gift fundraising opportunities? Unfortunately, the answer is probably not. The truth is that matching gifts are a significantly underutilized form of funding for all sorts of schools, universities, and institutions. That means that to maximize your school’s revenue, the way you view and promote matching gifts to donors could likely use a revamp.

Matching gifts have the potential to fuel any organization’s fundraising efforts and help you secure the most revenue possible. Ready to drastically improve your matching gift marketing strategies and bring in more corporate dollars? Check out these five best practices if you’re looking to up your matching gift marketing strategies to encourage corporate giving participation among your university donors.

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1. Promote matching gift opportunities to alumni

Many alumni enjoy supporting the schools that helped pave the way for their success. Effective fundraising campaigns can be an excellent means for engaging these former students long after they leave your campus. And taking things a step further is matching gifts.
According to statistics from Double the Donation, more than 18 million individuals are employed by companies with matching gift programs. More than likely, a good amount of your school’s alumni are among those people.
However, the vast majority of match-eligible donors are unaware of the programs offered by their employers⁠ — which often puts it on the organization to market these opportunities effectively. If you’re looking to promote matching gifts, consider the following powerful marketing and outreach avenues to use:

• Email
• Newsletters (physical or electronic)
• Social media
• Direct mail

While it’s certainly a good idea to inform all sorts of people about the wide availability of matching gifts, taking an alumni-centered approach can be a great way to focus on these types of generous supporters and target your efforts accordingly.

2. Create a dedicated matching gifts page on your school website

Many donors use your university’s website to learn more about how to get involved and where to give as well as additional opportunities for support. As such, it’s important that you provide ample information about matching gifts on your site.

We suggest crafting a dedicated matching gifts web page with the following tips in mind:

• Incorporate a company search tool for users to quickly and easily research their employers’ matching gift programs.
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• Provide users with employer-specific next steps for completing the match request submission process. This might include links directing donors to their company’s online forms or downloadable PDFs.
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• Ensure it’s easy to navigate to this web page from your home page, menu, and more. This way, supporters interested in matching gifts will know exactly where to go to find additional information.

Then, direct supporters to this informative resource by linking to it in your matching gift emails, school-wide newsletters, social media posts, and other fundraising materials.

3. Incorporate matching gifts in the online donation process

Whether you’re looking to plan for a dedicated giving day or other fundraising occasion or simply optimize your long-term strategy, corporate matching gifts are a great way to go. When you integrate matching gift fundraising into your existing donation process, it allows donors to determine their own eligibility for a matching gift without ever having to leave your donation page.

Here’s how it typically works:

1.  A donor fills out your school’s online donation form.
2. The donor is provided with a simple company search widget embedded in the page.
3. The donor fills in their employer’s name and submits the donation.
4. The donor is provided with guidelines for their employer’s matching gift program on the confirmation screen.    

Supporters are usually at the peak of their engagement while completing your online donation form, so it makes sense that you’d want to incorporate matching gifts at this time. Plus, research shows that 1 in 3 donors report that they’d likely make a larger gift if they know it will be matched by their employer, which makes it an impactful strategy for increasing donation sizes as well.

4. Keep track of companies with matching gift programs

When it comes to matching gift fundraising for universities, one of the best things you can do to set your team up for success is to keep a detailed record of companies with especially generous matching gift programs. Then, you can compare this information against the companies that your alumni are working for to get a better idea of your existing match-eligible prospects.

After all, a significant part of effectively leveraging matching gifts depends on having and using the right data to drive your fundraising strategies. For matching gifts, donor employers are the most important metric there is.

5. Encourage match-eligible donors to submit their requests

Following up with supporters after they’ve made their gifts is one of the best ways to take your donor relations to the next level and maximize the number of donors who request corporate matches. We recommend segmenting donors by their likely eligibility for a match (based on information collected during the donation process) to ensure your messaging is as tailored and relevant as possible. Consider these examples:

• For a donor who is likely eligible for a match, you might provide them with direct links to their employer’s program guidelines and online submission forms.
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• For a donor who is likely ineligible for a match, you might encourage them to reach out to their employer to double-check for the existence of any matching gift programs.
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• For a donor who has unknown match eligibility, you might ask them to select their employer from a company search tool to determine whether they offer a corporate match.

Luckily, if you’d like to streamline this process and save time and resources for your school, you can automate the follow-up process from beginning to end. All you have to do is invest in a matching gift automation tool, and the software will do the rest!

Failing to promote matching gifts to supporters is essentially throwing away free donations. When you take a strategic approach to marketing, however, you allow your generous donors to make an even larger impact on your school, establish corporate partnerships with businesses in your network, and secure additional revenue for your university’s needs.
Just remember to inform alumni and other supporters of these exceptional giving opportunities, promote matching gifts through your school website and donation page and follow up with donors to drive match requests to make the best of your fundraising efforts.

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With the holiday season in full swing, your institution is likely already focusing on how it will connect with alumni as they return home for the holidays.

While you should engage your alumni every day of the year, the holiday season presents a great opportunity to supercharge alumni relationships and foster lasting connections during a time when people are feeling generous. It’s a great time to reach out to graduates and let them know just how valuable they are to the continued success of your college or university.

Whether you reach out with a simple “thank you” or throw a full-blown appreciation event, there are plenty of ways to connect with alumni and bridge the physical distance between them and your school. As you freshen up your alumni engagement strategies for the holiday season, work these ideas into your efforts:

1. Send festive holiday cards.
2. Host a peer-to-peer fundraiser.
3. Engage with them on social media.
4. Send branded gifts.

Your alumni are a valuable part of your institution. Implementing extra appreciation and engagement efforts will inspire them to stick around and establish lifelong connections to your school.

1. Send festive holiday cards

Any alum appreciates knowing their alma mater is thinking of them during this special time of the year. Why not send them a festive eCard or a letter in the mail, thanking them for their continued support for your school?

This is a great way to say thanks for their continued involvement and to wish them happy holidays. Here are a few ways you can create a holiday card that your alumni will love:‍

Feature student or alumni talent: Have someone who’s skilled in graphic design create the card itself. If you go digital with your holiday card, consider having a campus acapella group or musicians sing or play a carol.

Keep it short: Your holiday card doesn’t have to be lengthy to get the point across that you’re thinking about your former students. Keep the card fairly simple, or if you’re sending a video as your holiday greeting, make sure it’s no longer than a couple of minutes.

Add a soft ask to the card: The end of the year is the most charitable time of the year. Include a non-intrusive donation request at the end of your video or card. Add a donation button that links them to the donation page, or provide instructions on how to find your online donation page on your school’s website.

The great thing about holiday cards is that they’re low-cost (especially when you go digital) and they’re sure to make your alumni light up when they hear from you. Make this an annual marketing tactic, and alumni will start to look forward to hearing from you every year.

2. Host a peer-to-peer fundraiser

Alumni giving is used as an indicator of a university’s success. It communicates how invested alumni are in the continued development of the organization.

Colleges and universities among other fundraising organizations recognize the holiday season as one of the best times to push out fundraising appeals to alumni.

‍In fact, Double the Donation’s nonprofit fundraising statistics page indicates that 30% of annual giving happens in December, with about 10% of all annual donations coming in the last three days of the year.

As part of your year-end alumni fundraising strategies, try a peer-to-peer campaign. In this type of campaign, your supporters (in this case, your alumni) set up individual campaign pages, personalizing them with their own images and personal stories that emphasize their experiences at your school. Then, they share the page with their friends and family, encouraging them to donate.

Peer-to-peer fundraising is a fantastic way to connect with alumni and inspire them to donate during a time when they’re feeling extra generous — especially younger alumni who spend a good bit of time online. It helps you reconnect with other alumni who might’ve lost touch with your school. They’ll see their friends actively supporting your school, sparking memories of their alma mater. Not only this, but you’ll reinforce loyalty among those who volunteer to fundraise.

3. Engage with them on social media

You engage with students on social media upon admission all the way through their enrollment at your institution. Those digital connections shouldn’t be severed the moment they graduate. The holiday season is a good time to re-up your social media activities to re-spark those connections.

Social media efforts play a crucial role in your overall reachability, enabling you to reach thousands or even millions of followers instantly when you post. If you’re not careful, your social media efforts might lapse during the holiday season, a crucial time where consistency pays off.

Here are a few ways to connect with your alumni during the holiday season:

Have a consistent posting schedule: Ideally, post a few times a week. If your marketing team will be out of the office, use your marketing tools to automate your posts.

Interact with them: Make the most of social media by leveraging it as a two-way communication system. Like or respond to comments on your posts, or go on a following spree where you follow active alumni members back.

Hold an ugly sweater contest: Bring the festivities into your social media strategies. Create a hashtag, such as #YourSchool’sNameUglySweaterContest2021, and ask alumni to share pictures of them in their ugliest sweaters. Declare your winner and send them a gift (like a branded t-shirt or a stuffed animal of your school’s mascot) as a prize.

People will have some extra free time to relax during the holiday season, so they’re sure to be scrolling through their social media feeds. Capitalize on this time and avoid putting your social media efforts on hold during the holiday season.

4. Send them branded gifts

The end of the year is the perfect time to show your appreciation by sending alumni members gifts. After all, who wouldn’t be excited to get a package in the mail, especially if it’s a free gift from their alma mater?

While sending gifts to every graduate might not fall within your school’s budget, you can send them to those who are active in your alumni program. Your team should be sure to pick the appropriate gift that represents the alumni’s level of involvement, whether that means taking a look at their volunteer hours or donation history. Some branded gifts that will serve as great memorabilia for active members of your alumni network include:

• Custom t-shirts
• Magnets
• Keychains
• Mugs
• Stuffed animals of your school’s mascot

These can easily be branded to your school, and recipients will be reminded of you each time they use their gift. If you want to express appreciation for major donors, you might instead send larger gifts, like food baskets or gift certificates. Either way, get into the spirit of giving this holiday season by sending a token of appreciation to your active supporters.

Whether you’re asking them to get involved in a campaign or extending a thank you to those who stay involved, the end of the year is the perfect time to step up your alumni engagement efforts. Between a boost in your fundraising appeals and gifts, make the most of this upcoming holiday season by investing in alumni engagement. Good luck and happy holidays!

As another year approaches its end and the holiday spirit hangs high in the air, how prepared are you to leverage this holiday season to double the impact of your donations?

Gift matching programs are a great way to drive revenue for your institution - they allow your donors to increase their donation amounts through employer benefits instead of their own wallets. Despite this, there is an estimated $4 to $7 billion in matching gifts that go unclaimed each year. Academic institutions could really benefit from that cash - so why aren’t they taking advantage of it?

Well, many organizations and donors alike are not very familiar with matching gift programs. In fact, 78% of match eligible donors don’t know anything about their gift matching programs. That means they are certainly not taking the extra step of submitting matching gift requests. So the most important thing to know about gift matching is that not enough donors know about gift matching programs. 

Once you know that it is an awareness gap and not a motivation gap that stands in the way of matching gift revenue, it becomes easier to educate your donors and encourage them to drive their matching gift requests to completion.

This holiday season, leverage these 3 matching gift strategies to fuel your institution's fundraising efforts and upgrade your alumni programming.

Strategy #1: Educate Donors to Drive Awareness 

As mentioned above, the main reason that your organization does not reach its potential in matching gifts is because donors are not aware that they are eligible for gift matching programs. As a nonprofit organization, it is your job to educate these donors because it can result in a lot of extra cash for your mission. 

One of the best places to educate your donors is on your donation confirmation screen. Many matching gift requests are time sensitive, so it is important to educate your donors quickly, and the easiest way to do that is, of course, directly after their donation has been made. 

Educating your donors on the confirmation screen also allows you to target them while they are still in the giving mindset. The donor obviously feels connected and committed to your organization, so they will welcome additional ways to increase their initial contribution. 

To do this, simply add a couple of sentences about gift matching on your confirmation page. You can even use tools like 360MatchPro by Double the Donation to allow donors to search for the name of their employer and then read more about their own specific gift matching program.

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By placing matching gift information directly onto your confirmation pages, you can target donors quickly and efficiently while they are still feeling connected to your organization. This increases the chances that they will learn more about employer gift matching and then pursue a matching gift request. ‍

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Strategy #2: Encourage Action Through Automated Outreach 

After your donor learns more about gift matching, you still want to ensure that they take action and submit their matching gift request. That is why our next must-know strategy also involves direct donor communication.  This time, however, it entails using automated emails to follow up with donors after the donation process. 

Email messages are a great way to provide additional gift matching information that might not fit on your confirmation page. It also provides a second chance for your donor to submit their gift matching request. There are many automated email stream options that allow you to send matching gift emails to donors after the donation process.

If you use gift matching software like 360MatchPro, you can even automate these messages to contain gift matching information that is specific to your donor’s employer.

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These messages contain specific guidelines based on the information that your donor entered on the confirmation page.This can include employer match amounts, eligibility and a link to submit a gift matching request. This makes it easy for the donor to learn more about gift matching and take the final step of driving their gift to completion.  

Automated emails that contain general matching gift information are especially important because even if your donor did not enter their employer into the gift matching tool you’re using, they might still be eligible for a matching gift. They might have simply neglected to read the confirmation page or they did not think that matching gift programs applied to them, which could be based on the awareness gap that we discussed before. 

Most nonprofits choose to customize this email so that it matches their brand’s unique voice. Automated email outreach is a lucrative strategy that encourages donors to complete gift matching requests. It is a great way to further educate donors and help them secure extra funding for your organization. ‍

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Strategy #3: Track Insights to Plan Future Initiatives

The gift matching process produces valuable insights about your donors. This can include where they work, their matching gift eligibility and their response to automated outreach. It is important to keep track of this data so that you can better develop your ongoing fundraising strategies. ‍

That is why the final need-to-know strategy involves tracking donor insights. By tracking the information that is produced from matching gift strategies, you can tailor future outreach and ensure that you are creating an effective matching gift approach. 

360MatchPro can actually track all of these insights for you using its automated technology. While you could manually record all of this data, the 360MatchPro dashboard stores it for you in one, easy-to-navigate space.

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Using this information, you could thank your donors for their matching gift request, or you could automate follow up emails to donors who did not open your first message. For example, if you have a donor named Jenny from the Home Depot who submits a matching gift request, you could wait to receive the gift, then send Jenny a personalized message that thanks her for her request and explains how it helped your organization. You could then track Jenny’s future contribution habits to see how this positively affected her donor behavior. Keeping track of this information is vital to maintaining a lucrative gift matching strategy. 
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The fundraising strategies don’t stop there! While you just learned about the most important matching gift strategies for the year-end holiday season, there are certainly more tools to explore. For example, if you are interested in learning more about which companies have the best matching gift programs, check out this page. This list details the most impressive matching gift programs, and it can help you target the most profitable matching gift employees. 

You can also check out Double the Donation’s educational blog to discover more matching gift resources. Happy fundraising! 

About the author:

Adam Weinger is the President of Double the Donation, the leading provider of matching gift tools to nonprofit organizations and educational institutions. Adam created Double the Donation in order to help nonprofits increase their annual revenue through corporate matching gift and volunteer grant programs.