Matching Gifts: The Employer Money Your Donors Do Not Know They Can Add

A donor gives fifty dollars. Her employer would have given fifty more. Nobody told her, so nobody asked, and the second fifty stayed in a corporate budget she will never see.

Multiply that by every donor with a job at a company that matches, and you have the largest pool of money most small nonprofits never touch. Research from Double the Donation, which maintains a large database of corporate matching programs, estimates that between 4 and 7 billion dollars in matching gift funds goes unclaimed every year, largely because about 78 percent of donors do not know whether their employer offers a match. Here is how matching works, why it fails, and the three-step program a small organization can run without new staff.

How matching gifts work

Thousands of companies match charitable gifts their employees make, most often dollar for dollar, sometimes at higher ratios, with minimums frequently around 25 dollars and annual maximums that vary. The donor gives to your organization, then submits a request through the employer's giving system or a short form. The company verifies the gift, usually by asking your organization to confirm it, and sends its own check. Many programs also offer volunteer grants, paying the organization a set amount for hours an employee volunteers. The money is real, the process is simple, and the deadline is the trap: most programs close a request window after a set period following the gift or at the end of the year, and missed deadlines are the most common reason matches fail.

Why the money goes unclaimed

• Donors do not know. Program details live in benefits documents nobody reads. The organization has to tell them.
• Nobody asks at the moment of giving. The donation page and the thank-you email are where the reminder belongs, and most organizations have neither in place.
• The organization does not know where donors work. Without employer data, there is no way to prompt the right people.
• The confirmation sits in an inbox. Companies ask nonprofits to verify gifts; a request that waits three weeks can miss the window.
• Nobody follows up. A single reminder after the gift recovers matches that would otherwise expire.

Matching gifts are the raise your donors can give you without giving another dollar. All they need is to be asked.

Step one: ask at the point of giving

Add one line to the donation page and one to the confirmation screen: "Does your employer match gifts? Many do. Search your company here." Matching-gift search tools can be embedded on a donation page to let donors check eligibility as they give; where that is not possible, a plain sentence and a link to an employer's giving portal does most of the work. Add an employer field to the donation form, optional and short. Our article on writing a donation page people actually complete covers the page itself; the matching line is one addition.

Step two: remind in the thank-you

The thank-you email and letter are read more carefully than any appeal. Include a short paragraph: if your employer matches gifts, your donation could go twice as far, and here is how to check. Send a second reminder a week later to anyone who gave above the typical program minimum. Donors experience this as helpful rather than as another ask, because it costs them nothing. Our article on thanking donors so they give again covers the rest of the thank-you.

Step three: confirm fast and track

Designate one person or one inbox to receive company verification requests and answer them within two business days. Keep a simple record: donor, employer, gift date, request submitted, match received. Review it monthly and follow up on anything pending. Over a year the record shows which employers your donors share, which is the list for your next corporate outreach; our article on corporate sponsorships picks up there.

Employer fields, thank-you sequences, reminder emails, and the follow-up log are the kind of steady work our Fundraising department runs for organizations without a development team. See how our staff grow donor revenue while you lead.

Where the largest matches hide

Board members and major donors are the most likely to work for, or to have retired from, companies with generous programs, and some programs match retirees' gifts too. Ask every board member to check their own and their spouse's employer once a year. Ask major donors the same question in the stewardship conversation you are already having. A single board member's match can equal a month of small gifts.

A calendar that captures the year

• January: remind last year's donors that many programs allow requests for gifts made in the prior year until a deadline early in the new one.
• Every gift: point-of-giving prompt, thank-you reminder, one follow-up.
• Quarterly: review the pending log, chase confirmations, thank donors whose matches arrived.
• November: a matching-gift line in every year-end and GivingTuesday message, because the deadline pressure helps.
• December: a final reminder before year-end program cutoffs.

Questions nonprofits ask about matching gifts

Do we need to register with companies to receive matches?

Usually not. Most programs verify eligibility through your tax-exempt status and ask you to confirm the gift. Some corporate giving systems ask organizations to create a profile once; it takes an afternoon and lasts for years.

Are matches counted as the donor's gift or the company's?

The company's, for records and receipts. Credit the donor in stewardship, since the match happened because of them.

Do small gifts qualify?

Often. Minimums are commonly around 25 dollars, which puts most gifts in range. Volunteer grants have their own thresholds, usually a number of hours.

What if we cannot afford a matching-gift search tool?

Start with the plain-language prompt, the employer field, and the thank-you reminder. Those three capture a meaningful share of matches at no cost, and the log tells you when a tool would pay for itself.

Your mission is bigger than the gift you received

Every gift from an employed donor may be half of what it could be. The difference is a sentence on the donation page, a paragraph in the thank-you, and someone answering the confirmation emails. You do not need to become a corporate giving specialist on top of everything else. You need a staff that is already asking, already reminding, and already tracking while you lead the mission only you can lead. Find out what our staff can do for you.

Zoya Syal is Content and Production Manager at Nonprofits Engine, where she leads the content and testimonial work for a team that helps small nonprofits get set up and funded.