By: Keisha Hartman

You secured a matching gift from a major donor, now what? Whether the matching gift is from a sponsor or an individual, there are a few ways you can use the donation to drive more engagement. We’ll take you through the key best practices for using matching gifts in your next campaign.

Recognize the Donor

If the donor wants to remain anonymous you can use language like “thanks to a generous donor”, this allows you to still say thank you in all your messages without mentioning the name. Generally, corporate partners want to be recognized and recognition is a nice selling point for sponsorships. This messaging might include “thanks to our friends at Company” and it could also mean branding some assets with their logo. Be sure to mention your list size when seeking sponsorships as an additional benefit.

Create a Sense of Urgency

The most successful match campaigns have a deadline. This rallies your constituents towards this goal and creates a sense of urgency. There are a few ways you can message this:

• Donate today to unlock a matching gift: this strategy works well for peer-to-peer or giving days, to get either a certain amount of money donated or a number of gifts to unlock matching gifts.
• Deadline to match your gift is today: this is most common around specific campaigns like GivingTuesday or end of year where there is a certain length of the campaign tied around a date.
• Match extended or triple the impact: consider extending the match an extra day to let more donations come in, or even switching from a “double your gift” to a “triple your gift” message towards the end of the campaign.

Demonstrate the Impact

Create a visual to show the impact of a matched gift. For example, your donate buttons could say something like “$35 becomes $70, $60 becomes $120, $120 becomes $240.” Another way to show impact could be “your gift goes twice as far towards our mission,” and give examples of what the matching gifts will fund.

There are many ways to incorporate a matching gift into your campaign. Let us know how we can help strategize for your next campaign.