Congratulations! You just secured a new donor or gift. But, what if your organization was leaving money on the table? That individual may have a corporate donation match that you have just missed. A recent article by CBS MoneyWatch highlighted that unclaimed donations from corporate matching gift programs may be shortchanging nonprofits to the tune of $7 billion annually.
With 26 million Americans working for companies with matching gift programs, chances are that many of your existing and future donors have the opportunity to double their gift impact (or more). As your team reviews your online donation pages and donor acknowledgment materials, ensure that you raise awareness of these programs with your donors–many may not even realize their company offers the benefit.
This gives your organization even more justification for capturing career data if you’re not already. If you collect employer and career information for your donors, you can flag individuals who work for companies offering matching gifts in your database, and tweak your outreach messages to them specifically. Investing in career intelligence may just double or even triple your ROI on outreach efforts. For example, Johnson&Johnson has a 2:1 match for employees of up to $10,000 annually. This means that a $5000 donation from a Johnson&Johnson employee could end up being $15,000 with the corporate match.
Matched gifts are just one major benefit when it comes to career intelligence. The goal here is efficiency. With strong career insights, your organization will be able to focus its efforts on the most valuable potential donors as well as have access to the most up-to-date information on these individuals. Knowing when an individual starts a new job and knowing which company they now work for is going to provide your team with incredible insight into that person and help you make informed decisions when it comes to reaching out. One of the 20+ career intelligence insights at Windfall includes job level. This picture you’ve painted of this potential donor is now telling you that a C-level executive from Johnson&Johnson has moved over to ExxonMobile, which also has a robust 2:1 corporate matching program.
The next time you review your donor acknowledgment materials be sure to address this topic with your gift officers and your fundraising team so you can increase your fundraising ROI!