Matching gifts are a key tool in increasing your donation total, recognizing major donors, and encouraging your normal contributors to give. Even before adding in the extra money from matching funds, nonprofits who broadcasted that they would match funds saw a huge jump in online donations. 

While certain donors might approach your organization wanting to sponsor matching funds, more often you or someone from your organization will take on the task of presenting donors, supporters, and board members with this opportunity. 

The donors you reach out to about this will most likely already be high-level givers and you should approach them as you would any important supporter: with a personal email and an appeal to the ways in which matches can help to incentivize individual donors and help your organization to quickly reach its goals.  

When announcing a particular campaign, it is important to personally reach out to all of your supporters. If you have specific high-level supporters who you think might want to sponsor a match, consider segmenting these donors into a group to whom you will send a separate, personal appeal to sponsor a match. Mention how imperative matching donations are to meet fundraising goals and share with them the above statistics about the ways in which matches help to make Nonprofit Fundraising more successful and impactful. 

The information above is also useful when soliciting a match from a corporate sponsor. The only major difference would be in approach. When a local business or other corporation makes this kind of gift, it allows for great publicity for the business, and opens them up to your entire donor base. Make sure that you include an emphasis on marketing and publicity on the communications you send enlisting corporate sponsor matches and offer to do some promotional work for your sponsor as well! 

Matching incentives excite donors to give in order to reach the full amount pledged. If an individual donor knows that their donation will be doubled, it will make them feel like their donation - however large or small - has a greater impact on your organization and community. This is an excellent way to enhance Donor Stewardship as donors appreciate knowing that their gifts have a very real impact on your organization's goals and success! 

You can have multiple simultaneous matches on GiveGab. These matches can be set up in one of two ways: matches can happen simultaneously, so each dollar given is matched by multiple dollars, or they can occur back to back so once one match is completed you start taking from the next one. Matches are 1-to-1 (or dollar-for-dollar) so they are always set up to double an individual donation. 

For more information on how to set up a match on GiveGab, check out this helpful support article!