Marketing Matching Gifts On Your Website
Your website is likely the number one place where donors come to learn about your mission and, ultimately, make a contribution to the cause. Marketing matching gifts on your website is a great way to promote the opportunity while encouraging donors to give more—and make a matching gift request.
While many of your site’s visitors may start out as strangers, the goal is to impress every user—and to make sure that all parties leave feeling satisfied and looking forward to their next visit. Matching gifts are a great way to do that.
With donors going the online giving route more and more often, an organization’s website encompasses endless opportunities to educate supporters about matching gifts and drive them further down the donation-matching funnel.
Because a nonprofit’s website is such a multifaceted tool, there are a ton of ways to market matching gifts effectively within the online resource. In this guide, we’ll dive into a few of the most common and impactful methods for doing so:
- Dedicated Match Pages
- Prewritten Articles
- Images and Buttons
- Navigation Bars
- Ways to Give Pages
- Custom Matching Gift Program Pages
As with any modern organization, your website is often the first impression someone has of your nonprofit. It’s essential that you make it count by sharing about matching gifts every chance you get. The more familiar donors are with gift-matching initiatives, the more likely they ultimately are to participate!
Marketing Matching Gifts With Dedicated Match Pages
As you learn more about corporate giving, be sure to share this knowledge with your supporters. When you inform donors about corporate philanthropy (and specifically employee or workplace giving opportunities), they’ll know their impact can be multiplied without reaching back into their own pockets. All they need to do is request a matching gift!
One of the best ways to ensure each donor has access to a wide range of matching gift information (and knows how to locate more), we recommend hosting a dedicated corporate matching gift web page on your website. This way, donors will have easy access to a landing page where they can learn about matching gift programs and discover if their employers participate.
This page can communicate relevant facts, such as matching gift statistics or annual donation numbers, as well as allow donors to search for information with an embedded company search tool. It could even be as simple as stating what matching gifts are!
Make sure to incorporate the following best practices for matching gifts on your dedicated match page:
- Begin with a brief overview of corporate matching gift programs (and where users can locate additional information on the topic).
- Explain the benefits of matching gifts programs, both for your nonprofit and for the donors themselves.
- Embed Double the Donation’s autocomplete search box in a highly visible location on the page.
- Include your organization’s contact information, including mailing address and EIN/tax ID number.
The goal of your matching gift page is to provide donors with a place to both learn about matching gifts and be spurred into action on the spot. With Double the Donation’s matching gift services, for example, you can empower donors to participate with year-round access to the forms, guidelines, and instructions they need to submit matching gift requests in minutes.
Example Content:
- “Did you know that more than 26 million people work for companies with employee matching gift programs? You might too! Learn more about your employer’s matching gift programs by entering the company’s name in the below search box.”
- “Matching gifts enable our organization to do more for the children in our community. When you request a donation match for your gift to the Children’s Play and Learning Center, you can provide much-needed resources for twice as many kids we serve. Find out more about the programs with our FAQ section, or find your company’s guidelines here.”
Marketing Matching Gifts With Prewritten Articles
Organizations often use online blogs to keep supporters updated on their efforts and tell the nonprofit’s story. Why not also utilize your blog to share ways for donors to double their donations, enabling your team to keep telling that story?
Blog articles are a great way to start the conversation about corporate philanthropy, specifically the role that individual donors can play. Consider telling in-depth stories about the importance of matching gifts while educating people on how to submit the necessary forms.
Best practices for marketing matching gifts with your prewritten articles include:
- Posting insightful stories about matching gifts and the effects the programs can bring your organization’s mission.
- Incorporating a graphic that advertises matching gifts on the side of a blog post to help increase awareness.
Many donors have never heard of matching gift and volunteer grant programs, so it’s important to inform your supporters about the opportunities. And in order to evoke emotion and drive more donors to participate, we recommend carefully demonstrating the increased impact that corporate giving can have.
Example Content:
- “Corporate Employee Matching Gift Programs: What Are They and How Do They Benefit Atlanta University?”
- Use this article topic to inform donors about matching gift basics, from what matching gifts are to how they benefit your organization to how easy it is to submit a matching gift request. Sometimes people just need to know that such programs exist!
- “Cat Rescue Club raises $200,000 from Matching Gifts and Saves 10,000 Additional Furry Friends!”
- Use this article topic to detail how matching gifts provide additional resources that can create opportunities that would otherwise not be possible. Make the story personal and relatable so donors realize the importance of taking a mere five minutes to submit a matching gift request.
Marketing Matching Gifts With Images and Buttons
Images and buttons are each highly effective ways to draw attention to matching gifts within your organization’s website. Well-crafted visuals are significantly more eye-catching than plain text links (which are often overlooked) and can be a great resource for driving website visitors to take an intended call to action.
Make sure to incorporate the following best practices for matching gifts using images and buttons:
- Brand your images and buttons to your organization and its website by using your existing color scheme, font choices, etc.
- Use imagery to help donors visualize the tangible impact that matching gifts can bring your organization and its mission.
- Produce high-quality and visually appealing images and buttons—avoid blurriness, overcrowding, and imbalance—that also add value to your site.
- Choose and communicate a clear action that you’d like website visitors to take (such as visiting your matching gifts page or searching their employer in your company database).
Once you have your images and buttons created and ready to go, consider incorporating one or more of these resources into your website, along with other digital communications—such as social media marketing and matching gift emails—as well.
Example Content:
- “Get your gift matched — request a matching donation from your employer here!”
- “Learn more about matching gifts! Click here to locate your company’s matching gift guidelines.”
Marketing Matching Gifts With Navigation Bars
A website’s navigation bar is used to provide visitors with an easily accessible resource with which they can travel throughout the site from page to page. For many nonprofits, this navigation bar (also known as a “navigation menu”) incorporates the most highly-trafficked pages.
Depending on the organization in question, this might include items related to the organization’s mission and vision, an “about us” page, contact information for users to get in touch with the team, and a number of ways to support the cause.
By including a link to your organization’s dedicated matching gift web page (described above) within your navigation bar, you can allow users to access that information from anywhere on your website.
Make sure to incorporate the following best practices for matching gifts on your website navigation:
- Provide easy access to matching gift information directly from your site’s navigation bar by linking to your dedicated matching gift page.
- Choose phrasing that is straight to the point and easily understood by your donors and other website viewers (for example, “Double your Donation” or “Matching Gifts”).
- Place your link as prominently within your navigation bar as possible. Avoid too many subfolders, which can defeat the purpose of including it in the website menu at all.
Incorporating a matching gifts link in your navigation bar allows donors to intuitively discover matching gifts. Once a user clicks the link or button, they are able to dive into all the nitty-gritty details about matching gift programs. But all it takes to spark that interest and get the user involved is typically just a few words within the navigation menu!
Marketing Matching Gifts With Ways to Give Pages
A functional website is a necessity for every organization. Not only is it a valuable resource for sharing information about your cause and operations, but it also offers an invaluable source of real estate for promoting revenue opportunities—both matching gifts and otherwise.
For many organizations, that’s where their Ways to Give page comes in!
A “ways to give” page is an area on a nonprofit’s website where people learn about a wide range of support options for the organization. This often includes online giving, upcoming events, direct mail donations, peer-to-peer fundraising opportunities, volunteer initiatives, and, of course, workplace giving programs such as donation matches and volunteer grants.
Make sure to incorporate the following best practices for matching gifts on your “ways to give” page:
- Provide donors with direct access to the tools they need to research their own matching gift eligibility (like a matching gift company search tool).
- Direct donors to a page with more information (e.g., your dedicated matching gift page).
There are typically a ton of ways for supporters to contribute to your organization, and you’ll want to advertise them all on your “ways to give” page. Then, as donors are looking for impactful opportunities to support your cause, remind them that having their employers double their donations is a simple way to make their gift go further.
Example Content:
- “Looking for more ways to support your favorite charities? See if your employer offers matching gifts!”
- “Did you know that thousands of companies match employee donations? Find out if your support is eligible for matching to double the impact of your gift.”
Marketing Matching Gifts With Custom Matching Gift Program Pages
Some companies may not yet have the resources or the bandwidth to launch a comprehensive matching gift program for their staff. One approach that’s becoming increasingly popular among such businesses is the establishment of custom matching gift programs as a way for employers to get a taste of the employee giving opportunity. In this scenario, a company would agree to match team members’ donations to a single nonprofit, often during a limited-time campaign.
And by marketing this unique (or “one-off”) matching gift opportunity, your nonprofit can pursue corporate partnerships more effectively. We recommend hosting a dedicated Custom Matching Gift Programs page on your website, keeping in mind that this resource will primarily target the companies themselves—rather than a company’s individual employees.
Make sure to incorporate the following best practices for matching gifts using custom matching gift pages:
- Host the page and the embedded interest form on your nonprofit website, and maintain consistent branding throughout your organizational materials.
- Clearly define the partnership opportunity. Many companies will be unaware that custom matching gift programs are an option, so you’ll want to overview exactly what is being asked and offered.
- Provide a summary of your nonprofit’s mission and vision! Interested companies may be familiar with your purpose already, but a refresher can reiterate the impact the partner would make by supporting your cause.
Custom matching gift programs provide nonprofits with an excellent opportunity to deepen their relationships with philanthropic-minded companies wanting to get involved in giving back. But they take a bit of a different marketing approach to pursue, so it’s a good idea to determine where these initiatives fit into your overall corporate fundraising strategy and go from there.
Example Content:
- “Interested in supporting our organization with a custom matching gift program? Fill out the following form, and we’ll be in touch to discuss the next steps for developing a mutually beneficial partnership!”
- “By organizing a custom matching gift initiative, which is a unique type of employee giving program, your company would commit to matching donations made by your employees to our nonprofit organization.”
*While 360MatchPro offers custom matching gift management functionality, this feature is designed specifically for fundraisers looking to manage custom matching gift initiatives—360MatchPro does not work directly with corporations. If you’re a company interested in creating a matching gift program, contact us, and we’ll share information about our corporate vendor partners.
Implementing matching gift promotions across your website is a major step in boosting your revenue. Don’t overlook it!
Individuals looking to get involved in your giving in the first place will be more inclined to contribute while existing donors will be able to easily locate the information they need to get their gifts matched by their employers.
As your organization’s #1 marketing tool, marketing matching gifts on your website is essential.
Interested in learning more about effective matching gift fundraising practices? Check out our other educational resources on the topic:
- A Complete Guide to Fundraising Automation for Nonprofits. Raise more for your organization with less time, money, and resources by leveraging automation strategies. Find out how to fundraise better across your online giving pages, donor management system, matching gift tools, and more with this guide.
- How Donor Employer Information Can Boost Your Fundraising. Sharing company-specific matching gift information with donors is a great practice to follow. But in order to do so, you’ll need to know where they work! Learn more about collecting donor employment data and what to do with it here.
- Matching Gift Databases: Our Comprehensive Guide for 2022. Marketing matching gifts across your website and more is made easier with a matching gift database. Explore this 360MatchPro guide to uncovering everything you need to know about the leading matching gift software solution.
