Guide to Nonprofit Matching Fund Campaigns

In the world of nonprofit fundraising, Matching Fund Campaigns can be a powerful tool to increase campaign response rates, increase gift size and build urgency around your campaign.

In fact, according to Double the Donation, 84% of survey participants say they’re more likely to donate if a match is offered. And, donors in matching campaigns also gave larger gifts on average!

For these reasons, a matching fund for your direct response campaign can be a powerful tool to create campaign success. But, it can feel intimidating to approach your best partners to start a matching fund pool for your campaign.

This guide delves deep into how these challenges work, why they are effective, and how you can run them to double or even triple your fundraising results. We’ll also provide some thoughts on who might be the best support to start to build your pool with.

Start Planning Your Matching Gift Fund Campaign

Effective campaign planning is essential for maximizing the success of any direct response fundraising campaign. But, a matching fund challenge can take extra time because of the up front work to build the matching funding pool. So, start a bit earlier.

Here’s an outline to create your campaign is well-organized and impactful:

Define Clear Objectives

Start by setting clear, measurable goals for what you hope to achieve. Determine how much money you need to raise and how these funds will impact your work.

Start with some of the broader goals that you have at your organization. If you have a strategic plan, start there.

What are the big goals you’re aiming to achieve? Now, break it into what’s achievable this year.

Do you need to put roofs on the homes you’re building this year? Do you need to raise the funds for construction of an entire house?

Whatever the goal is, make it concrete and achievable. This will come in handy when you’re formulating the ask for your campaign.

If you’re familiar with SMART goals, this is a good time to use them.

SMART goals are goals that are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound.

Develop a Timeline

Once you have your SMART goal established, it’s time to start thinking about the campaign timeline.

Create a detailed timeline leading up to and through the campaign period. This should include key dates such as:

• Select your matching fund partners
• Campaign planning and design
• Print and mailing of direct mail
• Launch day
• Major promotional pushes
• Milestones for evaluating progress
• The final day of the campaign
• Post-campaign analysis

This timeline helps keep everything on track and ensures that all team members know their deadlines and responsibilities.

Create a project plan in a spreadsheet, or use a project management system like Asana to keep the project team informed and on the same page about progress.

Identify and Segment Your Audience

The target audience for your campaign is one of the most important elements of a successful campaign. Good campaigns match the right message to the right audience.

When an individual receives the campaign it feels personal and relevant to their relationship with the organization.

Knowing your audience is critical to success, and segmenting your list to personalize the campaign is even more critical to success.

Some examples of different segments might include:

• Long-time donors
• Recent donors
• Potential donors who have not yet given
• Major donors
• Corporate partners
• Community partners
• Volunteers
• Board members

Once you have clear segments that you want to send your campaign to, start to plan how you want to personalize the content to make it relevant to their experience.

If you’re new to this, start slow. Consider creating 2-3 segments. Aim to get started. Don’t get overwhelmed with the different segmentation possibilities.

Finding the Matching Fund Right Partners

Choosing the right partners to create your matching fund is crucial for success. Here’s a look at potential partners and how you might approach them for building your matching fund:

• Corporate Sponsors: local companies that you already have a relationship with, or are looking to start a new relationship with. The benefit for them: this partnership enhances their brand image and engages employees by showing commitment to social causes.
• Major Donors: major donors often seek impactful ways to contribute to their communities They may want to “leverage” their dollars to increase their money’s impact. The benefit for them: they may be honored to be a catalyst for a successful giving campaign.
• Local Businesses: smaller, community-based businesses can be excellent partners for localized fundraising efforts. The benefit for them: they have a vested interest in improving their community, which can drive local support and contributions. A matching campaign could also elevate their profile in the eyes of local customers.
• Grant Foundations: many foundations offer matching grants as a way to leverage their impact. Foundations are viewed as credible and their involvement can lend authority to your campaign. The benefit for them: foundations are often looking for ways to multiply their philanthropic efforts in local communities.
• Local Clubs or Civic groups: organizations like Rotary, Lions Clubs, or Kiwanis focus on community support. The benefit for them: this can be a great way to get their members more engaged.
• Local Influencers: partnerships with well-known local personalities can amplify your message. Their wide reach and influence can drive significant online donations. The benefit for them: a partnership with your mission will elevate their personal brand and put them in the limelight (where they love to be).
• Professional Associations: these groups have members usually interested in specific causes related to their profession. There are particularly good partnership opportunities when your mission aligns with their industry’s focus. The benefit for them: challenges like this can activate their membership base, and elevate the association’s brand.
• Faith-Based Organizations: churches, mosques, synagogues, and other religious groups often support charitable causes. Their community-oriented nature and regular gatherings can mobilize a large group of donors. The benefit for them: challenges like this can activate their community, especially when your mission aligns with their community work.

Each type of partner brings unique benefits to a matching fund challenge. Don’t forget, you can also group these partners together to create your fund.

For instance, rather than asking one major donor to contribute to the matching pool, you could ask several to contribute to your matching pool goal.

How Big Should the Matching Fund Be?

There is no one-size fits all approach to creating your matching pool. You don’t want to make your matching fund too small and leave money on the table. You also don’t want to make it too large and not meet your goal.

So, what should you do?

We recommend looking at previous campaigns that you ran around the same time of the year. What were the totals that you were able to raise?

If this is your first matching fund campaign, consider your historic fundraising performance, and try to reduce that by 5%-10%. We recommend that you remain cautious in your first campaign. You want to give your community a feeling of victory for these campaigns.

Once you have run one of these campaigns, you will start to feel comfortable with how big the pool should be.

Marketing Your Matching Challenge Using a Multi-Channel Campaign

Using multiple marketing channels to promote your campaign will maximize your reach and increase the likelihood for response to the campaign. Here are a few things to consider why you should take a multi-channel approach to this campaign.

Broader Reach

Every marketing channel — be it email, social media, direct mail, or digital ads — taps into a different segment of your audience. By diversifying your marketing efforts, you can reach more people and get a higher response.

• Email Campaigns: Reach those who prefer direct, personal communication that they can read at their convenience. Email is also one of the fastest growing fundraising channels in the nonprofit sector. The benefit of this channel: high engagement rates from subscribers who are already interested in your cause.
• Social Media: Utilizing platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to engage younger audiences and tech-savvy donors. The benefit of this channel: increases sharing potential and viral spread of your campaign message and allows you to advertise more to your existing audience.
• Direct Mail: Though traditional, direct mail continues to be one of the most effective fundraising strategies in the nonprofit space. This channel is particularly effective with older demographics who may not be online as often. The benefit of this channel: provides a tangible reminder of the campaign, enhancing donor trust and credibility.
• Digital Advertising: Reach a broad audience quickly, which is great for creating awareness around your matching fund challenge. This is a great way to get new donors. The benefit of this channel: advertising is very targeted to specific demographics, increasing the efficiency of your ad spend.

Increased Engagement

Using multiple channels ensures more touch points with each donor, which can lead to higher engagement rates. Here’s how:

• Consistent Messaging Across Channels: When donors see the same message through different mediums, it reinforces your campaign’s message, the great offer of a match campaign and urgency to give now. This combination makes donors more likely to take action.
• Personalized Outreach: Tailoring messages for specific channels (e.g., more formal emails vs. casual social media posts) appeals to the preferences of different donor groups, making them feel valued and understood.
• Reminders: We live in a distracted world. Even if your best donor gets your email or direct mail piece today, they may get distracted before they have a moment to donate. When they see that reminder through a different channel, they’re more likely to carry out the process. It’s not always whether a donor “wants” to give, but sometimes life gets in the way. Sometimes we all need a nudge to complete the task we intended to do.

Risk Mitigation

Relying on one marketing channel is risky; if it underperforms, the entire campaign could falter. A multi-channel approach spreads out the risk.

For instance, if one of your campaign channels underperforms, you can quickly pivot and strengthen your efforts in another that is performing well.

On the other hand, if one channel is performing particularly well, then you can double down your effort. The flexibility can be a game changer.

Managing the Challenge

When you put a challenge fund together, often times we see that donors like to follow along. It’s almost like they’re cheering for the success!

As a result, we find that frequent updates with campaign progress is a critical part of the communications process. This means that tracking campaign progress, and even having a public display of progress, is an important part of the marketing process.

By having this tracker, it’s easy to keep your donors engaged throughout the campaign. Encourage activities such as peer-to-peer fundraising and share impactful stories to connect with donors on a personal level.

Post-Challenge Activities

Once your challenge concludes, it’s important to thank everyone involved. Acknowledge their contributions and share detailed reports on the campaign’s impact.

Go back to the concrete goal that you had at the outset of the campaign. Reinforce to your community that they helped do the specific thing (ex. “We put a roof on a house!” or “We built a house!”).

Remember that thanking your donors is the start of building a stronger relationship.  This can be a great time to engage with returning donors and new donors in ways that don’t involve fundraising asks.

Some ideas to build relationships include:

• Invite them to a coffee to report on the campaign
• Invite them to see the results of the campaign once they’re done
• Give them access to someone or something special that you know is they will enjoy

Whatever it is, take this opportunity to build a relationship with your donors based on personal relationships, not only asking for their donations.

Conclusion

Matching Fund Challenges are a great tool in the toolbox when it comes to direct response fundraising campaigns.

We recommend that you incorporate these into at least one campaign each year, if not more.

Although they can be intimidating to consider at first, the rewards of succeeding with these campaigns can be a huge boost for your mission.