We’ve mentioned the importance of including corporate matching gifts programs in your fundraising plan many times before – we just can’t shut up about this untapped, yet incredibly impactful charitable opportunity.
We also know the terms can be confusing at first, so we’ll help you understand the basics here.
Corporate matching is a philanthropic benefit where the employer will match a donation made by their employee. For example, if one of our employees at Amply made a $50 donation to Girls Who Code, a charitable organization, we as a company could then match our employee’s contribution with an additional $50 donation. This means, the organization that was to originally receive a one-time $50 donation, now gets double the benefit at $100.
There are five key terms you need to understand regarding corporate matching programs: match ratio, minimums and maximums, employee eligibility, nonprofit eligibility, and matching deadlines.
Match ratio
A match ratio determines the amount of money a company will match in relation to what their employee’s donation was. Each organization has their own match ratio set, and they can even have different ones set for different employees, so make sure you pay close attention to them in their policy as well.
The most common ratio you’ll find is “1:1”(a dollar for a dollar), which means they will give the exact same amount to the nonprofit. Other amounts you may see are “.5:1” which would just be half, or “2:1” which would mean if the original donation was $50, the employer will match $100 (double), making it a total of $150 fundraised from just one person. There are a lot of ratios, these are just some examples.
Minimums and maximums
All organizations have a minimum and a maximum amount donated that they will match. This means that if the employee donates less than the minimum, they are not eligible for a match. If they donate over the maximum, the employer will only process up to the specified maximum. In other words, the minimum is the amount the employee must donate in order to qualify for a match. This can go from just $1 to even $100+ depending again on the company, the employee status and more. The maximum is the top amount that a company will match per employee per year.
The reason these restrictions exist is to ensure that the corporate giving budget is used to help causes their employees really care about, and that those who give smaller amounts aren’t left out due to others giving larger amounts and exhausting the designed budget.
Employee status
As mentioned above, some organizations have different match ratios depending on the employee, but they can also have different minimums, maximums and even change the employee’s eligibility depending on their status. Most are differentiated by the position, if they’re part-time employees or if they are retired. For example, some won’t match donations made by retired employees, but others will, and in some cases a spouse or child of an employee can be eligible too.
Nonprofit eligibility
Just like the employee’s status can change the eligibility, ratio, minimum and maximum set by their organization’s policy, the type of nonprofit can affect the matching too. Some companies even decide to completely disqualify donations made to certain organizations, even if they are a 501(c)(3). These restrictions are usually placed to align their support with the company’s view. This is why religious and educational nonprofits can sometimes be placed in the ineligible status, or on the other hand, some can instead assign higher ratios to them.
Deadline
Although it’s important to apply for gift matches as soon as possible, it is essential to understand that a match cannot be requested after a specific period of time. Companies usually establish either all matches to be requested by a specific date, or after a specific time period after the donation was made. For example, if ABC has a 3 months period for match requests, and an employee contributes to a cause on February 28th, they will have until May 28th of the same year to submit their forms to the corresponding department. Be very careful when reviewing this, since you could be missing out on donations made a year ago that can still be matched. Some even extended their deadline periods due to COVID-19, which means that if you do your research, you might find more funds!
Many companies offer corporate matching gifts programs for their employees, including 65% of Fortune 500 companies, so taking advantage of this will help your nonprofit raise more. We understand that often this process is left behind due to the time one has to invest, but Amply has automated it and made it customizable to your needs. By automating it you will save time and effort on checking for small changes on company policies, following up with donors and organizations and more. Schedule a demo here and we’ll talk about what we can offer and what you need in more detail.
