Is your organization planning an upcoming phonathon fundraiser? Make the most of your efforts with matching gifts—doubling donations and increasing donor engagement overall.
We’ll walk you through exactly how you can do so in this guide.
1. Get your fundraising team on board with matching gifts.
When it comes to increasing matching gifts, one of the first things you can do is ensure your fundraising team is educated about the programs and on board with promoting the opportunities. Not only will this typically result in more matches being identified and submitted, but it will also offer an optimal phone experience for both the donors and the callers.
Keep in mind that if your organization is outsourcing phonathon efforts to a call center, you’ll want to ensure that both your internal team and third-party callers are informed and prepared to include matching gifts throughout the process.
2. Collect employment information as part of the phonathon script.
Most effective phonathon fundraisers start with a well-built-out script that the caller uses to guide their way through the donation solicitation. One of the most impactful ways to include matching gifts in your phonathon event is to incorporate them prominently within the call script. Specifically, you’re going to want to ensure your phonathon callers are requesting employment information from donors.
After all, supporters are likely already providing ample information to callers over the phone. What’s one more piece of data point—especially when you frame it as essential for determining matching gift eligibility.
3. Send matching gift follow-up emails post-transaction.
Once the phone call is over, you still have opportunities to engage with your donors—particularly when it comes to matching gifts. For this, we recommend sending donation follow-up emails to those who were previously identified as matching gift-eligible by providing their employment data in the previous stage of the giving process.
This email should ideally provide detailed next steps for a particular donor to get their gift matched by the company they work for. For example, you’ll want to share links to online request forms and matching portals, specific eligibility criteria, submission deadlines, and more.
4. Highlight matching gift opportunities in all marketing channels.
A phonathon can be an excellent way to raise money for your organization, but it should hardly be a single-avenue effort. Instead, a multi- or omnichannel marketing strategy should encompass many (or all) of the following avenues in your overall fundraising;
- Phone calls
- Emails
- Direct mail
- Text messages
- Social media
- Website
- Broadcasts
Be sure to use these channels to provide information about matching gift programs and how donors can get further involved with employer matching. The more you share about matching gift opportunities, the more likely your donors will end up getting involved!
5. Integrate your fundraising technology for easy matching.
More than likely, you’ve already equipped your fundraising team with powerful fundraising tools to streamline and amplify their efforts. For your approaching phonathon, that may include call center software, a scripting platform, and even your online donation forms for alternative giving.
But did you know you can simplify matching gifts by integrating your fundraising tech with an innovative corporate matching solution? 360MatchPro by Double the Donation integrates with ACD Direct’s SimplePledge and PledgeCart to automate matching gift promotions from start to finish. This partnership makes it incredibly easy for both fundraising teams and their donors to give and get their gifts matched in no time.
Interested in learning more? Dive deeper into tried-and-true matching gift strategies and tools from Double the Donation at https://doublethedonation.com/.
