How Donor Employer Information Can Boost Your Fundraising

How Donor Employer Information Can Boost Your Fundraising

 

As a nonprofit (or school) fundraising professional, you surely want to raise as much revenue as possible to go toward your mission.

When it comes to optimizing your organization’s supporter engagement and fundraising strategies, having access to donor employer information can play a notable role in your levels of success.

But how?

Here are three of the most significant ways:

  1. Donor employment information can uncover workplace giving eligibility.
  2. Donor employment information can provide valuable wealth data.
  3. Donor employment information can ensure targeted donor communications.

If you’re ready to boost your nonprofit’s fundraising efforts (i.e., collect more dollars for your cause, better engage with dedicated donors, and begin building powerful corporate partnerships), this guide is for you.

Let’s dive in with one of the top ways donor employer information can help elevate nonprofit fundraising⁠—corporate philanthropy.

Get more from your donor employer information with a demo of 360MatchPro!

1. Uncovering workplace giving eligibility

This might be one of the most apparent benefits of your team having access to donor employment information. When you know where your donors work, you can easily determine whether they’re eligible to participate in available workplace giving opportunities on your institution’s behalf.

Now, workplace giving can come in many forms. These philanthropic initiatives include:

  • Matching gift programs
  • Volunteer grants
  • Paycheck deductions
  • Annual giving campaigns
  • Employee donation stipends
  • Corporate volunteerism

And more!

Research shows that thousands of businesses offer one form of workplace (or employer) giving program or another. In terms of matching gifts alone, more than 65% of Fortune 500 and a wide range of smaller companies incorporate these programs into their overall CSR strategies. Unfortunately, the vast majority of individuals eligible to participate have never been made aware of their employers’ charitable initiatives in the first place.

When your donors don’t know that they qualify to request a matching donation or volunteer grant for your nonprofit, they won’t complete the process required to secure the funding.

If your organization has access to donor employer information, however, you can identify corporate giving-eligible donors on your own and then communicate the availability to nonprofit supporters. And nonprofits see significant positive results from doing so!

In fact, matching gift stats report that 84% of donors are more likely to give charitably if a corporate match is offered, while 1 in 3 individuals stated that they’d make a larger donation in that scenario.

(Key tip: matching gift automation software makes this process as simple as possible for both the fundraising organization and its donors.)

2. Providing valuable wealth data

Unfortunately, you likely won’t know the exact salary of any of your nonprofit’s supporters, which can make it difficult to know how much they’re able to give to your cause (and by extension, how much you should ask for in donation requests). Having access to donor employer information, however, can assist your team in making educated guesses to guide your fundraising efforts, identify major donor prospects, and adjust your gift requests.

Keep in mind that when it comes to offering up useful wealth data, understanding more than just where your donors work can be a significant help. For example, knowing an individual’s particular role in the company tends to add just as much⁠, or even more, value.

Picture this: Let’s say a new donor flows into your database, and you see that they are employed by a popular, profitable, and rapidly growing technology company. This data can help guide your efforts in the right direction. However, when you see that the individual is actually the president of the company, that information can provide additional insight into the donor’s propensity to give. For example, you might assume that, more than likely, the donor is fairly wealthy and may be willing and able to give generously if asked.

Then, once you have developed an estimate of a donor’s (or prospect’s) wealth level, you can determine the approximate level they might be able to give.

Remember, on the other hand, that wealth is impacted by more than an individual’s job title alone. Things like real estate ownership, stock holdings, and more can simultaneously impact and communicate a person’s level of wealth.

3. Ensuring targeted donor communications

It’s a common understanding that personalized communications are more likely to drive the intended action of the sender. These types of messages tend to grab the recipient’s attention, stay at the top of their mind for longer, and become more difficult to ignore. This is true in the for-profit business world as it is for the nonprofit fundraising sector⁠—the key difference being the expected results.

For fundraising groups, these intended results are often a combination of donor engagement (i.e., strengthened relationships between nonprofit supporters and the organization itself) and fundraising revenue (increased dollars funneled toward the organization’s mission). And as you can likely see, having the right donor data⁠—such as donor employer information⁠—can make a significant difference in both realms.

Take a look at this example:

Suzie, a long-term Home Depot employee, has recently made a first-time donation to your organization as part of a peer-to-peer fundraising campaign. The day after she submitted her gift, she received an email from your team that piqued her interest. The subject line read: “Suzie, did you know that the Home Depot will match your charitable donation?”

The subject grabbed her attention⁠—and when she opened the message, she was provided with even more personalized information about her donation⁠. In fact, she reads that her initial gift of $50 is matchable by her employer, bringing its total value to $100!

Suzie can clearly tell that the message in her inbox was meant specifically for her⁠—it’s so detailed and relevant to her donation as well as her employer. She decides to follow the instructions provided in the follow-up email (including direct links to Home Depot’s online submission portal) and request a corporate match on your behalf.

Now⁠—voilà⁠—you’ve secured a matching donation from the Home Depot while also deepening your stewardship relationship with a new donor. That means more money toward your mission, along with an increased likelihood that Suzie will give (and get her gift matched) again in the future.

Sure, you could have sent a generic, “Dear Donor, do you know if your employer will match your gift? Find out here!” email—but it certainly wouldn’t have received the same results as your targeted and personalized message.

Equipping your team with accurate and up-to-date supporter employment data allows you to set the stage for effective fundraising efforts that see big results long into the future. Get ready to make the most of available workplace giving initiatives, obtain and utilize invaluable wealth data, leverage targeted and personalized donor communications, and more.

And if you don’t already have access to donor employment information, don’t fret⁠—there are many easy and impactful ways to uncover the data you need. We recommend looking into employer appending services and matching gift software to begin. Best of luck!

Interested in learning more about corporate fundraising tools and strategies? Check out these other additional resources:

Get more from your donor employment information with a demo of 360MatchPro!

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