Matching Gift Databases: Our Comprehensive Guide for 2022

As the process of securing funding for your nonprofit becomes even more competitive, it’s important to consider every avenue to build more revenue. For many organizations, matching gifts fall by the wayside, but this is an essential part of fundraising.

How can you best leverage matching gifts as part of your fundraising strategy?

By investing in a matching gift database, you can make this process much easier to navigate. A matching gift database can help you raise awareness around matching gifts and donor eligibility, which can in turn help boost your revenue and keep you working toward your mission.

In this article, we’ll address the following questions:

What is a matching gift database?
How does a matching gift database work?
What features should a matching gift database include?
What is the best matching gift software?
What integrations should a matching gift database offer?

If you’re ready to learn how a matching gift database can help your organization, let’s jump in!

What is a Matching Gift Database?

A matching gift database houses information on thousands of companies’ corporate giving programs. This information is invaluable for nonprofits looking to leverage these funding sources and makes it easy for organizations to raise awareness around corporate philanthropy.

Why are Matching Gifts Important?

Matching gifts are one of the most common corporate giving programs. Many companies match donations that their employees make to eligible nonprofits at a specific ratio, usually 1:1.

Matching gifts are essentially free money for your nonprofit, but many organizations don’t tap into this form of corporate giving because they lack the resources needed to do so.

In fact, an estimated $4-$7 billion in matching gift funds goes unclaimed each year, even though more than 18 million individuals work for companies with matching gift programs.

This makes a matching gift database even more important. When your supporters can easily access a matching gift database, they’ll be more likely to give to your organization and submit a match request after they’ve donated.

How Does a Matching Gift Database Work?

A matching gift database can be accessed through an embedded search tool that you place anywhere on your website. By adding it to donation pages, on confirmation screens, or even within dedicated matching gift pages, you’ll start to raise awareness around matching gifts.

Here’s how a matching gift database works:

Donor accesses the database. The donor sees the matching gift database before, during, or after the donation process, as it’s embedded on your website.
Donor searches for their company. The donor enters the name of their employer to search for their matching gift eligibility.
Donor views the results. The donor views the information that populates after they’ve searched for their employer, which includes minimum and maximum donations, match ratios, eligible organizations, and their eligibility status.
Donor views the next steps. The donor receives information on next steps to submit a match request, including links to the forms or guidelines needed to complete it.
Nonprofit generates additional revenue. Once the match request has been processed, the nonprofit receives a matching donation from the donor’s employer.

However, it’s not enough for there to be access to the matching gift database. The embedded search tool should be user-friendly, as should the information it populates. Otherwise, donors might feel overwhelmed or unsure of how to interpret the information they receive. In other words, donors should be able to easily leverage the data once they’ve looked up their company.

What Features Should a Matching Gift Database Include?

As you begin your search for the right matching gift database, there are a few important features you should look for. These include:

Easy setup. It should be easy to set up your database on your website within minutes, even if you don’t have a lot of web development experience.
Customizable interface. It’s also important to keep your organization’s brand in mind when you set up the database on your website. You’ll want the database to match your branding to create a consistent look, so make sure your database is customizable so you can add your color scheme, logo, and other personalized elements.
Frequent updates. It’s essential that your matching gift database is being updated consistently because so many people rely on it having accurate and up-to-date information. Be sure to use a database that regularly updates its information so more matches will be submitted successfully.
Software support. Make sure your matching gift database comes with helpful tech support in case any issues come up, such as broken webpage links. Otherwise, this can cause donors to leave the matching gift page and not come back to complete it once it’s fixed.
Volunteer grant information. Another common form of corporate giving is through volunteer grants, in which companies give monetary grants to nonprofits where their employees regularly volunteer. Be sure to use a matching gift database that includes information about volunteer grants so you can ensure your volunteer hours turn into more money for your organization.

While these features may seem like a lot of checkpoints to look for, we have a recommendation for the best matching gift software. Read on to learn more!

What is the Best Matching Gift Software?

If you’re interested in how to increase matching gifts, consider investing in Double the Donation’s comprehensive database.

Double the Donation offers a matching gift company database and easy-to-use search tool that covers more than 23,000 companies and subsidiaries, representing 18+ million match-eligible individuals. (View our live dashboard)

Double the Donation’s 360MatchPro: The Best Matching Gift Software for Nonprofits and Universities

360MatchPro pulls from Double the Donation’s comprehensive matching gift database to track the progress of your donors’ match requests. This solution automates the entire process, making the task easier for your staff and your donors.

If you work for an organization or university that is looking to up its matching gift revenue, then 360MatchPro by Double the Donation is an ideal choice.

Here’s how it works:

360MatchPro by Double the Donation automatically scans information your donors provide during the donation process (such as email domains and employer names), searching for information about matching gift eligibility.
Once the information has been identified, the software triggers customizable emails to these donors, based on eligibility, to encourage them to take the next steps to submit a match request.
The platform then tracks the progress of each match from start to finish.

Benefits of 360MatchPro include:

More matching gift opportunities, as you’ll identify more donors who are eligible for a match and receive more matching gift revenue as a result.
More matches driven to completion, because targeted follow-up emails provide the right information to the right donors at the right time.
More time to focus on top opportunities, because the platform will automate outreach to all match-eligible donors, giving you time to focus on the highest-value opportunities.

Learn more about 360MatchPro!

What Integrations Should a Matching Gift Database Offer?

It’s important to leverage the fundraising tools you’re already using with your matching gift database. That’s why 360MatchPro by Double the Donation offers 50+ integrations with leading online donation tools, CRMs, and peer-to-peer fundraising platforms.

Donation Tools

360MatchPro integrates with a number of top online donation tools, including:

Once 360MatchPro is integrated with these online donation tools, the platform gives donors multiple opportunities to identify their employer during the donation process. All you need to do is add the 360MatchPro company name search field to your form to identify more matching gift opportunities during the donation process.

This generates more revenue because of the seamless integration; donors won’t be interrupted as they make their donation. Instead, it will become a natural part of the process.

View 360MatchPro’s integrations with online donation tools!

CRMs

360MatchPro integrates with several leading CRMs, including:

Once 360MatchPro is integrated with your CRM, new donation records within your CRM platform will automatically flow into 360MatchPro. Within the 360MatchPro platform, donations will enter automated email streams to drive the matching gift process to completion.

This generates more revenue because, as donations come in and are logged in your CRM, 360MatchPro’s platform will automatically capture employment information and follow up with donors about matching gifts. This helps you identify more opportunities to double donations without added pressure on your team.

View 360MatchPro’s integrations with CRMs!

Peer-to-Peer Fundraising Platforms

360MatchPro offers several integrations with top peer-to-peer fundraising platforms, including:

Once 360MatchPro is integrated with your peer-to-peer fundraising platform, the system automatically starts identifying matching gift opportunities for every transaction that passes through the fundraising platform.

This integration ensures there’s not a single matching gift opportunity that slips through the cracks, triggering customized emails to each donor that encourage them to check their matching gift eligibility and submit a match request to their employer.

View 360MatchPro’s integrations with peer-to-peer fundraising platforms!

Having integrations like this available within your matching gift database is essential to generate more revenue. This means your organization can leverage every resource needed to uncover every matching gift opportunity.

Finding the right matching gift database for your organization is the first step in bringing in more matching gift revenue. Once you’ve done the research, you’ll be ready to find even more funding so you can continue serving your mission!

Additional Matching Gift Database Resources

Matching Gifts: Your Guide to Growing Your Revenue with Automation. Looking for more information about automation and matching gifts? Read our comprehensive guide!
Matching Gift Databases: The Q&A Guide for Nonprofits. If you’re on the hunt for more answers about matching gift databases, check out this Q&A.
What is the Best Matching Gift Database? Not sure which matching gift database is right for you? Explore this helpful comparison.