SNAP! Unlock new gifts through a matched campaign

Matched giving, a pretty simple giving incentive*, has been around for decades. It saw a huge boost during lockdown, with charities hosting online 36 hour matched giving campaigns to mobilise their base to continue giving.

Matched giving definitely has its detractors and non-believers - people who think it doesn’t work and people who think it’s a distraction - but I’ve seen it inspire thousands of people across several charities to give to projects I’ve been directly involved with this year.

Here are the key things I've learnt:

1.      Matched giving can help you to change giving behaviour

Campaign: twice-yearly telephone fundraising campaign at a University, where students call alumni to fundraise for scholarships, bursaries, research and other projects.

Target: increase the number of alumni making a monthly commitment, rather than a single gift, to have a more reliable basis for offering scholarships and bursaries.

Method: matched funding was offered against regular gifts only, both new and increased. 

Result: this approach prompted many more alumni to enable disadvantaged students to excel through higher education:

a)      New regular donors:

- 40% increase in the proportion of all gifts that were regular gifts

- Those who had given before were much more likely to make regular, rather than single, gifts (proportion of regular gifts up 62%)

- Giving rate was up 31% among previous single gift donors

b)     Existing regular donors:

Typically[1], 31.07% of regular donors will say yes to increasing their gift. With the offer of matched funding, this jumped to nearly half (46.67%) saying yes. This is an unprecedented jump of 50% in participation, and this is despite a global financial squeeze. 

The overall giving rate across the whole campaign increased 11% compared to the 6 year average.

Matched giving: student telephone fundraisers’ experience

"The matched funding had a tremendous impact as alumni truly see that whatever regular amount they chose to give, the effect they have on the students would be doubled!

Some alumni initially offered to give a one-off gift, but after discussing the matched funding further, really understood the importance of regular gifts and committed to monthly giving which is incredible! One alumnus I spoke to, after hearing about the matched funding, even chose to set up 2 simultaneous regular gifts, one annual and one monthly!"

Yousra, student caller

In this campaign, matched funding:

1.      Increased the proportion of people giving

2.      Made people more likely than ever before to become regular donors

3.      Made existing regular donors more likely than ever before to upgrade 

Summary: matched funding led more people to make more difference to more students.

2.      Matched giving can help you to trigger cultural change

One charity I worked with this year has thousands of volunteers, members, beneficiaries and committed advocates, but a small number of donors, regular and major.

Target:

a) Grow a solid group of major donors

b) Inspire the thousands of people who care about their work to philanthropically support it

a) Securing major donors:

We approached major donors to provide the matched funding. Through this initiative, income went from an annual average of £80,000 major donor income to over £200,000. That was a mixture of increased gifts from existing major donors and new major gifts.

b) Inspiring supporters to become donors:

During the matched giving campaign, 1100 individuals made donations. All but a handful were existing members and the vast majority had never given the organisation a philanthropic gift before.

In the space of this campaign, the charity raised 3 ½ times their normal donor income. This has been transformative for the work that the charity is now able to undertake.

I am now working with them to convert all those brand-new one-off gifts into regular donors to build a sustainable base.

Why matched giving might help you to change donor behaviour

Many would-be donors (major and regular) are very receptive to this extra nudge to be part of making a difference they want to see in the world. People love to make an outsize impact and they love to be part of something that other people are part of.

As always, I’d be happy to have a conversation about how you might apply matched giving to your work to unlock donor support.

*Matched giving: short recap

Every pound you give is doubled by a generous philanthropist.

Charities use this doubled-impact to recruit both major donors AND the small gifts;

-         major donors love the idea of influencing others to be philanthropic

-         regular donors are swayed to choose your cause above others as their contribution will be worth twice as much; with gift aid, the cost to them is 40% of the total value to the charity.

[1] data taken from the last 6 years