Managing your Double the Donation Account
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      2. Managing your Double the Donation Account

      Best Practices for managing your Double the Donation account

      This article walks through the recommended best practices for managing your Double the Donation account to see the greatest success with the platform.

      Best Practices for Double the Donation

      1. Passing in at least 90% of individual contributions (offline and online donations)

      2. Follow up with donors in the Eligible But Not Submitted Report

      3. Update donors to "Pending Payment" or "Match Complete"

      4. Portal Verification

      5. Market Matching Gifts in every fundraising opportunity with your donors. 

      Best Practices for Double the Donation

      When your organization is fully set up with the matching module, meaning you have completed the following steps:

      1. Integrating your donation platform and/or CRM
      2. Enabled the automated outreach: At least 2 emails in the match eligible email stream and 1 email in the unknown company email stream
      3. Configured email sending so all of the matching gift emails come from your organization's domain
      4. Add our plugin on a dedicated matching gift page on your website

      There is an opportunity for you to see much success with the matching module moving forward and see a significant ROI in matching gift revenue in year 1 (20% -50% increase in matching gift revenue). However, this is achieved by following our Best Practices and driving those matches to completion. Below are our 5 Best Practices we highly recommend following to see that significant ROI in matching gift revenue each year:

       

      1. Passing in at least 90% of individual contributions (offline and online donations)

      This can be achieved by doing the following:

      Staff Time Required: This requires minimal ongoing staff time. 

      The key is to spend time initially ensuring you’re passing nearly all your donations (90% - 100%) into the matching module, our matching gift tools are integrated into your donation experience, and that your account is fully set up with our automated, personalized follow-up emails enabled to encourage more donors to submit their matches.

       

      What you need to do for online donation forms: Add our streamlined search tool to all of your online donation forms

       

      Placing the search tool on your donation form increases the utilization of the tool. When our search tool is on the donation form, donors are 2.5x more likely to use the tool and identify their employer resulting in more donors identifying them as match eligible while giving. We can then provide those donors with the correct matching gift forms in the matching gift email after they give their donation. Learn more here about the benefits of adding our streamlined search tool to the donation form. 

      We integrate with over 60+ donation platforms, peer-to-peer platforms, crowdfunding platforms, wealth screening platforms, and CRMS.  View our knowledge base to learn more about the donation platforms that we integrate with.  If you aren't able to find the donation platform on this list, email us at support@doublethedonation.com and we can help answer your question.

      What you need to do for offline donations:

       

      Capturing offline donations allows these donors to indicate who their employer is. If the donor is match eligible, the matching module can provide those donors with the correct matching gift form so they can easily initiate their matching gift request.

      View this list to learn more about the CRMs we integrate with. If you aren't able to find the CRM your organization currently uses, email us at support@doublethedonation.com and we can help answer your question. 

       

      2. Follow up with donors in the Eligible But Not Submitted Report

       

      These donations are eligible for a matching gift, but as far as we can tell, the donors have not submitted their gifts to be matched. We would consider this segment of donations "low-hanging fruit" for your organization. As such, the donations represented by this report should be acted upon quickly! All they need is a little nudge over the finish line.
       
      Staff-time required: This requires a dedicated person(s) to log into the matching module consistently (monthly/quarterly) to review the Eligible But Not Submitted Report. Within the matching module, the staff person will review these donors by going to Reports --> Eligible But Not Submitted. The matching module will provide a list of donors who are match eligible, but they have not indicated that they have submitted their matching gift requests. Learn more about the Eligible But Not Submitted Report here.
       
      What you need to do for this approach: These donors are so close to submitting their gifts to be matched! Give the top donors on this list a phone call and/or send a bulk email to these donors encouraging them one more time to submit their matching gift request. Learn about the manual email templates available to your organization and how to send them.
       
      To automatically move donors through this process without manual bulk sending, ensure that your organization is following our recommendations for automated outreach and has turned on the Thank You email stream.

      3. Update donors to "Pending Payment" or "Match Complete" 

       

      The nonprofit organization has a dedicated staff person or team that focuses on the consistent follow-up to those donors match identified and tracking the full lifecycle of the matching gift process for their donors. So what is the lifecycle of a matching gift and how does the matching module track that cycle?

       

      The Lifecycle of a Matching Gift: 
       

      Donor donates to your organization

      Donor initiates matching gift requests with their employer

      Option A - Non-verification (Benevity, YourCause, Brightfunds)

      Option B - Verification (CyberGrants/Easy Match). 

      The nonprofit receives the matching gift funds 

       

      Staff Time Required: This requires a dedicated person or team that logs into the matching module consistently (weekly/monthly) to update statuses in the matching module based on the responses from donors and the correspondence with the matching gift company after the matching gift request is submitted by the donor. 

       

      What you need to do for this best practice approach: When the match-eligible donor submits their match to their employer, you as the nonprofit will receive either a verification email or non-verification based on the matching gift vendor. If your organization receives a verification email from a vendor like CyberGrants or Easy Match, a team member can change the status of that donor to "Pending Payment". Please keep in mind that not all companies will require verification so the "Pending Payment" isn't often used.

       

      When the nonprofit receives the matching gift funds (typically within 1-3 months), the team member can log in to the matching module, search for the donor, and change the status of the donor to "Match Complete." Most of our clients that take this approach, use the "Match Complete" status only when they receive funds.  Want to learn more about donor statuses? View this article here.

       

      Now when you consistently track the lifecycle of a matching gift through the matching module, the statistics in your account will be an accurate representation of the matching gift funds received. See the example that shows a breakdown by status. You can see below that in the past year, the nonprofit organization updated statuses to both "Pending Payment" and "Match Complete."  Learn more about using statistics in the matching module. 

      This is the only way you can see in the matching module when funds have been received if your organization manually updates the statuses to "Pending Payment" and "Match Complete."

      4. Portal Verification 

       

      Although the matching module doesn't automatically track when your nonprofit receives matching gift funds, our matching gift software can give you more insight into match-eligible donors and donors who have initiated their matching gift requests to their employers. Below is guidance on developing an internal plan on how to handle portal management:

      1. Consistent Log-in Credentials

      2. Master list of portal links

      3. Define ownership for portals

      4. Determine a strategy for proactive checking portals.

      5. Record matches in the matching module. 

      6. Update donors on the match status (Acknowledgment/Reconciliation).

      7. Educate staff on portals.

      8. Collaborate with vendors

      For more detailed guidance on portal management, view this page.

       

      We'd recommend being a registered nonprofit organization with the Top Matching Gift Companies that your donors have identified they work for; you can view this list by going to "Dashboard" --> Top Companies. For each company, we will often provide a link to the corporate vendor used and/or the contact information for the company.
       
      Staff Time Required: This requires a dedicated person or team that logs into your portals consistently (weekly/monthly) to review if any matching gifts are funded in the corporate vendor portal or need your organization's verification. 

      5. Market Matching Gifts in every fundraising opportunity with your donors. 

       

      To spread awareness of matching gifts to your donors, we recommend incorporating matching gifts in all fundraising opportunities. Employing multiple approaches to identifying match-eligible donors results in 77% more identified match-eligible donations. We'd recommend incorporating matching gifts in at least 5 locations throughout your overall fundraising and communication to donors. 

      Here are some of the recommended locations to market matching gifts

      1. Donation Process (Donation form and/or confirmation screen)
      2. Dedicated Matching Gift Page
      3. Provide easy access to matching gift info in the Navigation Bar
      4. Ways to Give Page
      5. Emails to donors (receipt pages & and automated matching gift email outreach through the matching module)
      6. Throughout social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter, etc)

      View more examples of ways to market matching gifts here. 

      For more examples and marketing resources, log in to your Double the Donation account and Navigate to Resources --> Marketing Assets (on the left-hand menu).

       

      Additional resources to take advantage of as a Double the Donation client:


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