This article explains Double the Donation's recommended approach to the company exclusion settings in the matching module that allow you to exclude certain companies from the matching gift search tool.
Pros and Cons of Company Exclusions
We strongly recommend that our clients display all companies in the search results and allow the donor to read the information in the matching gift and volunteer grant description fields.
Pros and Cons of Company Exclusions
Learn more below on the reasons why we recommend displaying all companies as we give the pros and cons of excluding some companies vs including all companies:
If you exclude companies then:
- You get questions from donors saying "My company offers a matching gift program. Why isn't my company listed?" This creates a bad donor experience and can, in theory, prevent donors from making their original gift as they start emailing you.
If you include all companies then:
- You occasionally have donors who submit match requests to their employers when they aren't eligible. The benefit is that we've seen companies switch their programs to be more open to better align their giving programs with employees' charitable causes and some of our larger nonprofit clients actually have processes in place to follow up with these companies to say "20 of your employees work with us and want you to support our cause...Have you considered expanding your program guidelines?"
The other complicated piece is that each company creates its own program guidelines and chooses both the information they share with us and how they categorize organizations that they match. With less than 100% clear guidelines that align across every company and nonprofit, we have to:
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Categorize with an eye for being overly broad - This results in donors thinking they may be match eligible when in fact they're not. (At the end of the day, donors who aren't eligible don't get their donations matched and your nonprofit raises as much in matching gifts as possible.)
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Categorize with an eye for being overly restrictive - This results in donors not realizing they are match eligible when in fact they're not. (At the end of the day, donors who are eligible don't get their donations matched and your nonprofit can raise less money from matching gifts)
Parent/Child Categories
Sometimes, organizations may find it beneficial to make use of more nuanced parent/child categories. We only recommend this approach when y our specific organization type is commonly mentioned in company matching gift program guidelines. For example, in the following scenarios, we would recommend considering a more nuanced categorization of your nonprofit:
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Hospitals/Medical Centers: Some companies specifically do match to hospitals, but do not match to all other health and human services organizations. Therefore, if your organization is a hospital, selecting the "Hospitals/Medical Centers" child category instead of the broader "Health/Human Services" parent category will ensure that a company that matches hospitals but no other health-centric organization appears in your search results to donors.
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Athletics: Some companies will match gifts to educational institutions except gifts made to athletic funds. Selecting the "Athletics" child category under the "Educational" parent category will exclude companies that don't match gifts to athletic funds, ensuring your donors don't try to submit matching requests for not eligible gifts.
In general, if you don't see your specific organization type in the list, select the "Other/General" category or simply select the parent category and no child category. Consult with your Double the Donation Client Success team for their specific recommendations.
Therefore, with the above pros and cons, we strongly recommend including all companies within the search tool.