This article explains that most companies do not require you to register with them before your organization can receive the matching gift funds.
In almost all cases your organization does not need to register in advance.
Each company establishes their own guidelines around the types of organizations that they'll match to. The broad categories generally include one or all of the following:
- Higher educational institutions
- K-12 schools
- Health and human services
- Arts and cultural organizations
- Civic and community organizations
- Environmental organizations
- And nearly all other 501(c)(3) organizations
Typically most organizations don't need to register with a company. Rather an employee at a company would make a donation to a nonprofit of his/her choosing and then submit a match request to the company with the nonprofit's name and information on it. Then the company makes a really quick determination on whether the organization meets its guidelines based on the nonprofit's mission statement and IRS registration.