This article was written by Chelsey Jones, a master’s student in arts and cultural management.
Fundraisers take note: it is estimated that four to seven billion dollars a year goes unmatched by nonprofit organizations. Eighteen million people around the globe have access to a matching gift program, and surveys have shown that one in every three people who donate would actually be willing to donate more if they knew their donation could be matched in the first place. Matching gift programs and volunteer grant programs are more inclusive of corporate employees because the causes that they feel personally motivated to donate to or volunteer with are recognized and rewarded by their employers.
Donations can be matched in many ways, be they 1:1, 2:1, or even 3:1, and the process today can even be outsourced to a software company or separate business. This is the most popular of all corporate philanthropy programs, according to industry leader Double the Donation, especially when you factor in companies that match automatic payroll deductions, which account for about two-thirds of employers in the U.S. (Silvers, 2019). More than half of Fortune 500 companies offer matching gift programs, as well as many smaller companies, and a minimum of $2 billion passes through them to nonprofits and charities every year (Silvers, 2019).
Volunteer grant programs function similarly, although they value the dedication of an employee’s time as well as their independent financial commitment to a cause. These are the second most popular form of corporate philanthropy programs, and about 40% of Fortune 500 companies offer them to their employees (Silvers, 2019). A corporation may choose to recognize their employee’s volunteer hours and reward them, creating and incentivizing “Dollars for Doers” programs. A corporation might take things even further and host a volunteer week or fair for their employees to participate in. Many organizations see the value in doing this, such as companies like Microsoft, which hosts an annual volunteer week called The Microsoft Annual GiveFest. Top marketing or consulting firms may recognize their employees’ pro-bono work and their willingness to give back to their communities as rewardable—and even integral—behavior for the future of their company.
The Digital Marketplace: Overview of Software Providers
Today, taking advantage of the world’s digital marketplace, types of matching gift programs are usually outsourced to software providers. There are traditionally two types of providers who these programs can be outsourced to: one that works on behalf of businesses to integrate and streamline giving marketplaces into corporate human resource departments (called CSR providers) and other software developers that work specifically on behalf of nonprofit organizations to maximize their matching gift revenue (called matching gift providers). From the figures below, one can see how information flows between the two parties in today’s digital marketplace. In the past, it might have seemed more obvious for corporations to communicate and process information in-house and speak with nonprofit organizations who were doing the same thing. Now, however, since these services are outsourced to third parties, the information flow looks more similar to the second figure. Corporate employees share data with their CSR software provider, who processes their data and communicates with the nonprofit software provider (usually a matching gift database). The nonprofit software provider communicates with the CSR provider and then gives information (and capital) back to the nonprofit organization.
Figure 1: Assumed flow of communication. Source: Author.
Figure 2: Actual flow of communication in the digital marketplace. Source: Author.
From the corporate perspective, the outsourcing of this process saves time and resources. These service providers are already experts in their field (the organization and management of employee philanthropy and CSR opportunities), which saves corporations the trouble of having to do everything internally. From the nonprofit perspective, software developers provide organizations with tools to have on their websites so that donors can autonomously search for their employers when making a donation. These matching gift tools search through databases to find matching employers and request a match—the bigger the database, the greater chance of finding a corporate match. Nonprofits can reach out to the requested corporation (or very likely the requested corporation’s CSR provider) to complete the process, which eliminates as much as possible the risk of abusing donors by asking too frequently.
There are also options that do this entire process automatically—essentially just two software programs sharing and collecting data between themselves with very little management required by the nonprofit or corporate employees. The donor would make a donation on a nonprofit website, search via an embedded tool for their employer, and request a match, which is then sent and managed by the CSR software provider. The CSR software provider double checks everything, and if approved, writes a check to a nonprofit organization, or more commonly, sends money electronically through the nonprofit’s matching gift tool provider. If money can be sent digitally, it means nonprofits get funds faster since there is less processing time.
A step-by-step process is provided by Hannah Silvers, corporate matching gift specialist and partner acquisition manager at Double the Donation. For reference, Double the Donation is a nonprofit software provider. It is not unbiased; however, it also provides resources and consultancy for nonprofits to explain how matching gifts work, hosts regular free webinars, and annually publishes reports with statistics from data collected from thousands of nonprofits and corporate actors in the United States. Silvers (2019) explained:
Most often, nowadays, about 80% of the time, the necessary forms are actually an electronic submission process. So it used to be that you [as an employee] would go to HR, or the donor would go to HR, and get some printed out forms, fill them out, and return them, but now, most times, companies aren’t even taking electronically filled out PDFs anymore...It’s an online portal. Third, once the company receives that request, what they’re going to do is check all those eligibility requirements again and then reach out to your nonprofit to verify that that original donation was made. And then, if it all checks out, number four, the company sends a check to your nonprofit.
These matching gift software providers are not free; they almost always require an annual subscription, and nonprofits need to weigh the costs and benefits of paying for services versus handling everything autonomously. Without the aid of a software provider, however, nonprofits would be forced to create their own database and system for donors to search through when they make donations and create their own tools to embed in their website. Accumulating enough data independently is next to impossible, which is why it makes more sense to use a database that has already been created, with tools offered by businesses whose only jobs are to handle matching gifts.
Below is a breakdown of the leading providers of these types of services, what they each offer, and their prices. Some of these platforms look and operate very similarly to a social media platform, wherein visibility, the ability to appear at the top of search results, to be requested continuously as part of a corporate employee’s algorithm, etc., is lucrative from the nonprofit side. If a corporate employee searches for a cause related to foster care or child welfare within their CSR system, or giving marketplace account, and can’t find your organization, this is a big opportunity lost.
Top Software providers: Corporate CSR Programs
Engage by America’s Charities is an end-to-end CSR solution for corporations. It does also act as a consultant and database for nonprofits, but not for free. A consultation needs to be requested to be quoted a price for a nonprofit. America’s Charities is partnered with Double the Donation to offer a matching gift tool, and they also offer a discounted pricing bundle for nonprofits who would be interested in both joining their database/CRM service and paying for Double the Donation. Engage is the leading CSR software vendor for corporations in the United States. They currently work with the Make a Wish Foundation.
Benevity is an end-to-end CSR solution for corporations, well known for its work with Microsoft, Apple, Google and Nike. This is the second most popular CSR software vendor for corporations, and it has also been popularized due to its willingness to work with companies to create innovative corporate volunteer programs. They also work with nonprofit organizations on a consultancy basis, and nonprofits can have profiles (similar to a social media profile) that are made visible to corporate actors through their Spark profile. Nonprofits can post “calls” as part of the profile with opportunities for employee volunteering. Benevity is also partnered with Double the Donation, so if a nonprofit chose to use Benevity as their CRM provider or as a consultant, they could get Double the Donation integration at a more affordable rate.
YourCause works with CVS, AT&T, and Chevron and is another end-to-end CSR platform for corporations that functions very similarly to Benevity’s giving marketplace. Users (corporate employees) have profiles, can search for nonprofits and causes of their choice, including volunteer opportunities, and the provider manages and organizes data for the corporation. Interestingly enough, YourCause was acquired by Blackbaud (nonprofit CRM provider) in 2019, so they are also, by default, partners with Double the Donation because Blackbaud is.
CyberGrants, in contrast with these other providers, originated as an online grant maker platform for private corporations and other grant makers to create an online portal for grant applications to be hosted on their websites. Today, however, besides offering grant portal technology to corporations and foundations, CyberGrants also works globally to provide CSR management tools similar to the providers mentioned above. Over half of all Fortune 100 companies in the United States and 18 of the 25 largest corporate foundations are CyberGrants clients. Likewise, something unique to CyberGrants is that its platform is offered in over 20 languages, something that could be especially important to international nonprofits who receive corporate donations from countries across the globe. CyberGrants manages the CSR for Bank of America, American Express, ExxonMobil, and Cisco.
Figure 3: Software providers: Nonprofit embedded matching gift tools. Source: Double the Donation, Blackbaud, HEPdata, Tessitura, and Qgiv.
Crowdfunding & Matching Donations
Qgiv, unlike the other providers listed, functions heavily as a crowdfunding platform, not necessarily just a software provider, and many nonprofits choose to use Qgiv when fundraising for a specific project. It functions similar to Classy, RallyUp, Chuffed, or even a Facebook Fundraiser, and when a user creates a cause that they are raising funds for, they can enable the Qgiv matching gift tool, with a premium membership, directly on their cause page. The premium membership means that a nonprofit pays to have Qgiv be its CRM service provider.
Utilizing crowdfunding platforms that match donations is a popular strategy and useful tool across the board, though many software providers continue to recommend Double the Donation and, frequently, Double the Donation is already integrated into their platform. This is what Kindful, Classy, DonarDrive, NeonCRM, and SalsaCRM all do. A quick Google search for any of these popular fundraising platforms/CRM service providers and the term “matching gifts” will direct you almost automatically to their partnership with Double the Donation.
For clarification, a crowdfunding platform raises funds using a peer-to-peer giving strategy. CRMs are defined as customer relationship management systems, and other donation software programs merge these two (CRMs and peer-to-peer) and allow for various other types of payment methods, business and marketing tools, and layers of integration and data collection. Much of what CRMs do is track and organize donor data, which can be useful when a nonprofit relies on income coming from many different sources other than just their website. Double the Donation (not a CRM) is a matching gift software technology, and has partnered with 70 marketing and nonprofit business tool providers to date because of its ability to be integrated seamlessly into a nonprofit’s current website, crowdfunding platform, or CRM. From a nonprofit perspective, this is important to determine whether the crowdfunding platform volunteers choose to use and the CRM used by the nonprofit easily integrate for seamless matches.
CRM & CSR Integration
The majority of these software providers listed above all have similar service offerings, the greatest exception being the size of their databases, their ages, their flexibility, and their prices. They all offer embedded tools for a nonprofit’s website, and they all offer a more expensive option that follows up with the donor/CSR software provider on the nonprofits behalf automatically to “chase” and keep track of the donations. The more expensive option is where the software does everything autonomously and is useful because nonprofits can let the software do the work and they don’t need to employ someone to reach out to third parties on their behalf. The CRMs of companies such as Blackbaud and Tessitura function more as management tools for the business, and a nonprofit cannot just utilize their tools (MatchFinder Online and DonorSearch) without switching over entirely to their exclusive CRM system. For this, Blackbaud and Tessitura both recommend Double the Donation and are actually partners with the company. There is a slight discount when you buy both at the same time.
These CRM matching gift tools are really just an added bonus of switching over to their CRM system, and for a nonprofit, this could even mean having to completely redesign its website and media department. This is just another reason why so many nonprofits choose to go with Double the Donation; it is by far the cheapest and quickest, and the nonprofit doesn’t need to have a CRM provider. Tessitura and DonorSearch joined together in 2020 for those already using the Tessitura CRM to offer a matching gift tool and data processing service to nonprofits. In this sense, this option is similar to Blackbaud because it is an entire CRM system and data processing software that only features matching gift processing as an added bonus. If a nonprofit already has a running website and isn’t looking to implement an entirely new management system, Double the Donation continues to be the most affordable option.
The CSR Marketplace
Double the Donation’s biggest competitor is HEPdata. HEPdata is the oldest matching gift tool service provider in the U.S. (started in 1997) and arguably has the largest database, though they do not have a limited option where nonprofits can choose to only implement their tool and then manage donations themselves. Nonprofits can’t just choose to embed the matching gift tool and use the HEPdata database; HEPdata wants to do everything for them and really tailor the experience to meet their business goals. For this reason, though, they do have a successful reputation of managing matching gifts and volunteer grant programs for very large nonprofits who process large quantities of matching gift revenue.
HEPdata works currently with nonprofits such as The American Heart Association, Habitat for Humanity, The American Red Cross, and The American Cancer Society. HEPdata was acquired by SSB (CRM and cloud computing service) in 2019, however, so there appears to be a slight shift in the types of clients they most commonly work with now, with a focus on large institutions like universities (Yale), and sports affiliates like the NFL, the NBA, and MLB. Though HEPdata was the first to initiate a matching gift tool and database for nonprofits in the United States and was considered to be the leader in the industry for large nonprofits, it is increasingly seeing new competitors.
The above options provided do not represent the entirety of the digital marketplace for providers, but hopefully offer a perspective to those currently not maximizing matching gifts or volunteer matching programs. If you have used other systems successfully, please comment below for other readers to consider.
Resources
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HEPdata. (2021). Company—HEPdata [Corporate]. HEPdata. https://www.hepdata.com/company.
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