Double Your Donors’ Impact With a Giving Day Match

“If you have big dreams then you establish big goals – and that’s exactly what we did!” – Emory Williamson, AMPED Louisville

The Fall Giving Day season is in full swing as we rounded the corner on our first busy week of the season, following the conclusion of Give for Good Louisville, Give More 24!, and The Big Give San Antonio. Each Giving Day saw amazing results for participating nonprofits—largely thanks to their participating organizations utilizing matches and challenges on their profiles.

A ‘sponsor match‘, or simply a ‘match’, is a pool of funds that was donated from a person or company that is intended to be used to double the amount raised by your organization. Nonprofits with matching funds raised 4.5x more on average than those without a match.

As a Customer Success Chat Specialist, you may see me say “Hi! ” from the blue chat bubble on your screen when you’re working on your GiveGab profile. Through GG Chat, I work with anywhere from 50 to 100 admins every week (and sometimes even more!), helping to answer questions and provide advice for their upcoming events.

Here’s how organizations I’ve worked with utilized matches on their Giving Day with huge success!

Go Big or Go Home ⚾

Emory Williamson from AMPED Louisville set out with lofty goals before Give for Good Louisville this year. Their goal was $100,000 raised – $70,000 more than they raised during last year’s event.

In Emory’s own words, AMPED (which stands for The Academy of Music Production Education and Development) seeks “to foster a family-oriented ecosystem that emphasizes creativity and self-sustainability through music, education, technology, and business.” AMPED has supported over 2,000 young people (ages 8-18) in finding inspiration and passion from music. Because all of AMPED’s programming is 100% free, gifts from generous donors are crucial to fulfilling the mission of their organization.

With their Giving Day goal in mind, AMPED had to be creative with their approach to garnering support from donors. With Give for Good Louisville approaching, AMPED ventured into the match functionality on GiveGab – “the matching donation fosters a level of excitement, support, and motivation that is needed if one wants to pursue bigger goals.”

AMPED utilized one large match pool of $20,000, running for the length of the donation window. To secure this match, Emory “engaged a past donor and developed a plan for a $20,000 matching donation.” He also noted: “Once we had secured that commitment (several weeks before the Giving Day), we knew we could engage with other donors to develop matches or challenges for the Giving Day.”

Organizations can start thinking about matches by talking with a previous donor who they know has the resources to give big—if they were planning on making another gift, consider asking them if they would like to turn that gift into a sponsor match. This allows local partners or major donors to give at a higher level, and gain recognition for their contributions. In the case of AMPED’s matching donor, they chose to remain anonymous, which is an option for matching sponsors on GiveGab.

So what was the result? “In total, we increased our dollars raised by 265% and our unique donors by 153%. Overall, we were very pleased with the results. If you have big dreams then you establish big goals and that’s exactly what we did!”

Congratulations to AMPED Louisville for an amazing Giving Day!

Spread the Love Far and Wide

While utilizing one large match pool is an effective strategy if your organization has access to high-profile sponsors or major donors, you can also set up several smaller funds to be active throughout your Giving Day.

Enlisting matching sponsors at any level is a way to encourage donors to give when their gift will have the greatest impact.

The Pink Lemonade Project (PLP) found great success during Give More 24, raising over $20,000 for their organization, which aims to educate, empower, and support those affected by breast cancer.

The Vancouver, WA-based nonprofit recruited six different matching sponsors of varying amounts, each becoming active during different points of the Giving Day. At almost any time of the day, a donor could make a gift and have their contribution matched!

PLP’s matches ranged from $500 to $5,000—allowing donors of many levels to get in on gamifying their giving day.

This organization so cleverly themed their matches with the times that they would become active: “Say Yes to Breakfast!” encouraged donors to take advantage of giving from 7am-9am PT. “Drinking coffee and eating granola? Give a gift now and Dean and Sue will DOUBLE your donations up to $500.” This fun-filled call-to-action highlighted the timeliness of matching opportunities—telling donors: give now so that your gift can have the greatest impact.

PLP’s match pools accounted for over 50% of the gifts they earned during Give More 24. When Pink Lemonade Project recruited several smaller match pools from multiple generous donors, they truly showed how matching sponsors can spread the Giving Day love.

Congratulations to Pink Lemonade Project for your success during Give More 24!

Connect with Sponsors Who Believe in Your Mission

San Antonio Youth For Christ (YFC) has participated in the Big Give San Antonio since 2017, increasing their totals nearly every year since participating. This year was their biggest success yet—raising over $30,000 to help reach young people everywhere.

Angela Lugo, Development Manager at YFC, shared that their organization “[works] together with the local church and other like-minded partners to raise up lifelong followers of Jesus who lead by their godliness in lifestyle, devotion to prayer and the Word of God, passion for sharing the love of Christ and commitment to social involvement.” Their fundraising goals aim to help more kids go to camp. To further tell the story of their mission, their donation levels reflected the amounts needed to provide scholarships to potential campers.

When it came to reaching their $25,000 Giving Day goal, match pools were an obvious choice: “Who doesn’t want their dollars to be doubled and possibly even tripled?” YFC’s approach involved relying on their organization’s “long-standing financial partners who have a passion in sending more kids to camp.”

With this goal defined, YFC was able to create eight different match pools of $1,000 each—sponsored by local San Antonio businesses including Pape Dawson Engineering, Jefferson Bank, and Dr. Drake Sleep Solutions. Angela said, “We secure matching funds with these partners who desire to help us reach this goal.”

When you connect with like-minded donors, great things can happen. Large donors and businesses want to see their philanthropic endeavors doubled, too! Sponsor matches are a win-win-win solution, as we can see by Youth For Christ’s 157% increase in their giving from 2020.

Congratulations to the YFC team for meeting your giving day goals and more!

Want to learn more about matches on GiveGab?

Check out the Customer Success Help Center for these great articles on utilizing matches for your Giving Day.

• What is a Match?
• Enlist a sponsor match to encourage support
• How do I add a matching opportunity to my Giving Day profile?
• How do I edit a matching opportunity for my Giving Day?
• How do I manually apply a match to an online donation?
• How do I match an offline donation for my Giving Day?
• How do I deplete a match or challenge for my Giving Day?

I am always happy to help if you have any questions at all. Come find me in GG Chat, the blue chat bubble, and we can make a difference together. Happy fundraising!