Amplifying Peer-to-Peer Fundraising Events With Matching Gifts

EnMotive is pleased to extend a warm welcome to our guest blogger, Double The Donation, who brings a wealth of knowledge and unique insights to our platform. As per our previous announcement, EnMotive has partnered with Double the Donation to enhance peer-to-peer fundraising with matching corporate gift measures.  The best part is, Double the Donation is integrated with EnMotive’s fundraising functionality.

Peer-to-peer fundraising has become a cornerstone strategy for organizations seeking to widen their reach, deepen supporter engagement, and collect more revenue using community-driven efforts. This dynamic approach leverages the personal networks of existing supporters, empowering them to source donations and transforming ordinary supporters into active fundraising participants.

Many peer-to-peer fundraising campaigns center on⁠—or culminate in⁠—engaging fundraising events, too. These campaigns harness the potential of runs, walks, rides, and more to empower donors to advocate for the causes they care about.

But did you know that one of the best ways to amplify the success of a peer-to-peer fundraising event is with matching gifts? Employer matching gifts are generous corporate giving programs in which a company matches donations employees contribute or raise on a nonprofit’s behalf. By tapping into such opportunities, donations made through peer-to-peer events can be doubled or even tripled, multiplying funds raised with little added effort from donors or fundraisers.

In this guide, we’ll walk you through exactly how you can do so:

1. Educate and equip individual fundraisers on matching gifts.
2. Highlight matching gifts in event communications.
3. Add a matching gift tool to your P2P platform.
4. Look into companies with fundraising match programs.

Ready to explore the relationship between peer-to-peer fundraising and corporate matching gifts? Continue reading to see how your team can scale up its fundraising potential and dramatically increase your nonprofit impact.

Let’s begin!

1. Educate and equip individual fundraisers on matching gifts.

When it comes to peer-to-peer fundraising, your volunteer fundraisers or event participants will be some of your most valuable assets. However, they’re unlikely to have a lot of fundraising experience, and guiding them through the process is essential. It makes sense that, in order to effectively promote matching gifts to your campaign’s end donors, you should begin with those in individual fundraising roles.

That said, it’s important to equip fundraisers with the tools and resources they need to effectively promote the opportunity to their audiences. To start, many will be unfamiliar with the programs and unsure how to implement matching gifts in their efforts.

While you should certainly provide access to an intuitive social fundraising platform, we also recommend supplying clear and straightforward training materials on corporate donation-matching programs. These might include educational guides, interactive webinars, prewritten FAQs, customizable graphic and text templates, and more.

By ensuring your fundraisers understand the value and impact of corporate matching gifts, you better prepare them to advocate for the programs to their families and friends.

2. Highlight matching gifts in event communications.

Leading up to a peer-to-peer fundraising event, an organization’s marketing and communication efforts are essential for getting the word out and driving support for the cause. An effective strategy might include a combination of email blasts, text messages, social media posts, direct mailings, website materials, and more.

When you incorporate matching gift information in these various event promotions, you can capitalize on the way that the opportunity incentivizes individual supporter generosity. In fact, Double the Donation research indicates that 84% of donors are more likely to give, and 1 in 3 donors would give more if a match were to be applied.

Top tip: Providing tools and resources that help donors check their eligibility for matching gifts can further streamline the process, so we recommend linking back to the dedicated matching gift page on your nonprofit website from match-related communications.

3. Add a matching gift tool to your P2P platform.

Integrating a matching gift tool into your EnMotive fundraising platform is a game-changer for nonprofits looking to elevate their engagement and revenue-generation efforts. The easier it is for donors to complete their matching gifts, the more inclined they’ll be to do so. That’s why investing in an innovative solution like Double the Donation, which can automate the process from start to finish, is so essential.

Not only will it simplify the process for donors to discover their matching gift programs, but it also provides them with company-specific eligibility criteria and submission forms directly within the giving or event registration experiences. That means there’s less for your donors, fundraisers, and internal team to handle manually, with more matches being submitted, leading to increased revenue flowing into your cause.

4. Look into companies with fundraising match programs.

Some companies take matching gifts a step further than usual. In addition to matching donations their employees make, they also match the gifts their employees raise for eligible organizations. If an employee at such a company is soliciting donations on your nonprofit’s behalf, doubling the sum of their total funds raised goes a long way.

That’s why we recommend familiarizing yourself with well-known employers that offer generous fundraising match programs! While we can’t list each one, a few standout examples include:

• State Street Corporation — CollectMore, State Street’s fundraising match program, doubles an employee’s fulfilled fundraising pledges up to an annual cap of $10,000.
  
• CVS Health — CVS Health matches between $250 and $1,000 per year when an employee raises funds through a walk, run, ride, or similar fundraising event.
  
• Penguin Random House — Each employee can request up to $1,500 in donation matches collected through fundraising runs, walks, rides, and other nonprofit events.
  
• Estee Lauder — Estee Lauder Company employees can request between $25 and $5,000 each year in peer-to-peer fundraising matches. To remain eligible, employees must submit their requests within three months of the event or fundraising period.

As your upcoming peer-to-peer fundraising event approaches, take some time to explore your volunteer fundraisers’ corporate giving opportunities. If they work for companies that match fundraising totals, the additional support can add up quickly. Not to mention, an event participant’s fundraising match can typically be layered with a donation match from the donor’s employer, too!

Incorporating matching gifts into peer-to-peer campaigns presents an invaluable opportunity for organizations and their event participants to multiply fundraising success. For nonprofits looking to scale up their social fundraising efforts, embracing corporate matching gift strategies⁠—and empowering their volunteer fundraisers to do the same⁠—is a clear next step.
Start by auditing your current approach to donation matching, ensuring your team and your fundraisers are equipped with the knowledge and resources to pursue available matches. If you don’t already have one, consider adding a matching gift tool to your fundraising event tech stack, too (especially one that integrates with your existing solutions). This will make it as easy as possible to unleash the power of matching gifts and watch as your fundraising efforts reach new heights.