Course: Matching Offers for Crises and Campaigns
Learn how to use limited-time matching offers to strategically increase match rates during critical moments.
⏰ 8 minutes
Matching offers increase match rates for donations to selected nonprofits or, where enabled, to all eligible nonprofits in your program. The increased match rate also applies to donations to those nonprofits via a giving opportunity. Use them to encourage giving to nonprofits that align with your organization's and employees' values.
You can create a programmed or relief matching offer for selected nonprofits. To create a program-wide offer, follow Working with matching tier flow-through and site-wide matching offers. To set up or change your standard matching offer, contact support. These time-limited matching offers do not auto-renew.
Permissions
Anyone with the budget manager user role can create and edit matching offers. Anyone with the campaign manager user role can view matching offers.
Choosing an offer scope
When you create a matching offer, you choose which nonprofits it applies to:
- Selected nonprofits: the offer applies to a list of nonprofits or projects you add. Use this for a crisis response or a themed campaign.
- All nonprofits in my program (site wide): the offer applies to every nonprofit eligible in your program, for the dates and currencies you set. Use this for a program-wide giving moment without building a nonprofit list. A Beta badge may appear next to this option while the feature is rolling out.
Site-wide offers use the same Matching Offers page, and you can create, future-date, edit, and remove them yourself. If the site-wide option does not appear under Nonprofits, the feature is not enabled for your program yet. Contact support or your Customer Success Manager.
When more than one offer applies to a donation, Benevity matches in a set order and passes any unmatched remainder to the next eligible offer. For how that order works, read Working with matching tier flow-through and site-wide matching offers.
Creating a matching offer
To create a matching offer, go to Manage > Company Giving > Matching Offers. Select Create Matching Offer to open the creation form and enter the following details:
- Name: enter a name for your offer (up to 40 characters) that highlights the nonprofit or campaign it supports. The name is not displayed to users; it is for admins to manage matching offers.
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Type: choose the type of offer. Site-wide offers also use the Relief or Programmed type.
- Relief: offers set up in response to a crisis or disaster.
- Programmed: planned campaigns organized around a theme or group of nonprofits.
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Start and end dates and time zones: specify a start date in the future and an end date, along with the relevant time zones.
- Select the Start on save checkbox to activate the offer immediately after saving. When selected, the Start date, time, and time zone fields are disabled. The offer starts as soon as it is saved, based on your local time zone.
- The end date is editable up to the day it expires, allowing you to extend the duration of a matching offer.
- Match rate: choose the match rate you want to offer as a percentage of the original donation. For a two-to-one match, choose 200%. The full rate applies to all donations to any nonprofit in the offer and you can't edit the rate once the offer has started. If another offer also applies to the donation, your rate applies to the portion not already matched by a higher-priority offer. The same dollar is never matched twice.
Client-admins receive an email notification when a matching offer is created.
Adding nonprofits
Select Choose from to add selected nonprofits, or choose All nonprofits in my program (site wide) where available. The steps below cover selected nonprofits. For the site-wide path, follow Creating a site-wide matching offer.
Add nonprofits or nonprofit projects that are eligible for the matching offer.
- If you choose a nonprofit, the full match rate applies to the nonprofit and any of its projects.
- If you choose a nonprofit project, only the project is eligible for the full match rate.
To add a nonprofit:
- Enter keywords or a cause ID into the Add cause search bar and select Search.
- Choose the desired nonprofit or project from the results to add it to the list of selected nonprofits. You can learn more about the nonprofit by selecting the nonprofit name.
Donations to selected nonprofits receive a match if they're made after the nonprofit is added to an active matching offer.
Understanding nonprofit eligibility
The nonprofit search results display eligible nonprofits according to your nonprofit filters. Global Giving (GG) cannot be part of any matching offers, but you can choose GG projects.
If a nonprofit becomes ineligible for your program while it's linked to an active matching offer, you'll find an ineligible tag next to its name. Donations cannot be made to ineligible nonprofits, and you can remove them from the offer.
Note: Indian users cannot donate to non-Indian nonprofits in Employee Engagement. If you want Indian employees to be able to participate in your campaign, include at least one India-based nonprofit in your matching offer.
Understanding nonprofits in multiple offers
Nonprofits or nonprofit projects can only be included in more than one matching offer if one of the following configurations is different:
- Currency: if multiple matching offers each use a different currency, the same nonprofit or project can be included in all of them.
- No overlapping dates: if more than one matching offer has the same nonprofit or project attached, they must not be active at the same time.
If the configurations do not follow the above guidelines, you cannot add the nonprofit to the offer.
These restrictions apply to offers in the same tier. A nonprofit can be in a selected-nonprofit offer and a site-wide offer at the same time. For how tiers interact, read Working with matching tier flow-through and site-wide matching offers.
Configuring funding rules
Decide how to fund the matching offer and in which currencies. Eligible donors will receive a match only if the user, offer, or budget limit (for the Existing Budgets rule) has not been reached.
For example, let's say you have a 200% limited-time match offer with a user limit of $200 for a specific campaign. A $100 donation is matched at $200, which means the user's limit has been reached and future donations to the campaign are not eligible for the match.
Where matching tier flow-through is enabled, if a limit is reached, the unmatched remainder can continue to other eligible offers. For details, read how matching tier flow-through works.
Standalone
Matches from standalone offers are added to your Donation Reports and you can apply a match offer or per-user limit to manage spending, for each currency you have enabled. A standalone offer is not funded by budgets you've set up in the platform, so you cannot monitor usage in the Budgets module.
You can set the following configurations for a standalone offer:
- Currency: enable the offer for currencies in your program by selecting the currency checkbox.
- Match offer limit: enter the total amount available for matching eligible donations. If there is no limit, select the Unlimited checkbox.
- Per user match limit: enter the amount allocated to each user for matching eligible donations. If there is no limit, select the Unlimited checkbox.
Either the match offer limit or the per user match limit can be Unlimited, not both. Any limits must be non-zero.
Client-admins will also receive email notifications when budget usage reaches 70%, 80%, 90%, and 100%. These emails are sent within 10 minutes of the threshold being triggered and include a link to the edit view of the matching offer. Only one email is sent per threshold.
Existing Budgets
Matches are funded and limited by existing budgets, in each selected currency, and their limits. Select View budgets next to each currency to check the active budget.
The Matching and/or All budget is used to finance match offers with an Existing budgets funding rule, depending on your budget setup.
Existing Budgets with Limits
Matches are funded by existing budgets in each currency. However, you can enter a Match offer limit for each currency. This is the maximum amount that can be used to match transactions in each currency to the selected nonprofits, over the offer period.
The Matching and/or All budget is used to finance match offers with an Existing budgets with Limits funding rule, depending on your budget setup. If the total budget is used before the offer limit is reached, donations eligible for the offer will not receive a match while it is still active.
Client-admins will also receive email notifications when usage reaches 70%, 80%, 90%, and 100% of the match offer limit. Notifications are sent within 10 minutes of reaching each threshold.
Note: If an offer's dates span multiple fiscal years, it automatically uses the active budget. For example, if a budget ends on December 31 and is auto-renewed, an offer active on January 1 will use the renewed budget to avoid disruptions. Select View budgets to check the active budget in each currency.
If a user donates after the offer limit is reached, they won't receive a match. To allow more donations to qualify, increase the offer or budget limit as needed.
Select Save to complete the matching offer. All saved matching offers are displayed in the Matching Offers table in Pending status. You can edit a matching offer after creation. Edits apply to donations made after you save.
Client-admins also receive email notifications when a matching offer is updated after creation.
Starting a matching offer
A matching offer automatically begins on the Start date chosen. If you want to start an offer immediately, select the Start on save checkbox in the creation form instead of selecting a future date.
Before you save, use Placement preview to check where your offer sits next to other campaigns. Use it on create and edit to confirm overlaps and cascade before employees donate. After you save, the same panel is labeled Saved placement. For details, read Checking placement preview.
Where Donation Matching Simulation is enabled, use it after you save to estimate how a sample donation would be matched across tiers. Simulation is for planning only and is not available while you create an offer. For steps, read Simulating a donation.
Matching offer statuses:
- Before the start date, an offer is Pending.
- Once it has started, the offer is Active.
- After the end date, the offer is Completed.
Promoting your matching offer
After you create a matching offer, share it with your employees. You'll find direct links to nonprofit profiles or projects in the nonprofit section of the offer.
Consider taking the following steps to get more employees involved:
- Create a giving opportunity: create an opportunity with the nonprofits in your matching offer. Set the Donation Match Rate to Default Match Rate Applied in the creation form.
- Create a news article: write an article promoting the nonprofits in your offer and share it.
- Promote the offer internally: use internal communications channels like email, intranet, and social media to spread the word about the matching offer.
- Monitor and adjust: report on the offer and make adjustments to optimize its impact.
Monitoring offer usage
After a matching offer has started, you can monitor usage as employees make eligible donations. To view usage in each currency, go to the table of matching offers and open the active offer. Usage amounts are displayed next to each currency. The usage displayed in matching offers doesn't include matches on upcoming or unprocessed payroll deductions until they are committed.
When more than one campaign contributes to a company match, you can investigate company match sources in Donation History.