August 14, 2023

About 81% of Americans said they make charitable donations, and 26 million people work for companies offering company match programs to employees. These 26 million potential donors are influential — not only because there is strength in numbers but because their donations can almost double with a company match program.

Fundraisers can establish relationships with local companies to encourage ongoing support and engagement from these potential donors. These connections can lead to monetary support, volunteer hours and a broader network of community supporters.

Fundraisers should engage and foster relationships with these potential donors to help encourage ongoing support to the causes that align with their donors’ passions. The more an individual is involved with a nonprofit, the more likely they will continue to interact with them — whether as a volunteer, donor or sharing the nonprofit’s mission with their network. The more the nonprofit engages with that donor, the more likely the individual will grant more money to support that nonprofit.

Here are five key engagement tactics to help nonprofits build ongoing relationships with current and potential donors with access to a corporate match program.

1. Build Out Profiles on Partner Sites

Companies with corporate match programs use a database for employees to select the nonprofit to receive their donations and corporate match dollars. Keeping your profile on these databases up to date to showcase your mission, accomplishments, milestones and more to potential donors can go a long way in reaching your key audience.

Donors decide to give from two places: their heads and their hearts. Their heads will tell them they should give because it’s the right thing to do. Their hearts will tell them where to donate money based on which charitable causes they care about the most. Keeping your profile up to date with storytelling, visuals and statistics about your mission and impact can help pull at the heart. With this captive audience, highlight the good you’re doing for your community with a robust profile and showcase the impact donations have on your mission.

2. Use Data to Develop Strategies

Gather your data to analyze donor activity, donation information and volunteer statistics to identify key supporters and develop strategies to foster relationships and encourage ongoing support. Identify key donor trends, such as workplace givers and volunteering, to help identify the motivation behind each gift and support effective communication efforts to encourage ongoing support.

For example, look for similar email addresses among donors giving within the same month because if you find multiple donors who work for the same company, you can deduce that the company orchestrated a giving campaign. With that inference, you can implement marketing and outreach strategies to reach those employees. Tactics, such as posting on social media, boosting posts to target specific locations or contacting the company’s corporate social responsibility coordinator to build a relationship, can help you reach an audience that is already familiar with your nonprofit.

Understanding and utilizing your data is key to identifying trends and capitalizing on previous successes to encourage ongoing momentum.

3. Create Compelling Events

Many companies offer volunteer days or giving days to engage employees and work toward corporate social responsibility goals. Employers’ corporate social responsibility teams are often strapped for resources, so reach out to offer event ideas that match their objectives. Often corporate-social-responsibility-focused companies publish their strategy in their annual environmental, social and governance reports to help your better understand their campaigns.

When you have a captivated audience during an employee’s corporate social responsibility event, showcase the work you’re doing, the impact volunteers have on your mission, and how volunteers are inspired to become givers. These events could go a long way in creating regular — or even lifetime — volunteers and donors.

4. Follow Up

Don’t let supporters forget about your mission. You’re doing great work, and your community supporters should know about it. Keep your social media channels active and send regular email updates to share progress, statistics, new or existing programs, and request volunteers or donations.

Email campaigns can help donors feel up to date on the changes you’re making in the community while encouraging them to get involved. Incorporating graphics and videos can make these updates even more engaging.

5. Thank Them

Everyone wants to feel appreciated, so sending a heartfelt thank you to each donor can go a long way in retaining donors. Even featuring volunteers on social media posts, website updates or email blasts can help donors see their value in working toward the mission.

Fundraisers have a lot on their plate, may be strapped for resources, and are only able to employ some of these tactics immediately. Engagement requires work and dedication, so fundraisers should only apply these strategies where they expect to see a return on efforts to make it worth their while.