February 6, 2011 | Read Time: 1 minute
The Nature Conservancy successfully “rebooted” a matching-gift offer by its trustees to donate 50 cents on the dollar for every gift of $100,000 or more to overseas conservation projects, says Angela Sosdian, acting chief philanthropy officer.
During the last three months of 2009, as part of its campaign to raise $1.6-billion, board members sweetened their offer, promising a dollar-for-dollar match on gifts of at least $50,000 to those projects.
The results were immediate, Ms. Sosdian says. Campaign donations to the projects tripled during the months the improved match was in effect, compared with the same months in the preceding year. And 83 percent of donors who made a gift contributed more than they had previously.
Other charities say matching-gift appeals made through social networks like Facebook and Twitter are proving powerful.
During the holiday season, for example, Mercy Corps, the international relief organization, “blew our November goals out of the water,” by promoting a dollar-for-dollar match in an e-mail campaign to seek money for operating expenses, says Jeremy Barnicle, the organization’s chief development officer.
Mercy Corps also included details about another dollar-for-dollar match to raise money for the charity’s work in Haiti on Twitter and Facebook.
Tweets and Facebook messages the charity posted about the match prompted $5,154 in contributions on the day they were sent. That is more than 13 times the amount the charity raised from Facebook and Twitter messages the day before, when the organization simply requested a donation.
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