Notifying Original Donor of Matching Gifts Received

Kim Salisbury

Hello,


This doesn't seem like it should be rocket science, but I am struggling mightily . . . all I want to do is be able to send a letter to donors whose gifts have been matched in the last week/month/etc. saying 'We received a matching gift of X amount from Y company, matching the gift you recently made'.  Through lots of trial and error, I have somehow stumbled upon a query/export combination that gives me everything I need (including just each person's share of a match from a company rather than the full amount the company matched for all donors with a single matching gift) but the one thing I can't seem to get is the name of the company that gave the matching gift.  Does anyone have any tips on how I can get the name of the company without losing the other info I have (original donor and amount of match related to their gift)?  I would rather pull it based on who actually made the matching gift rather than based on a relationship if that's possible. 


Thank you!

Adrienne Baumann

Hi Kim,


I'm not sure it this helps, but when we receive a matching gift, it is entered as a gift from the actual company (employer) making the match, with soft-credit going to the original donor (employee).  The gift type is also entered as Matching Gift, which can be used to query matcing gifts.

Kim Salisbury

Thanks, Adrienne.  I'm still stuck, but your response makes me wonder - do most organizations give soft credit to the original donor when they enter matching gifts?  I just noticed that our converted gifts (we went live with RE in October 2018) have soft credit to the original donor, but the matching gifts we have entered in RE since we went live do not.  I imagine that's something we could 'fix' in configuration, but I'm wondering if that's even what we want?  Seems like that might just add yet another layer of complication to reporting.  What is best practice in this regard?


Thanks again,

Kim

JoAnn Strommen

We do not soft credit matching gifts to the constituent who requested the match.  It does not fit our definition of a soft credit. 


We do enter the MG on the matching organization record.  The MG shows on the constituent record as MG. 


I am guessing your conversion did not have the ability to enter them as MG, just SC.  If a MG fits your definition of a soft credit, IMO you should decide, MG or SC but not both.  Having both could skew report data or giving totals if you are including both types.

Christine Cooke 2

Some orgs soft credit the donor for the match they requested and some do not.  It is an institutional decision/policy.  Many do, since they would not receive the match unless the individual donor did take the time to make the request.

Since you mention that you looked at your pre-conversion gifts and they are soft credited, I would say there is a policy in place for your org. and you need to follow through on that.  


I don't know if it will work for you but the way I solved notifiying the individual that their match was received is that usually the company themselves does not want an ack. letter so in place of that I will send one to the individual donor.  I utilize the Donor Ack. Letters in the Mail module for all of my letter templates.  I print the match acks. at the same time that I print the other acks.  In order to have the company name populate in the text of the letter you can either use the Gift Reference Fields or a Gift Attribute to fill in the name of the person being soft credited.  You can also do Gift Attributes for that person's address if you want.  Then when you format the letter you use those fields to populate the areas of the ack. letter along with the Org Name field.