Turn a sponsor's committed gift into a match that multiplies every donation your supporters make. A matching challenge attaches sponsor-funded matching to one of your Bloomerang Fundraising donation forms. While the challenge is live, Bloomerang Fundraising matches each gift made on that form at the ratio you choose and records the matching gift right away.
For example, Decibank commits $5,000 to your spring campaign at a 1:1 ratio. A donor gives $50 on your donation form. Bloomerang Fundraising records the donor's $50 gift and a $50 matching gift from Decibank at the same time, so the total impact of that gift is $100.
You can add a matching challenge to a standard donation form or to a peer-to-peer campaign.
Important: Matching challenges are different from employer matching gifts. To understand which one fits your campaign, read the following section on how the two features differ.
How Are Matching Challenges Different from Employer Matching Gifts?
Bloomerang Fundraising offers two ways to match a donor's gift. They serve different fundraising goals.
Use matching challenges when:
A corporate or individual sponsor has already committed the matching money to your organization.
You want the match applied automatically to every gift on a form during a set window.
You want the matching gift recorded at the moment the donor gives.
Use employer matching gifts when:
A donor's employer offers a matching program that the donor requests after giving.
The matching money comes from a third-party employer your organization has no agreement with.
The match is confirmed and paid later, outside of Bloomerang Fundraising.
Employer matching gifts run through Double the Donation and HEPdata. To learn more about matching gifts, read [Peer-to-Peer] Matching Gifts.
A single gift can be matched by one matching challenge and by an employer match. Only one matching challenge can be live on a form at a time, so no gift receives two challenge matches.
Why Should I Use Matching Challenges?
Use matching challenges to:
Give a corporate or individual sponsor a visible, time-bound way to give.
Show donors their multiplied impact before they choose a gift amount.
Add urgency to a campaign with a capped match pool and a set end date.
Turn one secured major gift into a reason for many donors to give.
When you run a matching challenge, you:
Raise more per gift: Donors who see their gift doubled or tripled have a concrete reason to give, and to give more.
Save staff time: Bloomerang Fundraising creates and records each matching gift automatically, so no one reconciles matches by hand.
Stay inside the sponsor's budget: Set a total contribution amount, and matching stops when the pool is used up.
Recognize your sponsor: Donors see the sponsor's name on the form, the confirmation page, and the receipt, unless the sponsor prefers to stay anonymous.
How Does It Work?
You set up a matching challenge on one donation form. When you create a challenge, you define these elements:
Sponsor name: The public name of the corporation or individual funding the match.
Keep sponsor anonymous on public pages: An optional setting. When you select it, donors see a generic label instead of the sponsor's name.
Match ratio: How much the sponsor adds for each dollar donated (0.5:1, 1:1, 2:1, or 3:1).
Total contribution: The cap on how much the sponsor gives in total (at least $1 or unlimited.
Start date and time: When matching begins (current date or a future date), which uses the form's time zone.
End date and time: When matching stops. An end date is optional unless the form already has another challenge.
Bloomerang Fundraising calculates the match on the donation amount only. GiftAssist, the optional fee coverage a donor can add, is never matched.
As donors give, Bloomerang Fundraising tracks how much of the pool the challenge has spent and how much is left. Both amounts show on the Matching Challenges page for the form.
If you void or refund a matched donation, Bloomerang reverses the matching gift and returns those funds to the sponsor's match pool.
Challenge Statuses
Each matching challenge has a status that tells you whether it is matching gifts right now:
Scheduled: The start date is in the future, so the challenge isn't matching gifts yet.
Live: The current time falls inside the challenge window and the pool still has funds. The challenge is matching gifts.
Inactive: You paused the challenge, which means matching stops until you resume it. This also prevents future scheduled campaigns from starting.
Completed: The end date has passed or the pool is used up. Bloomerang Fundraising moves the challenge to Completed automatically.
You can reopen a completed challenge by extending its end date, by raising the total contribution above the funds already used, or both. Bloomerang Fundraising reopens the challenge as long as its dates don't overlap another active challenge.
Scheduling More Than One Challenge
You can line up several sponsors on the same form across a season. These rules apply:
Only one challenge on a form can be live at a time.
Challenges on the same form can't overlap in their date ranges.
When a form has more than one challenge, every challenge must have an end date.
Only one challenge on a form can be open-ended, and only when it is the form's only challenge.
Important: A matching challenge belongs to the form you created it on. When you clone a form, the challenge doesn't come with the copy.
What Do Donors See?
While a challenge is live, donors see a match callout on the gift step of the donation form. The callout names the sponsor, or shows the anonymous label when the sponsor is anonymous, and shows how much larger their impact becomes at the current ratio. When 75% of the total match contribution is reached, donors see an urgency message that encourages them to help your organization claim the full 100%. You can edit or disable this message.
After a donor gives, match messaging appears in two places: an impact callout at the top of the confirmation page, and a line item on the receipt showing the matched amount.
A gift can have one of three match outcomes:
Full match: Enough sponsor funds remain to match the whole gift. The donor sees that the sponsor increased their impact to the combined total.
Partial match: In rare cases, some funds remain, but not enough to match the whole gift. The donor sees that the sponsor partially matched their gift.
No match: In very rare cases, the pool runs out or the challenge ends at the exact time the donor submits the gift. The donor sees a message explaining that the gift wasn't matched.
The donation always succeeds, whatever the match outcome. A problem with matching never blocks or fails a donor's gift.
Where Does Matching Apply?
Matching challenges apply to:
Standard donation gifts on Bloomerang Payments forms.
Peer-to-Peer donations.
Text-to-Donate gifts.
Virtual Terminal donations, when the operator chooses to apply the match. Card donations and verified offline gifts taken in the Virtual Terminal are eligible.
The first gift of a recurring donation. Later installments in the series aren't matched.
Matching challenges don't apply to:
Auction donations.
Optional donations added during registration for an event, an auction, or a Peer-to-Peer campaign.
Invoice payments.
Registration-only checkouts with no donation.
Unverified cash and check donations added later through the Peer-to-Peer Fundraising Center.
When you take a gift in the Virtual Terminal on a form with a live challenge, a checkbox to apply the match appears and is selected by default. To learn more, read Donations Virtual Terminal.
How Do Matched Gifts Appear in Reporting?
Matching challenge gifts show up alongside the donor gifts that triggered them:
Form thermometer, goal, and widget: Matched amounts count toward the form total and appear in the thermometer. They also appear in the Recent Activity and My Supporters widgets.
Fundraising Center for Peer-to-Peer: Matches appear in My Donations, Team Donations, and classification views.
Matching Gifts Report: Challenge matches appear alongside employer matching gifts. To learn about this report, read Matching Gifts Report.
Admin notification email: The transaction notification message includes a matching challenge section with the sponsor, the match amount, and the match ratio.
Voids, refunds, and failed payments: Bloomerang Fundraising reverses the matching gift and returns the funds to the pool.
Anonymity is donor-facing only. Your organization's own views and notification messages show the sponsor's name even when the challenge is anonymous to donors.
If you export transaction from Bloomerang Fundraising to a CRM, only the original gift is exported. The sponsor's match isn't exported. You can set up a custom mapping to label exported transactions as associated with a matching challenge.
Which Plans Include Matching Challenges?
Matching challenges are a packaged feature. Your organization's plan determines whether the feature is available.
For standard donation forms, matching challenges are included in Giving Essentials, Bloomerang Giving+, Impact Package, and Premium Fundraising Suite.
For peer-to-peer campaigns, matching challenges are always included.
If your plan doesn’t include Matching Challenges, the Matching Challenges section will appear disabled, and an option to upgrade your plan appears. To add Matching Challenges to your subscription, select the upgrade option or contact your account manager. If you have questions, email [email protected].
If your organization moves to a plan that doesn't include matching challenges, new matches stop, and match data your organization already collected stays on donor records, receipts, and reports.
How Do I Get Started?
Any administrator with donation settings permission for a form can create a matching challenge. You set challenges up in the form's donation settings, on the Matching Challenges page.
To create your first challenge, read Create and Manage Matching Challenges.