Employee giving programs offer an exciting opportunity to nonprofit organizations and educational institutions. Each donation could be doubled, tripled, or more, and every hour volunteered could come with a monetary contribution as well.
In this article, we’re going to explore two of the most popular forms of corporate philanthropy:
- Employee matching gifts: Donations offered by companies to nonprofits that their employees have already supported.
- Volunteer grants: Monetary contributions made by a company to a nonprofit that their employees have volunteered for.
What are corporate matching gift and employee volunteer grant programs?
Corporate matching gift programs are charitable giving programs created by corporations in which their company matches donations made by employees to nonprofit organizations or educational institutions. Donors can double their impact by utilizing the matching gift programs that are in place at thousands of companies.
The most common match ratio is 1:1, meaning that the company will donate the exact same amount as the employee did. Each company will set a dollar amount that they will contribute in Sample Article: Employee Giving Programs 10 matching gifts per employee each year. Employees can then make as many matching gift requests as they like until they hit that maximum dollar amount. Volunteer grant programs, also known as “Dollars for Doers” programs, are charitable giving programs setup by companies to provide a monetary donation to eligible nonprofits where their employees volunteer as a way to encourage community engagement.
If you volunteer for a nonprofit organization like ours and work for a company with a volunteer grant program, you can request a volunteer grant from your employer to increase your impact on our organization. These volunteer grants can be set amounts ($750 for 50 hours volunteered) or hourly amounts ($10 per hour volunteered).
You can help us reach higher goals by accomplishing volunteer grant programs by searching for your own match-eligibility. Immediately gain access to detailed information about your employer’s corporate giving programs and assess your eligibility by searching our database of companies that offer employee matching Page by clicking here.
We’ll provide you with as much of the following as possible:
- Up-to-date, company-specific program guidelines
- Minimum volunteer hours required to qualify for a matching donation
- Links to the online matching gift request forms or downloadable PDFs offered by your employer
- Our contact information (Tax ID, address, fundraising contact), which you may need for your matching gift request
How prevalent are corporate giving programs?
Corporate giving programs have gotten more popular with time. More than 65% of Fortune 500 companies offer matching gift or volunteer grant programs, and countless smaller companies have followed suit.
Some companies have gotten creative with their corporate giving, offering higher matches to organizations in a specific sector (educational, cultural, environmental, etc.) or even matching funds raised by employees in peer-to-peer campaigns.
Thousands of companies, representing more than 18 million people, offer matching gift or volunteer grant programs. We hope you’ll take a few extra minutes to see if your company offers employee giving grants, just visit this page to see if you qualify — grants that could equal hundreds, or even thousands, of dollars for the nonprofit organizations and educational institutions you care about.