A 10 To 1 Match I Like!
The other day, writing about the ‘sameness’ of so many #GivingTuesday appeals, Roger lamented the ubiquity of matching gifts. And rightly so.
It seems America (at least) is awash with mysterious donors who are valiantly committed to matching the small gifts of the easily impressed. Every nonprofit seems to have a few of these Mystery Matchers in their back pocket, ready to be hauled out for those special (and not so special) occasions like #GivingTuesday and the last ditch year-end (or new year, or ‘special’ … hell, any) appeal.
Rather than resist this technique, I’m thinking of joining in.
Here the match I propose you try out on your chief executive or chief financial officer during your budgeting pitch for the coming year.
Propose that for every 1 percentage point you lift your overall retention rate, they award you 10% more money to spend on acquisition. Those quick at math will appreciate that — for example — if you increase your retention rate ten points from, say, 35% to 45%, you’d get a 100% increase in your acquisition budget.
Now that’s a match that appeals to me!
And if your chief executive or CFO won’t make the match, try it out on one of your Mystery Matchers.
Tom
P.S. This post is not intended to be totally cheeky. Get out your calculator and figure out the retention/acquisition match that would be appropriately incentivizing for you and your nonprofit.
One response to “A 10 To 1 Match I Like!”
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YES…Rewarding retention.
Do we think that all this “challenge matches” are real? Or are they… well not exactly lies but kinda rather sorta manipulations….
Matching with current donor money not extra donor money. Matching because you paid the gift on Tuesday even though you pledged it and were going to pay it Thursday or Friday.
Or???