It seems that almost every mail you get asking for money from public radio or a political party or an advocacy group claims that your gift will be matched 2X or 5X or 20X if you act now. One radio station I know, listener funded but not NPR, gives the names of the matchers.
My question is, if the full match isn’t met, does the matching money go away, or is it donated anyhow, with the match part just being a come-on to attract donors.
I’m guessing the answer is the money is donated, but maybe one of the Teeming Millions has been involved in this kind of thing and can tell me for sure.
It would vary based upon the conditions of the matching donation. There’s not a one size fits all for this type of stuff.
The answer is that it is up to the person or entity that offered the match. They have no obligation to give the money if it’s not matched, but often choose to do so anyway.
Thanks, but I was also wondering what was most common.
Large donors who make such gifts are also very likely to be working closely with the board (if not actually on it) to ensure that whatever fundraising drive is going on is successful. There are likely several donors making matching gifts, so it’s more likely that any given gift is going to be exhausted.
My belief is that it is usually a situation where a big donor wants to encourage others to donate. So Big Donor is going to donate $2 million no matter what. Then a campaign is started saying that Big Donor is going to match donations (up to $2 million). At the end, the target of the donations gets $2 million from Big Donor plus more from others encouraged by the matching campaign.
It’s clear in on-air pitchfolks’ tone that it’s some tongue in cheek, some eyerollish ‘we really doing this?’ side eye. One thing these matches are NOT is an actual windfall with an unnecessarily urgent string attached.
Anncr1: “…And we have a Match! That’s right, an anonymous listener/viewer has challeneged us and you out there to match, dollar for dollar, … (this goes on) … up to TEN THOUSAND DOLLARS! But we have only till the top of the hour so that number again is… (more filler) …will buy a lot of microphone batteries but we need you to Call Now.”
after a pause while fumbling to turn mic back on
Anncr2: [flatly, possibly with some food in their mouth] Wow.
It might as well be a gift from Santa.
Sure, but the encouragement comes from the small donors believing that the match means their donation will be multiplied. If the big donor promises to match donations up to a certain ceiling, then from the perspective of the donors it will only cost them $1 to effectively give $2 to that noble cause (until the ceiling is reached). This makes is more likely for the small fish to donate. If, on the other hand, the small donors believe that the big donor will give the ceiling amount anyway, they have less of an incentive to give themselves.
To counter this, the big donor would need to make a credible commitment not to give any money except where it matches a small donation. Which, of course, conflicts with the big donor’s interest in supporting the cause. I’m sure a game theorist could do an interesting analysis of the situation.
But an easy solution is to not let the small fish know that the match money would get donated anyhow. Technically speaking, it wouldn’t - if $5K were left over, it wouldn’t get matched, but would get donated in a separate donation.
That’s what I would do if I were a big donor.
But the small donors might anticipate exactly that (and I suppose they do, as this thread demonstrates). This is where the need for a credible commitment comes in.
If there’s a small donor that is somehow turned away by this practice, they weren’t going to donate in the first place. Courting large matching gifts isn’t some unethical practice by non-profits that is out to swindle the common man out of their hard-earned $25.
Our local NPR station changes the message from time to time. In recent years, though, it has always been “If we don’t reach the match amount, the rules require us to offer to return the entire amount.” Followed by more rah rah. Usually the amount is reasonable within the time frame, but if a result is announced it is always that they just made it. They often don’t announce the result though, but during peak donating hours, there seems to be one match right after another.
As for donor names, that seems to be up to the donor. They announce some donors, others “wish to remain anonymous.” I know I would, if I were giving away that kind of money.
By the way, our other public station, a classical music station, has a different pitch. The match is still dollar-for-dollar, but the goal is not a dollar amount but a certain number of new members making donations of any amount, and usually the challenge period is over most of a day. This makes more sense to me, and also seems more real. It’s a low budget station (just announcers and recorded music), which may be why this works for them.
That’s the station I was referring to. I’ve seen them do it all kinds of ways. I do donate to them, kind of on my own schedule.
I remember drives for WBAI in New York, non-NPR but listener supported sister station of the Pacifica station in San Francisco (KPFK?) and I don’t remember matching gift drives.