Parent Philanthropy: Matching Gifts as the Bridge for Non-Alumni Donors
Alumni participation has been sliding for a decade. Meanwhile, the most engaged audience in your database is often one email away and has no strategy built around it.
Parents already read your emails, show up for family weekend, and pay tuition. This guide from Gravyty and Double the Donation shows how matching gifts can turn that engagement into a first gift, at no extra cost to the family.
Matching gifts give parents a reason to give that doesn’t ask them to feel like alumni. Yet 78% of donors don’t know whether their employer offers a match. This guide shows you how to close that gap.
What’s inside:
Why parents are your untapped audience: 22% of parents are more likely to donate to their student’s college than to the one they attended, and 40% want more ways to get involved.
The cost-free ask: Matching gifts answer the objection every gift officer hears from parents: “I already pay enough to this school.” 65% of Fortune 500 companies offer a matching gift program, and matched gifts run 1.5 to 2 times larger.
The awareness gap: $4–7B in matching funds goes unclaimed every year. About 10% of gifts qualify for a match, but only 1.31% get matched.
Household math and a parent-giving playbook: Two working parents mean two possible employer matches, so a $100 gift could have $300 in impact. Learn how to use engagement data, like event attendance and their student’s sport or major, to make the ask concrete.
Parents are already showing up. Give them an ask that meets them there.
