Why it matters
Matching gifts are money your donors have already earned for you and often forget to claim. A line in your thank-you asking whether their employer matches gifts can add real dollars at no cost.
Track the match separately from the employee's gift. The employee gets the hard credit for their own gift, the company gets the hard credit for its match, and you thank both.
How Steward shows it
When you add a gift in Steward, you can name the employer that will match it. Steward holds the match as a pledge on the employer's profile, not as money, until the match actually arrives. Steward never chases a company for it.
Related terms
- Hard credit Hard credit is the credit for a gift given to the legal donor, the person or organization whose money it was. The hard credit donor is the one who receives the tax receipt.
- Soft credit A soft credit recognizes a person who influenced or arranged a gift that someone else legally made, such as a spouse, a peer-to-peer fundraiser, or the donor who recommended a donor-advised fund grant.
- Pledge A pledge is a donor's promise to give a set amount in the future, paid all at once or in installments over an agreed schedule.
The free Lost & Found audit reads a giving export in your browser and shows your lapsing donors and what they used to give. Nothing is uploaded. Then bring the same file to a 20-minute demo.