Understanding the Matching Gift Employer Search Data Element

The Matching Gift Employer Search element, when placed on a form, allows donors to provide employer information for matching gifts. If you contract with a third-party organization known as HEP, donors will be offered access to a database where they can search for their employer and determine if that employer matches charitable contributions. They will also be informed of the ratio at which gifts are matched (for example, 1:1 or 2:1) and any gift thresholds that apply (minimum and maximum gifts that will be matched). In addition, donors will also be given instructions on how to expedite the matching gift. If donors do not find their employer in the database, they can still be given the opportunity to enter employer information so that you can pursue the matching gift.

If you do not contract with HEP, you can still use this data element. However, your donors will only have use of the fields where they manually enter employer information.

You can retrieve Employer Matching information using the Donations by Gift Report. The viewable version of this report includes the Employer Name, Matched Amount, and whether the employer was located through the HEP database, while the download version includes additional contact information for the employer.

Important: If you contract with HEP for use of their employer database, HEP will send a code to your account manager. The account manager (or a member of Luminate Online Support) will enter that code into a Site Data Parameter known as DON_HEP_CUSTOMER_CODE to enable the use of the HEP database on your site.

The Matching Gift Employer Search element is already present on the template with the corresponding name. You can also add this element to any donation form to provide your donors with the option of providing matching gift information. If adding this element to a form not based on the Matching Gift template, you may want to place the element immediately after your donation levels -- perhaps preceded with a heading such as "Employer Matching Information."