Matching Gift Relationships
In an effort to maximize the potential matching gifts some companies offer, the Gift Accounting, Records Maintenance, and Annual Giving teams have come together to make some changes all users will begin to recognize in GAIL. First, the records team has been working hard to create employee to employer relationships on constituent records over the last year. We now stand at near 130,000 employee relationships in the system which is double the amount we had in November. They have used sources such as the Career Center, LinkedIn, Ruffalo Noel Levitz student callers, recent alumni directory project, alumni programs such as the 40 under 40 and Bulldog 100, and a push for alumni to send us their updates directly in order to update current employment information.
In addition, these work teams have created and implemented a complete process which creates a matching gift relationship on each constituent. If a constituent is in some way eligible for a match, the matching gift company will be reflected on the relationship of the constituent record with the type of “Matching Gift Company” (see picture below). For instance, if a spouse of a constituent works at Atlanta Gas Light Company, the constituents record will show a matching gift relationship to the Southern Company. In this case, Atlanta Gas Light Company is a subsidiary of the Southern Company which is the matching gift organization of the Atlanta Gas Light Company. Each night, a business process reviews the changes made on the system and adds or removes matching gift relationships as needed. The process reviews the corporate tree for both the constituent and their spouse to find the appropriate matching gift entity. Once a gift is made and no matching claim is giving, the annual giving team will follow monthly to try and obtain the match from the company.
Get in the habit of looking for the “Matching Gift Company” relationship whenever discussing gifts with our donors. You can also find out more information regarding the matching gift criteria by viewing the Matching Gift Conditions section on the organization record (pictured below). Note: The matching gift information will be on the parent organization and will not usually be on any of the subsidiary or affiliates. When discussing this with your donor, if they indicate either a change in employment or a change in the matching gift program with their employer, please update the information in the system. If you do not feel comfortable making the update, please email the information to askit@uga.edu.
