The Angels’ Share

You already know that when a donor gives a gift to an appeal with matching funds, the donor’s gift is doubled.

But did you know that when a nonprofit uses matching funds, the matching funds themselves are more than doubled?

It’s kind of magic, and here’s how it works…

When a match is used in fundraising, it has two well–researched effects:

1. “Response Rate” goes up.  So, if you normally have around 500 people respond to your appeals, if you feature matching funds, you’ll have maybe 600 people respond. 
2. “Average Gift” goes up.  If the average gift to your appeals is usually $100, if you feature a match the average gift might increase to $120. 

In sum, more people will send in gifts than normal, and the gifts will be larger than normal.

The magical thing is that these things happen at the same time!  (Normally response rate and average gift size have an inverse relationship – when one goes up, the other goes down.)

What this means is that, when an organization or donor provides matching funds, the matching funds aren’t just doubled.  They are actually multiplied by 2.4!

Here’s how I share this idea with people:

You might think providing $1 in matching funds would cause the organization to raise another $1, producing a total of $2.

But what happens is that the $1 in matching funds causes more people to give than normal, and the gifts are larger than normal, so the organization raises another $1.40, producing a total of $2.40. 

This 40 cents of revenue appears out of nowhere!  So if you have an appeal that normally raises $10,000, if you add a match you won’t just raise a total of $20,000, you’ll raise $24,000.  That’s $4,000 out of thin air.

(By the way, if that doesn’t encourage your Board or major donors to provide matching funds to your next campaign, I don’t know what will.)

Today, I’d like to propose a name for this additional revenue that magically appears: the Angel’s Share. 

I’m “stealing like an artist” from the world of wine and whisky distilling, where the term “Angel’s Share” refers to the small amount of liquid that is lost to evaporation during the aging process in a wooden barrel.  I’ve always thought that was a beautiful way to frame the loss of a little of their product through evaporation.

And what I like about using “Angel’s Share” to describe the additional money that comes in from using a matching grant is that it’s a gain,not a loss.  It’s like a little blessing that’s given to the causes we care about. 

Now that you know about the Angels’ Share, be sure to use matching funds in your year-end campaign so you can experience this very real blessing.

And like me, I hope you’ll raise a glass at the end of the year and toast to the Angel’s Share!