Matching Gifts

Do you have a donor who works for a company that offers to match charitable donations? Congratulations! Matching gifts are a great way to maximize an individual donor's contribution. 

Many businesses offer a benefit of employment called an Employee Matching Gift program. Programs of this kind match a donation made by an employee to a charity with a corporate donation to the same charity. Your donor should check in with their employer to find out how to get the process started.

Process: In almost all cases, the donor and the charity (meaning Fractured Atlas) must complete some forms to process a gift of this kind. Fiscally-sponsored projects should not complete any forms related to matching gifts – all forms should be sent to our staff for completion. The type of form we complete depends on the employer itself. 

• Paperwork: Some companies require that we fill out paper forms that your donor might include with their check when they send it to you. Please be sure to mail that form to us with the check. We'll process the donation, complete the form, and send it back to the employer offering the match. 
• Online Forms: Some companies handle their matches through a third-party website. Depending on the site, the donor should send the link to Fractured Atlas for processing or submit all information to the site, which will then contact Fractured Atlas to confirm.
• Payment: Matching donations should be made payable to Fractured Atlas, with the name of the fiscally sponsored project clearly listed as the designation or purpose of the gift.

Volunteer Matches: If a business offers matching funds for volunteer time to your project, Fractured Atlas will require that the project show documentation of the volunteer time.

Timeline: Once all required paperwork has been submitted, it can take anywhere from 3 to 9 months for a matching gift to be processed by the matching company or organization before it is received by Fractured Atlas. While we understand delays can be frustrating, each organization’s matching gift timeline varies and is outside of our control. As soon as we receive and process the matching gift, projects are notified via email that the gift has been processed into their project’s fund balance.