Strike a Match

Fundraising is all about striking the right match — matching donors with the right messages and programs, matching values with the proper corporate partners, matching stories to your campaigns, matching passion with need, and securing matching gifts.

Here, two nonprofit organizations share how they secured the proper matches to run three extremely successful fundraising campaigns.

Toronto-based Kids Help Phone secured a corporate partner to match gifts to its holiday campaign. And the Coast Guard Foundation struck matches with two campaigns — matching donors’ desire to help during an emergency for a Coast Guard tragedy and incorporating a matching gift in its annual Memorial Day campaign.

Kids Help Phone: Buy a Kid Some Time

When most people think about the year-end holiday season, they think of joy and happiness, particularly for children. The gifts, the time with family, the parties, the time off from school — all these things help bring kids a special energy and excitement this time of year.

But Toronto-based Kids Help Phone (KHP) — a toll-free, 24-hour, bilingual, anonymous phone-counseling, Web-counseling and referral service for children and youths — often encounters a different kind of feeling come the holidays.

“A lot of the stories and calls and conversations we have are at Christmas and the holidays time,” says Susan MacLean, KHP’s manager of annual giving. “It can be a very challenging time period for [the children who call in]. Something happens in their life, and they think they’re supposed to be happy but they’re not, so they feel left out.

“It’s a challenging time of year for them, and we want to make sure the donor base is aware that this is a different time of year for them. We want to make sure they’re seeing that, and they want the children to have a good holiday.”