Matching and Challenge Gifts
As a dedicated supporter of Lindenwood, you can make a difference this Giving Week by sponsoring a matching or challenge gift.
When you commit to a matching or challenge gift, you're inspiring other Lindenwood supporters to contribute to this effort. Plus, you'll help us incentivize giving in fun and engaging ways to rally supporters and bring out our community’s competitive nature, thus maximizing the impact of your own gift.
Keep reading to learn more or contact Assistant Vice President – Advancement Brian Brunner at 636-949-4903 or via email at bbrunner@lindenwood.edu.
Matching gifts
A match gift is a commitment by an individual or company to match each dollar raised by Lindenwood during Giving Week with their own gift, up to an amount that you choose. Matching gifts give our donors and community members the power to double their impact: a $25 gift becomes a $50 gift, a $50 gift becomes $100, and so on.
Plus, knowing that others are invested in the success of our students reminds our community that Giving Week is a collective effort and that no gift is too small to make a difference.
You can choose to direct your matching funds toward a specific support area, like the Lindenwood Fund, a scholarship of your choosing or any of our athletics or academic programs. Only gifts made to that area would be eligible for the match. Matching gifts for Giving Week are named opportunities and are available with a minimum contribution of $2,500 to the fund of your choice.
Throughout the week, we’ll promote your special gift to inspire others to give and keep track of our progress. Once we reach the maximum amount of your matching funds, we’ll do a little happy dance and announce we’ve depleted the available matching funds! We’ll follow up with you post Giving Week to share our results and the various ways you’re able to fulfill your pledge!
If it sounds simple, that’s because it is. Setting up a matching gift is easy and quick, but your impact is significant. On average, having a matching opportunity increases a donor’s likelihood to give by 22 percent, and increases gift amounts by 19 percent. That means that not only are you inspiring others to give to Lindenwood, your gift is working double time too.
Challenge gifts
A challenge is a gift that can be unlocked if/when we hit a specific goal. This goal can be measured by total dollars given or total number of donors engaged. We use these gifts to encourage our community to help us reach key milestones throughout the day as we pursue our overall targets.
Similar to matching gifts, challenge gifts are named opportunities, but are available with a minimum commitment of $1,000 to a priority fund. Depending on the scope of your gift, we’ll promote it through our various communication channels throughout Giving Day.
Examples
When 50 donors make a gift to support the Lions Scholarship Fund on Giving Day, the Smith Family will donate $5,000 to support student scholarships.
If we reach 100 donors by 12 p.m. on Giving Day, The Browns will donate $10,000 to the Lions Relief Fund.
When we raise $5,000 for the College of Arts and Humanities, Leo Lionheart will make an additional gift of $2,000 to the College.
Challenge Gift Promotion
| Gift Level | Name and photo on website | Listing in promotional emails | Social media shoutout | Dedicated email and social media posts |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $5,000+ | X | X | X | X |
| $3,500-$4,999 | X | X | X | |
| $2,500-$3,499 | X | X | ||
| $1,000-$2,499 | X |