Make Donation-Match Email Numbers Add Up

Use Migma to create a donation-match email after the fundraising owner has approved the arithmetic. A multiplier in the headline can describe the donor's gift plus the partner contribution, while the budget cap applies only to the partner's addition. Mixing those quantities can overstate what a gift will receive.

Disclosure: Marketing Wiki's commissioning editor maintains Migma. Marketing Wiki Research Automation prepared this article for direct publication without independent review. The worksheet terms are fictional, and its arithmetic was checked offline. No donation or live account action was performed.

Migma's October 1 Thanksgiving editorial includes charity-themed campaign ideas. We use that dated inspiration to examine a specific email-production problem, not to claim a new fundraising feature or measured campaign advantage. Migma's prompt-based creation workflow makes it a useful place to turn approved terms into editable creative; the fundraising system still owns eligibility and funding.

Name three amounts before writing one multiplier#

DonorsChoose's match-offer guidance explains that a 1.5× offer adds 50% to qualifying donations and that matching depends on eligibility and remaining funding. That is platform-specific documentation, not a universal promise that any donation on any site will be matched.

For an invented 50% partner match, distinguish:

donor gift:             100 units
partner addition:        50 units
combined allocated gift:150 units

“Your gift becomes 150” and “the partner contributes 150” communicate different amounts. Only the first matches this uncapped example. Even “becomes 150” needs qualification when eligibility or available funding can reduce the partner addition.

Use one currency and one definition of an eligible gift in the worksheet. Do not combine two currency totals without an approved conversion rule. Keep the partner's maximum contribution separate from the combined donor-and-partner total.

Work through the funding edge#

This fictional offer has a 50% match and 120 units of partner funding remaining. Ignore fees and reversals for this arithmetic exercise; a real approved policy must say how it treats them.

Each row is an independent scenario starting with the same 120 units remaining. They are not three sequential gifts drawing from one pool. Marketing Wiki checked those calculations offline. We did not inspect a live funding balance or payment allocation.

For the final row, saying “your 300 becomes 450” would ignore the funding edge. If the real offer cannot allocate partial matches, its policy may differ from this fictional example. Use the actual approved rule, rather than turning our worksheet into checkout behavior.

A compact planning formula for the fictional partial-match policy is:

partner_addition = min(eligible_gift × match_rate, remaining_partner_cap)
combined_amount = eligible_gift + partner_addition

Concurrent donors introduce another boundary: the balance seen while drafting may be consumed before a later gift arrives. A spreadsheet calculation does not reserve funds. Let the actual allocation system determine the final match and avoid unconditional future amounts in a static email.

Eligibility is more specific than a cheerful headline#

DonorsChoose's promo-code documentation distinguishes eligible payment and donation paths and says codes may limit matching per donor. Do not collapse an automatic match offer, a promo code, and an employer match into one generic “double everything” statement.

For your own campaign, obtain approved terms for the recipient project or organization, qualifying donation path, payment conditions, window, cap, allocation method, and where donors can confirm the current match. Use those facts in the email's material qualification, next to the proposition the reader is acting on. A distant terms link does not fix a headline that states a different amount.

The documented DonorsChoose rules illustrate why specificity matters. We have not established a Migma connector to DonorsChoose, any current named partner offer, or your organization's permission to use a fundraising claim.

Use different verbs before and after money moves#

Keep campaign reporting states separate. “We plan to match” describes approved intention. “Allocated” describes a recorded match assigned under the applicable process. “Transferred” requires evidence of a completed transfer. “Delivered classroom materials” requires outcome evidence beyond a funding calculation.

The fundraising owner should approve which state the update email can describe. Do not turn a scheduled transfer into “we donated,” or a donation total into an unsupported count of people helped. The follow-up message needs its own evidence even when the launch terms were correct.

In the Migma brief, supply the approved rate, cap qualification, current-terms destination, and allowed reporting verb. Inspect subject, preview text, hero, button, and footer for contradictory multipliers. Begin with the capped scenario: if the creative explains it accurately, the ordinary uncapped example is less likely to conceal an arithmetic mistake.