Community Call: Ask us anything! (2023)

This webinar was recorded during a prior campaign year. Some of the information provided may be out of date.

You have NewsMatch questions, and we have answers! Check out the recording and FAQ below and email hello@newsmatch.org if your question isn't answered here.

Questions from the session

If we receive a donation from a corporation, does it count towards the match?

No, only donations made by an individual are eligible to be matched through main match funds or partner funds. However, if you do secure funding from a business community foundation or major donor, you can apply those funds as a community match.

How many emails per week are people planning to send?

Through the NewsMatch Campaign Toolkit, there's roughly one per week, maybe a little bit less, with frequency ramping up around Giving Tuesday the end of the year. Generally, we're seeing a lot of newsrooms deploy one or two emails a week, definitely getting more emails concentrated around Giving Tuesday and around New Year's Eve.

If we meet our monetary goal halfway through the campaign, what’s the best way to word an email that we’ve increased our goal?

At News Revenue Hub, we often phrase those emails as "going into overtime." We hit our goal and are setting a new overtime goal. So if an organization's original goal was $10,000, they'll send emails saying that they hit that and now they're trying to get to $30,000 or $40,000, or whatever that new stretch goal is.

If you saved any potential matching funds to like unveil later in the campaign, that could be a nice tie-in "We hit this goal, now we have a new goal, and we have $5,000 in matching funds" could be a nice way to still encourage people to give.

What constitutes a new donor for the New Donor Bonus?

A first time donor who has never supported your organization

If we get community matches, we can use them as a triple match or to increase the total match?

Yes. These community matches are really meant to be a tool for your organization to deploy to your audience in a way that resonates with them. So we have some newsrooms who have found that saying that individual gifts will be matched twice is a really compelling match and people really like to see that additional multiplier.

Or you can implement a higher goal. So if the match cap is $15,000, and you raise $5,000 in community matches, you might go to your audience and say, "We're looking to raise $18,000 to get a match from NewsMatch and Community Foundation X."

I noticed there are NewsMatch design assets in the toolkit. Is there any requirement to use those colors and the logo?

The benefit of using the designated branding is that you're really uniting yourself as being part of a national movement. But there's no program requirements around design.

Can we count a pledge or does gift need to be in hand to count?

The gift does need to be in hand to count it towards your match. When reporting rolls around, that's what we're verifying through the Match Cover Sheet and required documentation.

Related Resources

Recorded Date

October 25, 2023

Panelists

Meta Stange (NewsMatch Program Manager, INN)

Abbey Gingras (Director of Consulting Services, News Revenue Hub)

Sheryl Saturnino (Community Investments Manager, The Miami Foundation)