Who Is Matching My Donation?

Your contribution really does get matched, but the situation may not be quite as urgent as you’re led to believe.

Vice President Kamala Harris at a campaign rally in Arizona. (Gage Skidmore)
By Marty Smith

My question is about campaign contributions: When they say my donation will be matched or doubled, who is giving all that extra money? And why don’t they just give it? —Edd

Charitable-donation enticements come in many degrees of honesty, from the public-radio tote bag, which you definitely get, to lunch with Barack Obama, which you definitely don’t. The pitches you describe, Edd, fall somewhere in between: Your contribution really does get matched, but the situation may not be quite as urgent as you’re led to believe.

For those who’ve managed to avoid these entreaties, they go something like this: “An anonymous donor has agreed to [match/double/triple] every donation we receive, up to [X] dollars. Your $100 contribution will actually be worth [$200/$300/$400] in our fight against [corporate media/Donald Trump/toenail fungus]. Give now!” The unspoken (or sometimes not-so-unspoken) implication is that failing to cough up the hundred bucks will cost your favorite charity several times that amount in matching funds they could’ve had from the megabucks donor. Way to go, jerk!

Is the situation really that dire, though? It depends. There are cases where the matching donor really does walk away if the campaign falls short: If Jay Gatsby Jr. has committed $10M toward a new $30M cancer center but the other $20M from small donors fails to materialize, he really could pull his money out, since the project probably won’t happen anyway.

But projects like this are the exception. More often, the megadonor’s matching dollars are socked away in a special account that’s already under the charity’s control, with a legal caveat that the money can only be released into the general fund when and if it’s matched by small-dollar donations. If the campaign ends without maxing out the matching funds, the big donor is legally entitled to ask for the remainder of their money back.

In practice, however, this rarely happens. Most donors simply agree to quietly release the leftover cash for the charity to spend as it sees fit—no harm, no foul. Those familiar with the psychology of rich people will understand this. (One can only imagine the snickering down at the club once word gets out that the Throckmortons are so broke they actually insisted on clawing back that last $264.50 from the Deep House Victims’ Minibus Appeal.) What’s next? Dipping into capital? Far better to tough it out.

Questions? Send them to dr.know@wweek.com.

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