Don’t Let Poor UX Cost You Corporate Matches: 4 Website Tips

Corporate matching gift programs provide an estimated $2.86 billion to nonprofits every year, but another $4 to $7 billion goes unclaimed because donors never find or finish the process. Most nonprofits blame this gap on a lack of donor awareness. But much of it comes down to something more fixable: the website’s user experience (UX).

Donors abandon donation pages at rates as high as 70%, and mobile conversion still lags desktop by roughly 30-40%. By simply fixing four things on your website, you can streamline your user experience and turn awareness into action.

Why UX Matters As Much As Matching Gift Awareness

78% of donors are unaware of whether their company has a matching gift program, and another 14% know a program exists, but are not sure if they qualify or how to apply. Most nonprofit professionals know there is a gap in matching gift awareness, but awareness is only one side of the story.

Once a donor does know matching gifts exist, your website determines whether they actually follow through. And right now, most nonprofit websites are working against that goal.

Nonprofit donation data illustrates the gap between donor intent and donor action:

Nonprofit donation pages convert at roughly 11% on desktop and 8% on mobile, meaning about 9 out of 10 visitors leave without giving.
Mobile devices already account for the majority of nonprofit web traffic and a growing share of gifts, yet mobile pages still convert 30-40% worse than desktop pages, largely due to friction with forms and load times.
Nonprofits estimate that between 50% and 70% of donors abandon a donation page before completing their gift, most often because of confusing forms, slow pages, or forced redirects to a third-party processor.

Now layer matching gifts on top of that. If a donor has to hunt for information about their employer’s program, or if the process of searching for their company feels like an extra chore tacked onto an already frustrating donation flow, most people simply will not do it.

However, the good news is, 73% of donors say they will use a matching gift search tool when it is presented to them directly on a donation form. This means that when a workflow supports a donor and provides easy, accessible tools, donors are willing to engage.

Use these four website UX fixes to close your donor gap and meet your donors where they are:

1. Give Matching Gifts a Dedicated, Easy-to-Find Home

Many nonprofits mention matching gifts somewhere on their site: a line in the footer, a paragraph on the “Ways to Give” page, or in their newsletter, but they don’t have the infrastructure on their site to support the matched donor journey from beginning to end.

Donors need one clear destination where they can search for their employer and get next steps, and that destination needs to be easy to find from anywhere on your site.

How to create a strong matching gift page:

Include a short explanation of what matching gifts are, written in plain language.
Outline clear next steps, including where to obtain the paperwork, whom to contact, and how long the process typically takes.
Provide your nonprofit’s mailing address and EIN, as many employer matching gift forms require them.
Use a searchable company database so donors can look up their employer, rather than being sent to a separate site or a PDF list.

Where to link your matching gift page:

Your main navigation menu, ideally under a label that donors will recognize, such as “Matching Gifts” or “Double Your Donation.”
Your “Ways to Give” page, positioned alongside other giving options.
Blog posts and email newsletters about fundraising or impact.

Remember: 93% of the top peer-to-peer fundraising nonprofits host a dedicated matching gift page, and organizations that do this consistently see higher engagement with their matching gift tools. If your nonprofit does not have this page yet, it is the single highest-leverage fix on this list.

For a deeper look at exactly how to structure one (including examples from real nonprofit websites), Double the Donation’s guide to marketing matching gifts on your website is worth a read.

A Quick Note on Navigation Labels

Donors are more likely to click a link that sounds familiar and low-effort. “Matching Gifts” or “Double My Donation” tends to outperform vaguer phrasing like “Corporate Partnerships” or “Workplace Giving,” simply because it tells the donor exactly what they get by clicking. Small wording choices like this are UX decisions, even if they don’t feel like it.

2. Meet Donors at the Moment of Giving, Not After

One of the best ways to leverage matched giving is to introduce it once a donor has already decided to give. When a donor visits your donation page, their intent is already at its peak, and an easy-to-use widget that shows their employer will match their gift dollar for dollar is an exciting, momentum-building moment.

To capitalize on this momentum, optimize the following spots on your website:

On the donation form itself. If your donation platform allows it, add a matching gift search field directly into the giving flow. Donors can check their eligibility before they even finish their gift.
On the “Thank You” or confirmation screen. This is often the easier lift technically, and it still catches donors at a high-intent moment right after they give.

Our guide to donation match best practices recommends embedding a searchable employer database directly on the donation page for exactly this reason: donors can instantly see if their company participates without leaving the page or losing momentum.

If your donation form platform cannot easily support an embedded search tool, do not let that stop you. A clear, well-designed confirmation screen with a search field and a short explanation like, “Did you know your employer might match this gift?,” still captures most of the benefit. According to Double the Donation research, 86% of the top peer-to-peer nonprofits follow up with donors about matching gifts on their confirmation screens, post-donation emails, or both.

Tips for avoiding common friction points:

Redirecting donors off-domain to a third-party matching gift tool without warning. If the page suddenly looks like a different website, donors often assume they clicked the wrong link and leave.
Burying the matching gift prompt below the fold on the confirmation page, where most donors will not scroll.
Asking donors to create an account or log in just to search for their employer. This adds a step that is not necessary for a simple lookup.

3. Design the Matching Gift Experience for Mobile First

Mobile giving is the baseline for fundraising, with 43-45% of all online nonprofit donations occurring on mobile devices. Mobile traffic to nonprofit websites now regularly exceeds desktop traffic. Yet mobile donation pages still convert at meaningfully lower rates than desktop pages, largely because the experience was not designed with a phone screen in mind first.

If your matching gift search tool or donation form is difficult to use on mobile, you are cutting off access to a huge and growing share of your donor base right when they are most engaged.

Mobile UX checklist for matching gifts:

Test the search tool on an actual phone, not just a resized browser window. Pinching, zooming, or horizontal scrolling to find or use a search field is an instant drop-off risk.
Use large, tappable buttons and input fields. Small text links and cramped form fields are hard to hit accurately with a thumb.
Enable autofill and appropriate keyboards. A company name search field should pull up a standard keyboard, and payment fields should trigger the numeric keypad automatically.
Keep the matching gift prompt visible without excessive scrolling. If a donor has to scroll past several screens of content on their phone to find the search tool, most will not.
Avoid content carousels or sliders near the matching gift section. These are notoriously unreliable on mobile and often bury the exact information you want donors to see.

Responsive, mobile-optimized donation experiences see 126% more mobile donations than sites that were not built with mobile in mind, which gives you a sense of just how much is riding on this one fix. If your nonprofit has not recently audited its matching gift page and donation form on mobile, that is a good next step before investing further in matching gift marketing.

4. Build Accessibility Into Every Step of the Matching Gift Process

Accessibility is sometimes treated as a separate, optional project from the rest of a website. It should not be, especially when it comes to a revenue-driving tool like matching gifts. An inaccessible search tool or donation form not only risks excluding donors with disabilities; it also tends to be harder to use for everyone, including donors on older devices, with slower connections, or using unfamiliar interfaces.

The gap here is significant. Industry research has found that while 91% of nonprofits have a website, only about 22% of those websites are considered accessible to visitors with visual or hearing disabilities.

These are a few quick wins for improving your website’s accessibility:

Label form fields clearly, and keep labels visible even after a donor starts typing, rather than relying on placeholder text that disappears.
Support full keyboard navigation. A donor should be able to tab through the matching gift search field, results, and submit button without needing a mouse or a trackpad.
Use sufficient color contrast for text, buttons, and error messages, and never rely on color alone to indicate something like a required field or an error state.
Write descriptive link text. “Search your employer” tells a screen reader user far more than “Click here.”
Add alt text to any icons or images near the matching gift search tool so screen reader users receive the same context as sighted visitors.

Cornershop Creative outlines nonprofit web design best practices, including a guide to the importance of, and how to meet, accessibility standards.

FAQs: Matching Gift Web Design & UX

Q: We don’t have the budget for a full website redesign right now. Where should we start?

Start with the confirmation screen after a donation. It is usually the lowest-effort, highest-impact change on this list, since you are working with an existing page rather than building something new. A short paragraph and a matching gift search field can often be added without a developer.

Q: How do we know if UX is actually the problem, rather than a lack of awareness?

Look at your analytics. If a meaningful number of donors are visiting your matching gift page but few are completing a search or clicking through to their employer’s instructions, that points to a UX issue on the page itself. If very few donors visit the page at all, that points to an awareness or navigation problem instead. Both are fixable, but they call for different first steps.

Q: Our donation platform doesn’t support matching gift search tool integrations. What now?

Prioritize the confirmation page and a dedicated matching gift page instead. You will not capture quite as much of the “peak intent” moment, but you will still catch donors while their gift is fresh in their mind, and you avoid asking your donation platform to do something it was not built for.

Q: Does improving accessibility affect matching gift revenue, or is it mainly a compliance issue?

Both. Matching gift accessibility is about ensuring every donor, regardless of ability, can use your matching gift tools. But the same fixes (clear labels, keyboard navigation, good contrast) also tend to reduce confusion and errors for every donor, which is a direct UX and revenue benefit, not just a compliance checkbox.

Q: Should we prioritize the matching gift page or the mobile experience first?

If you have not built a dedicated matching gift page at all, start there. It is the foundation everything else points back to. If you already have one but have not tested it on mobile, that is likely your next highest-impact fix, given how much giving now happens on phones.

Measuring the Success of UX Fixes

Once you have made changes to your matching gift page, donation form, or mobile experience, do not just assume they are helping. A little bit of tracking goes a long way toward showing whether your UX fixes are actually converting into matched revenue, and it also helps you decide where to focus next.

Here are a few simple metrics worth watching:

Matching gift page visits vs. search tool interactions – If donors are landing on the page but few are actually using the search field, the page itself may need a clearer call to action or a more prominent search box, rather than more traffic.
Confirmation page engagement – Most donation platforms and analytics tools can tell you how many donors interact with elements on your thank-you page. If very few click into the matching gift search tool, try moving it higher on the page or pairing it with a stronger prompt.
Mobile vs. desktop completion rates – Comparing how often donors on phones actually complete a matching gift search to donors on desktop will quickly tell you whether your mobile experience needs more work.
Submitted matches over time – This is the ultimate measure of success. If your nonprofit uses a matching gift database or automation tool, most platforms will track how many donors search for their employer and how many actually submit a request.

According to Double the Donation, only about 20% of nonprofits currently track optimization metrics, such as match identification or submission rates, even though more than half track baseline revenue generated through the programs.

Baseline revenue tells you whether matching gifts are working overall, but it will not tell you whether a specific UX fix, like adding a search field to your confirmation page, actually moved the needle. Tracking both gives your team a much clearer picture of where to invest next.

You do not need a complex reporting setup to start. Even a simple monthly check of page visits, search tool clicks, and submitted matches can reveal patterns that point you toward your next fix.

Final Thoughts

Corporate matching gifts are among the most overlooked revenue opportunities in nonprofit fundraising. The best part is that none of these fixes require expensive new software or a full site rebuild, just a clear look at what your matching gift experience is asking donors to do and what can be improved. A dedicated matching gift page, a search tool embedded near the moment of giving, a mobile-first design, and website accessibility are not separate initiatives. They are four parts that support the holistic donor experience.

These UX fixes remove the friction standing between donors who already want to participate and the follow-through that gets your nonprofit its share of that $4-7 billion currently going unclaimed each year.

Ready for the next step? Double the Donation’s guide to marketing matching gifts offers additional ideas for keeping workplace philanthropy visible across your website and other core engagement channels.