We’ve entered year-end giving season, and you’re likely to see a lot of emails in your in-box promoting matching or challenge gifts.

What are matching gifts? How do they differ from challenge gifts? Are they legitimate fundraising tools, and do they make a difference? MinistryWatch attempts to briefly answer these questions in this special EXTRA episode.

Here are a few resources mentioned on today’s program:

According to the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability: “Using challenge and matching gifts as a part of your fundraising program can be very effective. As in all fundraising communications, truthfulness is a hallmark (ECFA Standard 7.1) as are appeals that do not create unrealistic donor expectations (ECFA Standard 7.2).”

The data suggest that matching gifts are. Philanthropy Works said just declaring a matching gift increases giving by 19 percent. It said a match increases the likelihood that an individual gives by 22 percent.

But some Christian organizations report much higher results. In one recent experiment done by the consulting firm NextAfter with its client Alliance Defending Freedom, a matching gift resulted in a dramatic increase – more than 87 percent — in the effectiveness of its email communications. (You can dig into the details of that study here.)

Note, however, that a similar study done with Museum of the Bible yielded a significantly different result: an increase in about 50 percent. (You can read more about that experiment here.) This result is obviously much lower, but it’s important to note that even this very different result indicates that matching gifts make a real difference.