Employer Matching May Double Your Donation To The Foundation

I received this great message from Sa Bom Nim Michael Zickafoose in Region 5 about how he DOUBLED his donation to the Soo Bahk Do Foundation's 2012 Fundraising campaign using his employer's donation matching program.

Awesome!

Just wanted to share it with you.

Michael Zickafoose, Sa Bom, Appointed Regional Examiner

Duncan Sa Bom Nim,

I hope that this e-mail finds you in good health and spirits.

I wanted to let you know that a Foundation donation will be forthcoming from the Network For Good on my behalf. I think that it will come through in either mid-December or very early in January.

My employer opened up its annual matching donation campaign today and I submitted a donation to the Foundation today. Since the Foundation was listed as a valid entity, my employer will match my donation. I did make a note on the donation that it was targeted for Region 5. If possible, when it arrives could both be targeted to the Region 5 portion of the fundraising efforts. The matching donation from my employer should double my personal donation.

“Network for Good” is the processor that my employer user for its charitable donation process and they provide an email receipt which serves as a valid record for my tax purposes. I just wanted to let you know that this donation would be forthcoming from another avenue.

I am not sure how many employers offer similar opportunities, but this might be another suggestion for people to consider when making a donation to the Foundation. It could make their donations go further if their employer offers a comparable program.

Even if the Foundation is not part of a particular employer’s list of charities, it could be possible to request that it be added. It all depends on what an employer is willing to support. I assume that the Foundation was listed due to some association with the Network for Good organization. My employer’s program offers the option of making a one-time donation via credit card or having a designated amount removed per payroll cycle. I chose the all at once credit card method–mainly for timing and for tax purposes. It might be possible that someone else could elect to have a small amount deducted per payroll cycle. Depending on how the respective payroll cycle works (weekly, bi-weekly, bi-monthly, monthly), a small deduction of $2.00 per week could turn into $208.00 for the Foundation. While not a huge amount, it could all add up: $2.00/week x 52 weeks = $104.00 x 2 (company match) = $208.00.

This could be potential avenue for additional outside funding and perhaps is one that could be shared with others contemplating making a donation to the Foundation. It could be just a matter of people checking what their employer offers. Larger corporate employers are more likely to have these types of programs, but it is often up to the employee to be aware of and take advantage of the available programs. I assume that most programs would be like my employer’s where there is a set timeframe in which it will provide matching funds, where there is an upper limit on what it is willing to match per employee and where there is an overall amount that it will match for the entire program. The limited time frame and overall program limit are the primary reasons I made my donation as soon as the program opened. In a previous year when I was new to the company, the program had already run out of money by the time I found out about it.

I originally went into the system to make my annual donation to another organization of which I am member that provides scholarships to Engineering students. Since I can double my donation to that particular organization, I now wait until this time of year to make it. While in the system, I decided to do a search for “Soo Bahk Do” just to see if the Foundation happened to be listed. Fortunately, the Foundation was already listed in the system as a valid recipient and as IRS verified. For me, it was just a matter of taking a couple of extra minutes to take “Action” to search for the Foundation in the donation system. Once I located the Foundation in the system, it was an easy decision to make an extra contribution at this time. The ability to double my donation was not something that I could pass up.

In Moo Duk Kwan,
Michael Zickafoose
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