zlacker

>>moored+(OP)
The reason for matching gifts is because charities run into problems if they only have a few donors - the IRS starts to assume they are not a real charity instead they are a tax dodge for the rich. It is easy to setup a charity that really exists to put a tiny amount of money into some cause while spending most of the money on things that help donors. One sign the IRS looks for (because this is easy to look for) is total number of donors. While you can fool a few people, they assume if there are a lot of small donors most of them are not fool - instead they believe in the mission of the charity.

Thus if you are a rich person trying to donate a lot of money to a truly good cause the charity will sometimes be forced to refuse your money despite needing it - just to keep the IRS away. To get around this they will match, thus ensuring that plenty of little donors to keep the IRS away from the charity while allowing them to make the large donation they were planning on making. These are always structured with the hope to give the full amount, so if you are planning on a small donation it is to your advantage to donate during a match since otherwise your charity might not get as much from the rich person.

Note that none of the above applies to politics where there are laws in place limiting total donations per person that a match cannot get around.

>>bluGil+c21
This is why Bill Gates spends so much time fundraising for the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation - He's providing the social proof to the IRS that it's not simply his pet projects or marketing arm. He provides much if not most funding, but he gets assent and agreement from other wealthy donors.

(My opinion is that it's nearly all bullshit - A ton of what the foundation does is provide incentives for both government and NGO aid-services to stay locked into Microsoft products, but I don't think it's at the level of charity fraud)

>>Gauntl+h41
> A ton of what the foundation does is provide incentives for both government and NGO aid-services to stay locked into Microsoft products

Wait, is that documented? The foundation will only give you money if you use Microsoft products? Or they won't officially do that, but potential grant receivers have had foundation representatives strongly hint it would be better for everyone if they kept using Microsoft products?

Because that's a pretty big claim to make otherwise.