Maximizing Event Fundraising: Workshop Recap

On Monday I attended the first of three presentations in a series hosted by Brown Paper Tickets that aim to help nonprofits maximize event fundraising. The presenters were the venerable Susan Howlett and Tara Morgan from the Mount Baker Clubhouse. It was an engaging presentation that helped us all think more strategically about event planning and promotion, and really get down to a granular level when it comes to the mission-based outcomes that we hope to achieve with our events.

While I learned a lot of great stuff, I’m naturally inclined to share the tech-related pieces here. There were a few good suggestions of ways to incorporate social media and web-based promotion into your events:

• The team at Brown Paper Tickets has a dedicated email address just to help nonprofits with promotion. And you don’t even have to use their ticketing service to get their help (although, if you ask me, you should - they donate a portion of their proceeds to charity, their fees are low, and we had a great experience using them for our recent Techtacular event). Just email promo@brownpapertickets.com and they will help you write press releases and work within the framework of your event messaging to compose tweets and Facebook posts to promote your event. It's all free!
• Using your organization’s social networking profiles to promote your events is a no-brainer, but both presenters recommended leveraging the online networks of your existing staff, board members, and volunteers to get the word out. When you email your event team detailed descriptions of their roles before, during, and after the event, include pre-written status updates, tweets and links and ask them to post the updates to their personal pages to get the event details in front of their friends and colleagues. It is a bit of a sticky personal/professional boundary to breach, but hopefully your supporters love you enough to walk this line to help create a wildly successful event.
• Consider creating a Facebook page specifically for the event (especially if it is an annual event and you can use the page year after year). We (NPower) caution you to set that up early on (i.e. several months before the event). It will be important to build a real community on the page before asking them to give their time and money for your event. We’d recommend posting photos from previous events and asking prior event attendees to post their own photos or share stories about their engagement with your organization. Nothing is more powerful than a testimonial from your peers.

This is not at all tech-related, but I was astonished to hear that, despite having the worst ROI out of all fundraising activities, there are over 400 auctions held in Seattle every year. Susan mentioned that a bigwig from Ben Bridge once told her that each store is solicited an average of 20 times per day for a jewelry donation for an auction. Definitely something to consider when planning your next event.

Thanks to Susan and Tara for a great workshop, and to Brown Paper Tickets for arranging the whole thing. I’m looking forward to the next two workshops, and we’ll be sure to post the details on our Facebook and Twitter pages so follow us there to stay in the loop!

Sidenote: Special thanks to Tara and the Mount Baker Clubhouse for offering a free four hour rental of their event facility as a door prize. I’m so excited to have won it and can’t wait to brainstorm what type of event NPower will be able to use it for.

- Mandi Moshay