People Give to People

Photo by Rosemary Ragusa

We are often asked, “What’s the secret to sponsorship?”

There’s one easy answer: talk to your potential sponsors don’t just send them paperwork.

That’s both the bad and the good news in fundraising.

It’s the bad news because you can’t hide behind a great sponsorship proposal that you send far and wide and just wait around for all the yeses to start rolling in.

It’s good because it means that having actual conversations with potential sponsors that you have a connection to will often get you so much further than paperwork.

One resonant conclusion keeps coming out of research done on giving and philanthropy: people give to people.

Think of the times in your life you’ve really been compelled to support an organization. Likely it’s because you heard a personal story that turned your head. Or you know someone who is devoted to and passionate about a cause and they ask you to join in.

Photo by Andie Petkus

Your sponsors are people. Yes, many of them have official channels to process sponsorships and that’s where a great sponsorship proposal packet is the follow up. But the initial contact is so much more fruitful when it starts as a conversation.

So when you are prospecting sponsors, don’t make an abstract wish list. Make a targeted list that you and people in your organization have a connection to in some way. Spending time on this list and cultivating these supporters will prove so much more effective in both the short and the long term for your cause than pursuing the big fish that you have no ‘in’ with.

You are passionate about the organization you work for, bring that energy and spirit to your conversations with potential sponsors. A form letter will get put in a pile. Person to person contact will not only help you cultivate sponsors and get them excited about your cause, it makes your potential sponsors feel included in what you’re doing which helps secure them long term.

For more resources about cultivating sponsors join us for our upcoming Sponsorship Class on May 23.

4 Tips for Successful Silent Auction

Hats off to Mt. Hood Kiwanis Camp for their wildly successful Speakeasy Gala and Auction two weekends ago! It was an evening full of many successes, and at the top of that list was their well curated silent auction.

Besides creating a distinct look and feel for the silent auction, Mt. Hood Kiwanis Camp employed some basic strategies to achieve that level of curation. Here are 4 easy steps you can take to have the same effect:

1. Look at last year's sales totals: What sold and what didn't? Make sure to include the same items that sold well and take out/do not solicit the items that did not.
   
2. Know your audience: For example, the attendees of the Mt. Hood Kiwanis Camp gala bid very competitively on home and garden packages, wine lots and restaurant gift certificates. Solicit donations of what you know people will bid on, and package them together in fun and engaging ways.
3. Set clear criteria for the types of items you are soliciting: restaurant gift certificates, unique experiences, travel, celebrity meet and greets, etc., and make sure your procurement committee sticks to it.
4. Be creative: Mt. Hood Kiwanis Camp has a loyal following of Kiwanis clubs that purchase tables every year. They also have a competition in which each club puts together a basket for the silent auction, and the club that created the top selling basket gets a visit from the Camp's Executive Director at their next meeting. These baskets are consistently among the silent auction's best selling items.

By following these clear guidelines, Mt. Hood Kiwanis Camp saw their silent auction revenue increase significantly over last year.

As with all other elements of events, the more you tailor your silent auction to your audience, the more fun they'll have, the more engaged they'll be, and ultimately, the more money you will raise.

The Traditional Event Arc

Cocktail Hour

Your guests will arrive at your event in varying states of engagement. Your job is to reel them in. A cocktail hour can allow them to acclimate to your event and leave their daily baggage behind.

This time is also perfect to start getting them to engage with your organization through a silent auction, raffle or wine wall. These activities give guests something to do and start raising your organization money.

Dinner & Start of Program

After this social time, transition guests into the seated dinner and program. A great way to focus them here is to show a “Who We Are and What We Do” video after they are seated. Using a video will help center and focus your room and allow you to educate your audience about your organization.

Live Auction

Dinner is a time when your audience will be relatively quiet and is a great time for the live auction. Order your live auction items by perceived value, each building on the next as a way to build momentum to head into your special appeal. Hire a professional benefit auctioneer, you will make more money as they sell your organization not just the item.

Special Appeal

Your special appeal is your single biggest opportunity to raise money at your event. That is why it needs to be timed at the peak and height of your event’s momentum and your guests’ attention. Your appeal also needs to follow a basic formula about one person on a hero’s journey:

The special appeal has three distinct parts:

· The Story: Your appeal story needs to come from a place of why your organization does the work that it does and not this is who we are and what we do. Simplify.

· The Ask: To engage your audience with a call to action, you must concisely, directly and actively ASK people to give money.

· The Collection: Those who plan for an easy and strategic collection maximize their earning potential. This may be done with bid cards, envelopes, cell phones—but keep it easy and strategic.

Candy

Once your live auction and special appeal are completed, move into the “candy” of your event. This is the perfect time for honorees, awards, or headliner entertainment. Guests will stay around and pay attention, but at a lower level of engagement than they had during your live auction and appeal.

Register for our Elements of Your Event class on April 26 to learn even more about how to structure your event program to raise more money.

Building a Program that Raises You More Money

Group dynamics help dictate a natural flow for an event. Because your audience's engagement is limited, it is critical to build your event to match and maximize this natural flow of engagement.

A successful fundraising event capitalizes on momentum and audience engagement instead of fighting against them. Keeping your program tight so it moves along quickly helps guests stay engaged, and knowing that your momentum and guest attention has a peak will help you time your program.

Place your business first--this is a fundraising event with a goal of raising money. Sequencing the special appeal to happen at the height of event momentum and guest attention will yield the highest fundraising results.

The most successful events are designed to fit your audience, so each event will be different. Yet, each event still has an arc that you can map out to find the best timing for all of your program elements, most importantly your special appeal.

Focus on fundraising, and structure your program so that everything that's making you money comes first on the build to the height of the arc. If it's really important for your event but it's not directly raising you money, place it after your fundraising.

To learn more, register for our upcoming Elements of Your Event class on April 26.

A Theme in Action

In a town with over a hundred galas a year, themes are a great and easy way to set your event apart from the rest. They provide you with many ways to shape your event to fit the expectations of your audience, and also allow you to get creative with many of your event elements.

From decorations to beverages to even auction packages, all aspects of last Saturday's Gambol was tied together by a creative and engaging theme: Keep Portland Weird. The planning committee did a fantastic job of building a unique and fun evening to support Catlin Gabel's financial aid programs.

Here are some of the theme elements that made their event so great (and added to its quirky, Portland vibe):

• A Ninkasi beer tent and local wineries provided beverages throughout the evening. Guests also enjoyed VooDoo donuts for dessert.
  
  
• Guests could have their photo taken with various iconic Portland images in the background.
  
  
• Raffle tickets were actually fake birds that guests pinned to their lapel.
  
  
• The highest selling auction package was one that included a walk-on role on the next season of Portlandia.
  
  

By having the theme present in all facets of the event, Gambol guests had an experience like no other, and a really great time as well! Guests that enjoy your event are not only more likely to come back next year, but also to give you their support.

A theme can be as creative as you want it to be. When picking a theme for your event, however, be sure that it fits with the expectations of your audience. Keep Portland Weird was popular among Gambol guests because it was tailored specifically to that audience.

Themes are an easy way to take all of the different elements of your event and tie them together. They help make your evening fun, unique and engaging, and a well-executed theme can transform your good event into a great one.

Maximizing the Potential of Your Event Planning Committee

A great committee, the people behind GLEE: Basic Rights Oregon's 2010 Dinner & Auction.
Photo by Rosemary Ragusa

One of the strongest assets you have in ensuring a successful event is your planning committee. From coordinating volunteers to managing data entry to helping spread the word about your event, a planning committee brings with it a whole world of additional support and resources for your organization.

The most important facet of working with an event committee is a clear breakdown of responsibilities and workload. Staff should be responsible for all of the elements that affect the long-term goals of the organization (major donor/sponsor relations, messaging, budget), while the committee can focus on the elements that make your event what it is (decor, entertainment, new support).

Recruiting the right folks to be on your committee is only one part of the equation. You need a combination of people who get the job done and people who connect you to the right people. You also need people who will focus on the fundraising to make sure your event meets or exceeds its goals.

Recruit committee members based on their skill sets. If you are looking to increase the social media presence for your event, but you don't have the organizational resources to make it happen, recruit a social media savvy volunteer to be on your marketing committee.

If you need support with ticket and table sales, recruit an Honorary Committee. Honorary Committee members allow you to use their name to build recognition for the event, and agree to fill a table (or more!) for your event.

Successful committees need a dynamic and engaging Chair (or Co-Chairs). The Chair connects the organization with the committee, and streamlines all committee communications (meeting reminders, meeting minutes, etc.). This level of peer-to-peer accountability often ensures that the work gets done.

Once you have a committee in place, set up a regular meeting schedule that works for everyone and stick to it. Use that as a time for committee members to share updates and to assign new responsibilities. List new and past commitments on a white board, this visual reminder will increase individual accountability.

Committee members are great set-up volunteers, but don't have them volunteer during the event if possible. They most likely have friends that they have brought to the event, and are more helpful to you by being a part of the crowd.

Finally, remember that your event committee is there to make planning your event easier and less stressful, and to help you meet or exceed your goals. Recruiting the right people and leaders, communicating clear expectations and a meeting schedule structured on how the work is advancing, sets you up for success.

A Committee Success Story

Kudos to Portland's Q Center for recruiting a fantastic committee to help plan their annual Winter Gala Never Out of Style!

The planning committee was fantastic this year because they were dedicated and engaged supporters who were recruited to do specific tasks based on their skill sets. For example, an experienced volunteer coordinator was in charge of volunteer support all evening, and logistics experts managed event setup.

Never Out of Style was a great success for the Q Center, and went off as smoothly as possible, thanks to the talented planning committee.

Designing an Event to Fit Your Audience

Who are your guests? What type of event do they want to attend? How do they engage with the world around them? And most importantly…how do you balance both the need to wow your audience with the practicalities of a non-profit budget?

Answering these questions now is critical to achieving or exceeding your event goals. If these questions are something you or your organization struggles with, have no fear! You can easily design and shape an event that meets the needs of the guests walking through the door.

First and foremost, start with your audience. Who are they? Have they attended your event before? Are they a diverse pool of people or do they fit into a more defined demographic?

Next, figure out what your guests want from your event. Are they looking to socialize and network? An educational opportunity about the work they are supporting? Or something else entirely? Knowing why your guests come to your event is critical to crafting an event that fits their expectations.

Then, think about how your guests spend their time and interact with the world around them. Are they social media savvy and do you need to incorporate mobile giving and calls-to-action into your event? Do they communicate in more traditional means and expect that at your event? Or does your group just like to party?

Finally…figure out the ways you can craft your event to fit your guests needs and your budget. This is a great opportunity to get creative with your event elements (AV, lighting, catering, etc.) and still design a superb event. Lighting changes help you transition the mood throughout the evening (active lighting will increase guest participation), and background music facilitates socializing at your event. Your caterer can easily create a menu that accents your theme, appeals to your guests or reflects the values/mission of your organization.

Getting people in the door is critical to a successful event. Tailoring your event to your guests will get more of them in the door, and get them to return. When your guests are happy, their giving increases.

In 2011, Basic Rights Oregon redesigned their Annual Dinner & Auction to focus on fundraising first and “friend-raising” second. Besides renaming their event Ignite!, the key changes they made included:
o cultivating an intimate, fundraising dinner
o moving networking and socializing to after the fundraising
o adding a dance party
o utilizing text-to-give technologies
o removing the silent auction and refocusing those energies on creating a dynamic and engaging party

As a result of tailoring Ignite! to the expectations of their audience, Basic Rights Oregon saw their fundraising increase by 10%! This stellar example shows how an extra bit of front-end work can dramatically improve your bottom line.


Photos by Rosemary Ragusa and Jonny Shultz.