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.

Greater Giving Updates

Greater Giving has released new features in Event Software Online 5.0. We’re excited to see these changes increase efficiency for our clients and their events this fall! For these updates and more news you can use, check out our July eNews, hot off the press.

Improvements to managing and tracking admissions gives you a detailed, 360° view of each ticket purchase, including multiple tickets, sponsorships, auction purchases, and donations. You will now be able to view, track, and report on multiple tickets purchased by a single supporter and the individual using a ticket purchased by another guest the same way you can view, track, and report on donations, sponsorships, and auction purchases. This improvement helps you to identify “who’s who” at check-in, speeding guests into the auction to start bidding. And it will give you a far more accurate view of your most significant donors’ investment in your event and your mission to help you with your donor and sponsor cultivation efforts.

Easier management and tracking of table guests. Do you sell tables for your gala event via an online registration page? Event Software Online 5.0 makes it easier to for a table host to register individual table guests online. Table hosts can quickly manage their table seating by visiting your event webpages after purchasing the table and adding to or amending contact information for table guests. This improvement makes it much easier at check-in to match guests with the appropriate table (this feature available when using Event Software Online and Online Payments.)

Sponsorship dashboard helps you to better focus on recruiting and retaining sponsors. Event Software Online 5.0’s sponsor dashboard tells you at a glance how your sponsor committee is performing, so you can stay apprised on progress and appropriately motivate sponsor committee members. Easy-to-read gauges track achievement of sponsor revenue goals, number of sponsorships sold by committee member, and sponsor pipeline, plus “Top 5” sponsors, “Top 5” committee members by number of solicited sponsorships, and what’s needed to achieve sponsorship goals.

Easier management of online campaign images. Event Software Online 5.0’s new consolidated image repository lets you use the same image file for all your online fundraising campaigns. Instead of relying on each member of your event team to store and maintain event-related images, Event Software Online 5.0 will store images in a centralized system so that everyone can use an image in multiple online fundraising campaigns without uploading the image every time.

Event Planning Summer Intern

Event Planning Intern

Duration:
4 - 8 hours per week June – September

Compensation:
This is an unpaid training opportunity

Job Description:
Educational summer internship available in the events industry. This summer internship will provide you with an opportunity to meet other industry professionals, support event planning, and research event resources. The position is an admin position that will report to the event director.

Projects:

Admin Support & Research for Samantha Swaim Fundraising, LLC.
• Collect specs on local venues for an event site catalog
• Research for client projects
• Provide prep support for on-going classes and workshops

On-site Event Support
• Provide support at events during set up and event execution.

Support and involvement in ISES Events
• Support Samantha Swaim Fundraising, LLC’s involvement in the planning and execution of monthly ISES events through administrative and research functions

To Apply:
Email letter of interest & resume to Kelsey Pine, Event Director, at Kelsey@samanthaswaim.com.

The Effects of Social Media

Social media is all the rage these days, and for good reason: RESULTS. If you’re not engaging your audience where they live—Facebook, Twitter, and the like—you could be missing a great opportunity to get them to your event.

A client of ours honed in on Facebook as a resource to promote their spring fundraising event. They identified where their audience spends time and talked to them the way they engage with the world. As a result of their efforts, our client saw a 65% increase in attendance from the previous year!

Not only is social media effective in this day and age, it’s FREE. And with limited resources, that can offer you huge potential in selling your event.

This is just one of the topics we’ll be covering in our NEW class offering:

January 19, 2011 (9AM-12PM)
Marketing Your Spring Event
Increase Visibility & Sell More Tickets
at Planned Parenthood, 3727 NE Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd.

We will cover:
• Getting creative on a tight marketing budget
• Guerilla marketing
• Social networking
• Press & Media
• Web tools
• Invites, posters, and other collateral

Space is limited, so register today!

Marketing Your Spring Event Workshop

The holidays may barely be over, but it’s time to start thinking about your spring fundraising events. Join us for a great morning class on how to effectively and creatively market your spring event. Are you maximizing the opportunity to increase awareness and visibility for your organization? Are you selling out to your event? Is everyone in town buzzing about your event? This workshop will cover the best tactics to marketing your event, and all before lunch!

January 19, 2011 (9AM-12PM)
Marketing Your Spring Event
Increase Visibility & Sell More Tickets
at Planned Parenthood, 3727 NE Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd.

We will cover:
• Getting creative on a tight marketing budget
• Guerilla marketing
• Social networking
• Press & Media
• Web tools
• Invites, posters, and other collateral

Space is limited, so register today

Pledge Based Events

Does the thought of doing all the work for a big event overwhelm you? Why not engage your most passionate supporters to help do some of the heaving lifting for you!

Pledge based events—a more traditional walk or any kind of ‘a-thon’ like bowling or jump roping or running laps—are fabulous ways to help bring others into the fundraising circle for your organization. Pledge based events allow you to directly connect to your constituents and supporters, and to take their enthusiasm for your organization and turn it into money. You can engage a large group to go out into the community and raise money on your behalf. One person can only do so much, but imagine mobilizing your own little fundraising army! And it’s amazing how those amounts, small and large, brought in by a broad base really add up. By signing up to be a participant in your event, people already know they will be raising money for you. No hard sell needed for them, and then they will go out and tell their personal story to engage even more people, spread the word about your good work, and raise much needed funds.

Pledge based events can be a great addition to your fundraising event roster. The sky’s the limit for what type of event you can have, and it can be a really great way to tailor something to exactly fit what your supporters most enjoy and are excited about.

If you’d like to learn more, join us at our next workshop:

December 9 (9AM-12PM)
Pledge Based Events
Raising Money with a Walk, Run, or Ride
at Planned Parenthood, 3727 NE Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd.

Pledge based events engage others to raise funds for your cause. We will:
• Learn the tools needed to raise money with a pledge based event
• Identify your prospects
• Develop a communications plan
• And begin planning your pledge based fundraiser

Space is limited, so register today!

Auctions A to Z Workshop

Online Ticketing for Auction A-Z - October 30

We hope this finds you well as Fall unfolds!

We're offering our ever-popular Auctions A-Z class again on October 30th. This class is a great way to cover all the bases of auction planning, network with other non-profit professionals, and get your specific questions answered by consultants Samantha Swaim and Kristin Steele, owners of Samantha Swaim Fundraising LLC.

And... if you're interested in our entire Auctions Series... receive 5 classes for 20% off. Don't miss this opportunity to train your staff and volunteers in auction planning.

Here are the details:
October 30 (9AM-4PM)
Auctions A – Z
Review the Basics & Set Your Strategies
at Planned Parenthood, 3727 NE Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd.
Register at www.samanthaswaim.com

Sell Tickets Online through Eventbrite

Morning Session – Introduction to Auctions & Fundraising Events
Are you a small non-profit looking to start your first fundraising event? Are you a staff member planning a fundraising event and looking for some tools for planning? This session will break down the basics and give you the 1-2-3 of planning your next fundraising event.
Topics will include:
· Recruiting and managing a volunteer planning committee
· Basic needs and resources for your event
· Basic budgeting – when to purchase and when to use donations
· Tips for sponsorship solicitation
· Ideas for auction procurement

Afternoon Session – Advanced Auction Strategies
Are you looking for creative ways to raise more money? Do you wonder what trends are occurring in fundraising events? Are you looking for some specific insight about how you can increase your bottom line? This session will look at a couple of event case studies and identify strategies to implement in the planning of your next event that will reduce your workload and increase your profits.
Topics will include:
· Simplify your logistics to focus on your fundraising (room layout, sound quality, and guest experience)
· Creating an event program that increases your fundraising
· Get strategic about your auction (What sells? Should you do a silent/live auction? Compelling bidders)
· The Appeal (Don’t let this money making opportunity slip through the cracks!)

We hope to see you there!

Space is limited, so register at www.samanthaswaim.com today!

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