Relationships Are the Key to Donor Cultivation

by: Samantha Swaim

It can be easy to get caught up in the weeds of your event. Themes. Centerpieces. Linen colors. Will your guests like the chicken?

But these are not the things that are going to secure fundraising success at your event, and losing valuable time here will distract you from the most important piece. The best thing you can do for your event is exhibit trusted leadership of your organization by cultivating your relationships well.

People give to people.

CommunityAction’s Celebration of Community Spirit was wildly successful again this year because of the relationships they cultivate. When their development director and executive director move through the room, it’s like a family reunion. Everyone in the room genuinely feels like these leaders are their friends—because they are. These leaders let relationships drive their work instead of the other way around. They clearly understand that to create a strong community for the people they serve, they actually have to build a strong community for the organization.

These two women are seen as largely impactful community leaders in Washington County, speaking out, building relationships and investing in their donors and organization partners. They understand that these relationships make their very important work to eliminate poverty and create opportunities, possible.
 

The work they do all year to cultivate donors and supporters pays off in spades the night of their event because they have created a room that is there to support the work and is ready to give. Their special appeal is by far their biggest level of engagement at the event. Their focus here maximizes their fundraising as the special appeal is the largest opportunity to raise money the night of your event.

There is no raffle or auction package that will do more for you than your appeal. And your special appeal cannot be successful if you haven’t done the work well in advance of your event. You should always be working on this, because these relationships will help your organization year-round if done well.

Be careful where you spend your time on an event. You need linen, but no one will remember what color it was. People will remember feeling like they were a part of something bigger than themselves that inspires them to give more and do more in their community.

Using Space Creatively to Better Your Event

By: Samantha Swaim

Once you’ve found the right venue to suit your event, getting creative within the space can enhance the whole experience of your event. Most venues are big, open spaces—a blank slate—that welcome creative ideas.

Having all of your event activities in one location, and allowing guests access to all areas at all times, can adversely impact your fundraising. If your audience walks in and takes their seat because you’ve allowed them to, they won’t walk around and spend money on the silent auction or raffles. And if they can’t get to the silent auction items because of layout, they won’t bid either.

The trick is to take a look at your program and the flow you’d like to create with your crowd, and then build the elements of the space to match. Doing so can be as simple as shifting seating and adding some pipe and drape.

American Red Cross held its annual Surviving inStyle event at Castaway this year and transformed the big, open space into different, smaller spaces that they moved the crowd through to create different experiences within the event. 

When guests arrived they walked into a silent auction with cocktails and passed appetizers. The auction items were stationed around the perimeter to allow space for people to move through and bid. The space where the live auction and special appeal took place was a stage set with theater-style seating, but access to this space was cut off by beautiful pipe and drape ‘walls,’ essentially creating a space-within-a-space. When the program began, the drapes were pulled back and guests were invited to take a seat.

 

While guests were in the program ‘room’ raising money, the silent auction space was quietly flipped by catering to house the dinner buffet tables. After the program, guests were invited to mix and mingle in that space again. The program room was then reset with cocktail tables and a live band for an intimate dinner party, all of the walls were pulled back and guests moved freely within the larger space.

All of these decisions were based on how to focus the crowd on the fundraising. Allowing people to stand and talk when you want them bidding are at odds with one another. By seating them and removing all other obstacles, you allow your crowd to focus. But they won’t sit there forever without food and drink either, so a tight, focused program allows you to raise the money and then allow them to move into the party once the fundraising is done.

Thinking about the options of your big open space, and how you can create momentum for your crowd, allows your event to evolve over the evening and play into the human economics of time and attention to maximize fundraising.

Finding the Right Venue for Your Event is Critical

By: Samantha Swaim

You’ve been to one of those events, right? The one where the layout and the venue just don’t work. Sight lines are impaired. Registration lines fold back in on themselves. There’s no room to move in the silent auction. It can make for a frustrating guest experience.

Getting a venue booked for your fundraising event can be a challenge. They are a limited resource both in terms of space and availability. But there’s a huge difference between any venue and the right venue. The wrong venue for the format and size of your event can actually impact the effectiveness of your fundraising. Your venue is critical.

This year at Portland Community Reinvestment Initiatives’ Dancing with the Stars Portland Gala, they found the right venue for their unique program. In addition to traditional fundraising elements like a dinner, auction and special appeal, this event has a full Dancing with the Stars style dance competition. This element demands real estate for a large featured dance floor and additional AV components.

Previously PCRI had been a small ballroom that really limited their ability to have a stage for their program, a dance floor for the competition, a place for dance judges, dinner tables and clear sightlines for everyone in the audience. It was a long skinny ballroom and the dance competition split the room in half, isolating the crowd on one side or the other. Outside of the ballroom, they didn't have enough registration or cocktail space so the audience was jammed from a hallway into the ballroom.  

 This year, PCRI moved to a much larger venue that allowed their guests to flow easily from registration to cocktails to their dinner seat where they were able to enjoy the program and dance competition without having to move awkwardly around a space not suited for the specificity of the event. There was a big foyer that allowed photography, raffle sales, mixing and mingling. They had an octagon shaped ballroom that gave them room to accomplish everything have the audience in the round surrounding the dance floor instead of split in half on each side. They had a great green room area for their dancers with backstage access and a flow that allowed for easy check in, check out and good guest experience.

Every event and its needs are unique. Venues aren’t a one-size-fits-all commodity. Being clear about the shape of your event and the real estate it will need to feel like the venue is working with your audience instead of against it is imperative to maximize your success.

Connecting Volunteers and Success at Your Event

By: Samantha Swaim

In the long list of “to do” items for your fundraising event, it can get overlooked that volunteers are an integral part of your success. Rarely are there enough staff members to do every job associated with your event and it becomes necessary to activate volunteers to fill some of those roles. Volunteers act as ambassadors for your organization onsite and, depending on their task, often have a chance to interact with more of your guests than you.

With that in mind, be strategic in their recruitment. Do you have a volunteer job that requires them to talk directly to guests? Make sure they are comfortable with that in advance. If they aren’t, consider them for more behind-the-scenes work like set up/clean up or auction running. If they are interested in a more public role but don’t know a lot about the organization, give them some information ahead of time so they can help spread the word about your great work. 

At this year’s Going Places Gala for Ride Connection, their Heads & Tails volunteers knocked it out of the park. Their task was to sell as many strands of beads as possible during the silent auction for a game that would kick off the live auction. They were raising money and bringing guests into the energy of the event all at the same time.

Ride Connection couldn’t have done a better job suiting volunteers to a task. They recruited key people to these positions that were not only personable and engaging, but knew the crowd well and were incredibly familiar with the organization. Guests knew them and wanted to talk to them already. As added incentive, the volunteers actually made a friendly wager among themselves ahead of time to see who could sell the most, and checked in with each other the whole time as incentive to keep at it. It created a fun atmosphere of competition that guests wanted to be a part of all in the name of fundraising for an organization they were passionate about.

And they sold a lot of beads! Not only were they effective, but they activated the crowd to become engaged in the activity of fundraising and anticipate the fun they were going to have later in the evening.

Strategic volunteer recruitment can add a lot to your nonprofit fundraising event. Having the correct people in specific volunteer positions can take your event to the next level. As you think about recruiting volunteers, be strategic about who you place where.  Know your crowd and place people in volunteer positions that best fit their personalities and strengths. 

“How To” Series: Raffles

We are starting a “How To” series on our blog to cover some of the finer details of fundraising events. For the first in this series, let’s talk about raffles. There are certainly a lot of ways to use raffles to increase giving, add an element of fun and create some suspense. There are many different types of raffles you could choose from for your event. This blog will cover the top 3 raffles we recommend.

*Keep in mind that in Oregon you have a limit of $10,000 a year that can be raised through raffles and gaming without a lottery license.

Wild Card Raffle

This is a quick and easy way to possibly raise $10,000 for one of your live auction packages. The idea is that you’re going to sell 100 raffle tickets for $100 each and the winner gets to choose any package from the live auction!

Here’s how it works:

·      Have volunteers walk around (in pairs) during the silent auction and sell tickets

·      Left over tickets can be sold from the stage by your auctioneer right before the live auction

·      Bid numbers should be recorded so they can be entered properly for sales purposes

·      One winner is pulled from a basket or hat

·      The winner chooses from the live auction packages and that package should be skipped during the live auction

Rapid Raffle

This raffle capitalizes on the impulses of your guests. There is a little more preparation before your event for this raffle but it can be a quick, fun way to raise money. The raffle will be guided by your auctioneer and can happen anytime during your event. Make sure you sequence it properly since this raffle gives a lot of momentum to your event. It also makes your donors visible since they will be the ones physically putting their raffle tickets in the baskets.

Here’s how it works:

·      Attach several raffle tickets to each guest’s bid card in advance with corresponding bid numbers printed or written on them

·      When the auctioneer starts the raffle, bidders drop their raffle tickets into baskets as volunteers run around the room collecting them

·      Decide in advance how much each raffle ticket will sell for (usually around $25 per ticket) and print that on the ticket

·      The winner will then be drawn from all the collected tickets

·      Make sure you keep the raffle tickets to log in the sales from this raffle

The prize for this raffle can be something subjective that might not work in your silent auction such as a diamond necklace. Guests might be willing to pay $25 for a raffle ticket to have a chance at winning this item, but they might not be willing to bid on it in a silent auction.

Heads or Tails Raffle

This raffle is a fun way to increase audience participation and create energy in the room to head into your live auction. Have your auctioneer announce and run the raffle. Make arrangements with them prior to auction night so they can time it appropriately. If a guest decides at the last minute to participate, have your auctioneer sell chances from the stage by having the guests raise their paddles.

Here’s how it works:

·      Instead of a ticket stub, guests buying raffle should get some fun, inexpensive favor—like a light stick, beads, etc. (tie the favor to your event theme if appropriate)

·      Have volunteers walk among the tables with extra raffle favors while the auctioneer is announcing the raffle to encourage last minute participation

·      Once the raffle has begun, your auctioneer will ask all Heads and Tails participants to stand up and put their hands on their head - or their tail

·      The auctioneer will then flip a coin and announce whether the coin came up heads or tails

·      Those with their hands on the “winning end” stay standing—the others sit down

·      The auctioneer will continue asking participants to decide what end to select and flip the coin to eliminate players

·      Once the number of players gets down to a handful, the auctioneer can ask the finalists to come to the stage for the last few coin tosses

·      The last player standing who’s selected the right “end” for the coin toss wins

·      Make sure all bid numbers of participants are logged and written down for your data entry sales (including multiple sales per bid number)

When choosing a raffle for your event, keep in mind the types of guests you will have and the kind of energy and momentum you’d like to create in the room. Raffles are a fun way to raise funds for your organization and can be a great addition to your program during your event.

We're Hiring an Event Coordinator

Position:          Event Coordinator

Status:             Part-Time (90-day probationary period)

                        Scheduling will be in advance and will be as needed

                        May include evenings and weekends

Job Purpose:    Provide event planning, logistics management, venue and vendor negotiations, and onsite stage and event management.

Skills Needed:  Good customer service skills

                        Event planning / event logistics experience

                        Greater Giving knowledge

                        Basic knowledge of AV and catering

                        Organizational skills

                        Quick responsiveness

                        Patience

                        Professionalism

                        Ability to prioritize

                        Microsoft Suite knowledge

                        Ability to lift 30 lbs.

Job Duties:     

·       Job responsibilities before an event are to:

o   Work closely with project managers to execute event needs

o   Identify and contract venues, food and beverage, and vendors

o   Manage guest seating

o   Manage production schedule

o   Identify volunteer needs onsite

o   Manage room layout

o   Manage any permit or insurance needs

·       Job responsibilities will be assigned onsite during an event but could fall in any of the following categories:

o   Registration management (guest check-in and check- out)

o   Event set up, load in, and prep

o   Volunteer training and support

o   Stage management

o   Beverage and catering management

·       Other duties as assigned for event production and onsite management

To Apply:

·       Submit cover letter, resume, and two references to Kristin Steele via email: kristin@samanthaswaim.com by February 4, 2014. No phone calls, please.

Thank You

Celebrating 2013 from Samantha Swaim Fundraising LLC on Vimeo.