4 steps to Converting event Donors to organizational Donors

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With fundraising event participation increasing, it’s time to utilize those events to bring new donors to the organization. A fundraising event is not an end in and of itself; it holds the potential to significantly expand an organization’s traditional fundraising pipelines. A strategic approach can convert event donors into annual fund, major and planned gift donors.

summary

The typical event participant secures a minimum of three to four donors for an organization1, but organizations often make the mistake of dismissing this type of philanthropy as merely tangential. While it is often the case that an event donor’s motivation to support an organization is secondary to that of supporting the event participant, this is by no means a reason to

QA

Should I be converting my event participants instead of event donors into organizational donors?

Spending significant time engaging event participants is

vital. However, there is a tremendous untapped opportunity

in event donors who have already demonstrated their

support through a monetary donation.

QA

Is there really a difference between an event donor and an organizational donor?

Absolutely! There is a significant difference in the motivation

behind supporting a friend/colleague/loved one versus

supporting a mission that one is personally passionate about.

An event donor is more likely to stop supporting an organization

if their link to the event participant is terminated, while an

organizational donor is not dependent upon a third party.

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disregard such individuals. In fact, donor motivations can be changed - from having an affinity to participant to having an affinity to cause and organization.

Treat event donors the same way you would treat a friend of a friend. The burden is on you to pursue a deeper relationship and engage them outside of their relationship with the event participant. If you do not take the first step, chances are the relationship will never move beyond their support of the event participant.

May have little knowledge of your mission

Motivation to support resulting from a third party

10-12 months of engagement and cultivation investment may be required to convert

May need to cultivate their passion for your cause, then your mission

Gift amount not indicative of capacity or inclination due to low typical event

solicitation threshold

Likely to have first-hand knowledge of your mission

Personal connection to the organization

Already engaged with your mission; requires cultivation only

Organizational mission in sync with donor passion

Gift amount likely to be an expression of actual capacity/inclination

event Donors organizational Donors

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“A fundrAising event is not

An end in And of itself”

Capture all the information that can possibly be captured from event donor checks, credit card receipts, online giving forms and other related correspondence and code this information in your database. Online giving forms are perhaps the easiest to implement – simply add a drop-down field at the end of the transaction process where the donor can answer a question such as: “Please tell us why you support our organization.” Similarly, data collection for offline gifts is not as complicated as it may seem – whether your organization processes event gifts internally or utilizes an external lockbox facility, start by examining the relevant existing processes and workflows and adjust them accordingly.

The minimal up-front effort it may take to capture this extra information will pay off. It is best to work closely with your IS/T team to identify the best places to store these invaluable nuggets of data in order to avoid running into data extraction issues down the line; this will likely require the utilization of a few unused fields in your database.

A new event donor file should be pulled from your database on an ongoing basis (weekly at most, monthly at least) for wealth screening, data collection and statistical analysis. Do not wait until after the event is over - regular wealth screenings and data collection on your new event donors allow for real-time segmentation and timely research on individuals who surface in the top percentiles of each segment. Coordinate with your event fundraising team’s efforts to ensure that communications from your organization are in sync and you are not overlapping efforts.

Using the particular capacity and inclination characteristics of your organization’s existing major, annual and planned gift prospect pools, each event donor can be assigned as a prospect to one of these giving populations and a ranking can be applied within each group to be used later in the process in driving outreach priority. Further segmenting your event donors based on known educational and/or professional background, interests, etc. can be very useful as you begin to engage these individuals.

Avoid using only open ended answers. These are a data collection nightmare! Keeping things consistent will keep you and your staff sane.

iDentiFy1

QA

What is wealth screening?

Wealth screening takes your database and

identifies donors with the best ability and

propensity to give, setting you on track to focus

your efforts on the best prospects for each

solicitation. Prospect research centers such as

Wealth Engine can help you with this research.

sample

event Donor segmentation

k n o w n i n t e r e s t s

Fine arts

major giFts

c a pa c i t y a n d i n c l i n at i o n p r o f i l e

annual giFt planneD giFt

k n o w n e d u c at i o n a l a n d p r o f e s s i o n a l b a c kg r o u n d

FinanCe meDiCine entrepreneur

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You already know that a fundamental element of successful event fundraising is ongoing participant engagement: don’t stop communicating to your event participants just because the event is over! The same applies to your event donors. Given the somewhat tenuous relationship event donors have with your organization, extending the same engagement practices as you would to your participants is critical to building long-term relationships. In fact, proactive engagement is even more critical since these donors are likely to know much less about your organization - a perfect opportunity for you to educate them about your mission and demonstrate good stewardship of their investment.

Recognizing the difference between event donors and existing organizational donors, a unique engagement strategy must be executed for the former. To use an analogy, if your event participants, annual fund, major and planned gift donors were your family, they would be your brothers and sisters; event donors would be your cousins from Paris. The latter are related to you, but somewhat more distant, and requiring a nuanced communication style.

Within this unique engagement strategy it is important that communications are tailored to reflect the event and participant that the donor supported.2 A series of eight to ten communications should be sent, each referencing the fundraising progress of the individual supported as well as the success of the event itself. The message should also connect the mission of the event - raising funds - with the mission of the larger organization. When possible, the message should also reflect the way the donor was introduced to the organization. The communications should include a pre-defined mix of media and content, letters, emails, phone calls, postcards, etc. and should contain both quantitative and qualitative educational information about the impact of the event on your organization. Keep in mind that the purpose of the communications is purely for the sake of drawing the event donor’s interest further into the organization and priming for cultivation; this is not the time for solicitation.

8-10 is just a guideline. What’s more important than quantity is the quality of the communication. Show the donor that you want to get to know them. You’re NOT making an ask, you’re setting the stage for the ask.

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sample engagement plan For event Donors w h o F a l l i n t o m a j o r g i F t C u l t i v a t i o n s t r a t e g y

3 w k s i n t r o D u C t i o n l e t t e r

3 0 w k s e n g a g e m e n t l e t t e r # 3

1 5 w k s p o s t C a r D u p D at e r e : t h e e v e n t

1 8 w k s e n g a g e m e n t l e t t e r # 2

6 w k s h a n D - w r i t t e n n o t e w i t h r e l e v a n t i n s e r t

2 7 w k s p h o n e C a l l # 2 w i t h F o l lo w - u p n o t e

1 2 w k s p h o n e C a l l w i t h F o l lo w - u p n o t e

2 1 w k s h a n D - w r i t t e n n o t e w i t h r e l e v a n t i n s e r t

9 w k s e m a i l u p D at e

2 4 w k s e m a i l u p D at e # 2

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Unique content should be developed for each communication, primarily driven by the giving segment that the event donor has been assigned to in the identification stage. Event donors that are segmented into your major gift cultivation strategy might receive content that is written in a more sophisticated fashion, hand-written notes and information that is more personalized than annual fund pieces, while planned gift prospect communications might contain words and images that would appeal to this age constituency. Within each segment, consider further segmenting and tailoring the content to speak to prospects’ known educational and/or professional background, interests, etc.

QA

This is a great strategy, but how do I get the rest of my non-event staff on board?

QA

Will event donors stop supporting events and participants if they start supporting my Annual Fund?

Not if you engage your event donors in the right way and

connect them to your mission. According to research

compiled by True Sense, a direct marketing firm, donors who

are subsequently engaged by an organization’s annual fund

and who respond to annual fund solicitations, end up being

stronger organizational supporters overall.

Training, education and leadership. With any

new strategies and tactics, you want to get your

colleagues’ and your leadership’s support from the

beginning. Engage them by making them part of the

process from the start and using all your available

tools to demonstrate the positive outcomes of

engaging event donors.

It may become necessary to address and assuage event participant concerns about your organization engaging “their” supporters. Should this occur, engage your participants in your post-event cultivation strategy and utilize their knowledge of their donors to help you identify and properly engage

QualiFy & Cultivate 3

their donors in your mission. Your event participants have done a lot for your organization, continue to engage them in your efforts and use their passion for your work to craft stronger messages to their donors. Also, reiterate that a donor is implicitly opting in to receive communications from your organization by making a gift to your organization (unless the donor specifies otherwise when making the gift). At the time that an event gift is made, organizations may wish to proactively ask event donors to opt out (or opt in) to future communications.

By the time the event is over, these donors are already well into the engagement cycle. You haven’t asked them for a gift yet, but they are more educated about your organization, what you do and how their donation to your event is making an impact on the world.

A number of people will begin to respond to your engagement strategy, self-identifying as prospects. While cultivation should commence immediately for these individuals, a qualification strategy should be deployed for the remaining people, beginning with those individuals who scored in the highest data modeling percentiles. Each possible prospect should be assigned to a major, annual or planned gift officer responsible for making personal contact and qualifying each individual within 4-6 weeks.

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A set of criteria, created with your development department, should be established and used to qualify event donors as legitimate prospects for the pre-identified pool (e.g. Major Gifts), someone that should be transferred to another pool (e.g. Annual Fund instead of Major Gifts), or an event donor that should be disqualified completely.

Once qualification has occurred, cultivation can begin. Whereas the engagement phase focused on educating the event donor while deliberately excluding any type of solicitation, the cultivation stage is focused on personalizing their experience and providing a subtle call to action. To this end, communications should now elicit an emotional response and take on a sense of urgency while continuing to weave in the name of the event and the participant that the event donor initially supported, tying these into a new opportunity to make an additional impact beyond the event. The purpose of cultivation is, after all, getting to know these individuals beyond their initial transaction, obtaining their trust, and making the case for why they should support your organization over another.

A critical part of any cultivation phase is actually meeting the potential donor in person, giving your organization a human face and reinforcing a personal level of attention and connection. This becomes an even more important reality when working with event donors due to the distance between them and your organization. Consider hosting on-site cultivation events for each giving segment, tailoring the content of each event to the audience you are inviting. Inspiring speakers and organizational leadership should be a part of each event, as well as existing organizational donors who were once strictly event donors. Consider inviting event participants to the cultivation event as well, acting as ambassadors to the organization.

The qualification and cultivation phase should continue until you feel that the prospect is ready to be solicited. The ultimate goal is to make repeated personal contact and, in doing so, match your event donors’ philanthropic passions with your mission.

You may know very little

about the mysteries

of your organizational

donors’ motivations

to support your

organization. However,

you possess at least

one valuable piece of

information about every

event donor’s motivation:

an event participant

asked them to do so!

Leverage this information

by cultivating your event

participants. Steward

your event participants

as you would your

most well-connected

trustees; they are there

to open doors for you

and may be willing to

help secure long-term

relationships with your

event donors. Give your

participants recognition

for their assistance and

find meaningful ways

to reward them for

helping you to develop

relationships.

Cultivation tip: it’s not just For Donors!

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The event donor has been introduced to your organization, you have signaled a clear interest in furthering the relationship by planting the seeds of engagement and you have cultivated the relationship. Now comes the moment of truth: will the event donor convert and, if so, will the conversion take place as you had planned and built your goals around? The only way to find out is to ask! If appropriate, consider involving the event participant who introduced the prospect to your organization.

As with all charitable gift solicitation, listening to your prospect is the best way to know when they are ready to make the conversion from event donor to organizational donor. Making a solicitation that will result in the conversion from event to organizational donor requires the same level of segmented, customized communication that occurred earlier on in the process. For example, an event donor that was earlier identified as an Annual Fund prospect could be asked to continue their support by joining your organization’s monthly giving society, using language that complements the event they initially supported, e.g. a walkathon supporter can be asked to “go the extra mile” by joining your monthly giving program.

1 h t tp : //www.event360 .com /assets/f i les/ jo intheracerwr2010 .pdf2 h t tp : //nten .peachnewmedia .com /st reaming/ inter face-v7.php?top ic=23423&band=1&st ream=1& id=&semid=7328&prov ider=341&cust id=71 1 12&stat i c=1

This white paper was produced by Event 360, in col laborat ion with Troy A. F inn, Ass istant Vice Pres ident and Chief Operat ing Off icer for Development at Columbia Univers i ty Medical Center.

Convert 4

QA

How is post-event engagement of donors currently being practiced in the market?

We talked to one major organization that piloted a

major event donor cultivation effort that generated

positive results.

The amount of resources required to implement

a pilot conversion strategy for your organization

pales in comparison to the potential return on

investment if even a small number of incremental

new major, planned and annual gifts are secured as

a result of the conversion effort.

a long-term Commitment From leaDership as well as a blenD oF best FunDraising praCtiCes must Come together in orDer to suCCessFully launCh a Conversion program,the financial impact of which will only be realized in the years (not months) following its implementation.

By identifying, engaging, qualifying, cultivating and converting event donors, an organization fully leverages its event participants’ networks to build new donor pipelines.

Doing so will likely require an investment in education and training in order to shift the current culture of fundraising staff and event participants.

ConClusion

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Email us at fundraising@event360.com to set up your one-hour pro bono consulting session with Jeff Shuck or one of our other fundraising consultants.

We’re donating 5% of our time each week to help organizations achieve

their missions.

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