5 tools for success: How to turbo-charge your pledge based fundraising events

5 TOOLS FOR SUCCESSHow to turbo-charge your pledge based fundraising events

[email protected] and Innovation Consultant, HJC

[email protected] Doctors Without Borders USA

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Why a virtual event?

• Lower cost, still meet fundraising goals• Higher net return• Chance to create a narrative• Opportunity to try out online tools and

social media fundraising

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Quick Wins: personal pages for events…

Quick Wins

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1) Average raised per committee member: $17,129.83

2) Top 3 committee fundraisers raised $189,252

What made it work?1) Social network competition between

committee members2) High touch help for committee

members e.g. meet personally with them; make their online pages; input their email addresses; steward them along the way with visits and calls

3) Worked so well, they are alternating virtual event every other year

hjc 7Proprietary & Confidential

The ‘Virtual’ Event

• Teams of fundraisers learn how closely their efforts affect emergency interventions by:– Getting an insider’s view of what it’s like to

be on an emergency team through field blogs and situation reports from MSF staff

– Understanding how readily available funds enables MSF to react quickly in emergencies


Goals

• To acquire new donors/participants• Raise $125,000 for Emergency Relief Fund• Explore personal page fundraising

viability for brand• Set MSF apart in the market with an

innovative campaign


TOOL #1Focus on mission and communicate a clear case for support

Importance of mission• Be clear in your communications that:

– the event generates revenue through fundraising– the higher the fundraising goal the more mission impact

• Create an event that is relevant to your mission – Don’t run just to run! What does the run symbolize?– Virtual events work if tied to mission

• Be There 1st

• Walk in Their Shoes• Great Whale Trail

• Event quality and customer service matter – Brand promise– Enthusiasm– Increased retention and satisfaction


Three steps1. Identify the Need: “MSF tries to predict where

emergencies may erupt, but is often called upon to respond at a moment’s notice.”

2. Identify the Work: “MSF relies on donations in order to act quickly and independently when a crisis arises.”

3. Identify your Vision: “To educate donors about our emergency medical response in the field and how donating to our Emergency Relief Fund is critical to our work.”


Identify key messaging – What’s the offer?Be There 1st key messages:• MSF tries to predict where emergencies may erupt,

but is often called upon to respond at a moment’s notice.

• On September 16th you can join the team and fundraise with MSF so that they can be there first when the next emergency happens.

• Not only will you benefit a great cause, but you and your own team of friends, family, coworkers, and classmates will get “insider” experience of what it like to be there reacting to a crisis.

• Your support means that MSF can continue to act independently and quickly in medical crises.


Permeate this messaging across all communications

• External marketing• Internal emails• Participant emails to donors• Encouragement emails• Thank you emails and calls!


TOOL #2Monitor your key predictors of success closely

Key predictors of success

• More participants correlate with higher revenue– But, it is important to recruit participants who

FUNDRAISE – quality and quantity• Recruit participants early

– Time as a participant means more donors• Focus on teams

– Team participation correlates positively with increased fundraising and overall satisfaction

– Teams participate year over year


More predictors

• Watch fundraising goal increases & decreases– Those who increase their fundraising goal

mean they have an affinity for fundraising and should be stewarded more intensely

• Can you track how many emails each participant sends?– More emails means more donors! You get

what you ask for!


Use the registration form to capture key info• Team captains

– How many team members do you expect?– Do they increase the team fundraising goal?– More personalized service, immediate telephone call (more on this

later)• Team members

– Do they increase their personal fundraising goal?– Are they the top fundraiser on their team?

• Individuals– Consider a ‘singles’ board – Upgrade to a team

• Corporate team– Matching gift option?


Encourage self-sponsorship at registration

• 19/20 top fundraisers for Be There 1st donated to themselves

• 25% of all donations (not-general) were self-donations

• In many cases, participants made multiple donations to themselves.


Be There 1st: Address Book Stats

• The total number of addresses in all address books is 5,314.

• Of that total, 2,062 were not sent anything (at least not through the Email Centre tool).

• Only 38% of contacts uploaded were solicited for the campaign.


Email Center Features• View campaign updates (emailing hints auto-

populate to field with correct email addresses and appropriate message)

• Send one of four varieties of template messages to your contacts (join, support (donate), follow-up, thank you). Users can edit these messages and preview before sending.

• Easily see which of your address book contacts have been sent each message, corresponding date, and whether or not they have donated to you or your team.

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Be There 1st: Email Center Stats

• Support e-mail (please donate) sent to 2,724 recipients

• Follow-up e-mail sent to 502 recipients• Thank you e-mail sent to 313 recipients• Invitation e-mail (please join) sent to 843

recipients• 200 of the support email recipients are marked

as having donated, though some may have found their way to the form manually instead of clicking through the e-mail


TOOL #3Talk to your fundraisers often by email AND THE PHONE

Sit-reps & Emails


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Sit Reps v. Revenue v. Logins

9/14/0

5

9/18/0

5

9/22/05

9/26/05

9/30/05

10/04/05

10/08/05

10/12/05

10/16/05

10/20/05

10/24/05

10/28/05

11/01/05

11/05/05

11/09/05

11/13/05

11/17/05

11/21/05

11/25/05

11/29/05

12/03/05

12/07/05

12/11/05

$0.00

$10,000.00

$20,000.00

$30,000.00

$40,000.00

$50,000.00

$60,000.00

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

160

Total RevenueLogin PageWelcome Page

Date

Reve

nue

($)

Site

Tra

ffic f

or Lo

gin

Page

s


What did we learn?

• Create more incentive for people to login (and fundraise) after reading sit-reps – Is there a final clue in the Fundraiser Center?

• Keep sit-reps shorter, use bullets, read more online (many people reading on BlackBerry)

• Incorporate fundraising tips in the emails rather than inside login area


Quote from MSF post-campaign survey

“MSF contact was perfect. I received one call that was meant to answer any of my questions

and assist me in fundraising. It was great.”Participant Survey Respondent


MSF Calling: Difficult to determine results

• Interns handled the participant calling for the most part.

• There was communication from other staff to some participants that was not recorded.

• MG donors and staff were put on the DO NOT CALL list.

• Because of lack of resources, the top 10 fundraisers were called a second time. Self-fulfilling prophecy?


Results are positive


Average Raised

Including Inactive Participants No Call 1 call 2 calls

$162.01 $107.59 $456.18

Excluding Inactive Participants $387.30 $213.85 $596.54

Calling works!


Not Called Called $-

$100

$200

$300

$400

$500

$600

$700

$800

$900

$1,000

$722.18

$920.09

Yoga In MotionImpact of Calling Participants

Avg. Revenue Per Participant

Action Taken

Aver

age

Reve

nue

($)

Up 27.4%

Why do we want to call people?

27.32% of overall revenue raised over the 6 days after calling…

When to Call?

What to say?

• Thank you for registering• Can I help at all?• You’re doing a great job! Is the

technology working for you? Any questions at all?

• One week ‘til race day!• You’ve reached your fundraising goal!

Let’s raise it.

Don’t forget them after the event!

• Get them enrolled for next year as soon as it is finished

• A participant survey shows you care about their experience and making it better

• Update throughout the year on improvements or exciting updates

• Target past participants first!


TOOL #4Make using social media simple for your fundraisers

Viral campaigns

• Don’t fall into the trap of wanting to go viral without preparation

• Your social media supporters will see through the ask

• Build up your supporters well in advance of a campaign


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Widgets


Recommendations

• Build your presence before your event• Designate someone to manage social media

full-time. TWEET your successes and thank you’s!

• Create opportunities for fundraisers to recruit team members and donors through Facebook.– Fundraising widgets with high usability

• Show your network!


Identify champions to blog!

• Do you have true event champion with lots of fundraising success and a story to share?

• Would they be willing to blog throughout the campaign about their successes, tips for fundraising, etc?

• A great resource and motivation for other team captains


TOOL #5Use incentives appropriately

Appropriate use of incentives• Know your donors• Early bird!• Should be nominal or

entries/credits• Recognize teams/groups• Reward team

recruitment• Recognition and public

acknowledgement is an incentive!


ANY QUESTIONS?Fire them at us!


5 tools for success: How to turbo-charge your pledge based fundraising events

Education

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