If you have ever lead and coordinated a fundraising event there are several things going through your head.  One of the first things most fundraising executives stress over is will anybody show up.  Here are a few things to ensure your organization is successful in putting on your fundraising event using CiviCRM.

Organizing Your Invite List

Before the event you need to organize your email list.  With CiviCRM you can organize and register your donors into specific groups.  As for our clients event two days from now we made sure they setup their constituents into very intentional groups.  These groups consisted of the following: Church Alliance Partners, Direct Mail, General E-Newsletter, Corporate Sponsors, Friends & Family and Operation Orphan Rescue. 

When our client started the email campaign they invited a specific segment of their donor base to a corporate reception.  They chose only the Corporate Sponsors list as the audience they are promoting the event too.  They also determined the specific days and times to strategically email them leading up to the event (Save the date 1 week out, mid week reminder & a last minute reminder).  This series of emails is called an email campaign.  A good rule of thumb to use in creating an email campaign is to first determine how long of commitment an event is and then work backwards to pull together the email campaign (i.e. if an event is only 1 hour then 1 1/2 weeks of emails should be deployed at a frequency of one email per week).  If an event is a 1/2 day 5k run then you will want to start promoting it 2 months out. 

Making Event Registration Easy

Good fundraising events are easy to register for online and in the body of an email.  Using CiviCRM's event registration application you have several different event types to setup custom registration forms.  You can also choose to charge them via credit card in real-time or you can make the event free and only require the constituents email address to register.  In the case of this event our client is currently promoting it as a free reception and therefore no credit card is required to register for the event. 

Make the Details of the Event Clear to Attendees

Every registered attendee needs a clear understanding of what the event will entail.  Immediately after the donor has registered online or in the body of the email it is important to send an automatic email receipt letting the donor know they are registered.  In this email you should make sure the donor has directions to the event.  The main coordinator of your event should also receive an event registration receipt every time someone registers so someone internally is aware of who has registered in real-time.  CiviCRM makes it easy to create the auto email registration receipt for each upcoming fundraising event.

Be Intentional and Direct In Your Email Content

Each email blast needs to be direct and intentional as it relates to the content your donors receive via email.  When in doubt it never hurts to simply answer the Who, What, When, Where, Why and How as a easy way to ensure the details of the event is succinct and clear.  Also it is important to make sure you have hyper linked the online event registration into the body of the email in more than one place throughout the email. 

Making Follow Up Phone Calls is Important

Incorporating phone call invites into the strategy is critical to your event.  Even if you invite 250 corporate leaders to your reception it is important to export this list from CiviCRM (it is easily exported as a CSV or Excel file) to call the top 5% of your list who would most likely show up.  These phone calls will go a long way towards making your event a personal experience for your donors. 

There are certainly other things to consider about your event like what type of door prizes you will be giving away (if any) and making sure you have recruited enough volunteers to help put on the event. However, if nobody shows up none of this matters.

Blake Fite is a Managing Partner at www.donordepot.com where he has years of experience stressing out about his clients fundraising events.  Blake can be reached atblake@donordepot.com / 918.409.5997       If you have any questions about your fundraising events for this next quarter and how we may be able to help your organization.