5 Things that are a Waste of Money at Your Fundraising Event

So you’re planning a fundraising event to raise money for your nonprofit, and you want it to be amazing AND profitable, right? I want that for you so much too! A great event is one that guests love and want to keep attending year after year and that they want to GIVE to each time (and hopefully become donors outside the event).

There are a lot of things I’ve seen organizations do to “beef up” their event in hopes that they will make it more appealing to guests, or to draw guests to the event and end up losing money on their event. Not only because of the actual cost of these things, but also because of the distraction from the organization’s mission (which costs money in lost donations). While there is nothing wrong with spending money on these things for your event, I have seen these things take away more value (and revenue) from an event more often than I’ve seen them ADD to it.

1. Celebrity Emcees

   Celebrity emcees are a popular addition to an event. I value the work of an emcee so much. They help keep the flow of an event and make transitions smooth and are a steady face throughout the night to keep guests engaged and make sure that everyone knows what is going on at all times.

   That being said, paying a celebrity to “host” or “emcee” your event is not going to bring you more revenue, unless they have a close affiliation with your organization. I did an event recently with a couple of local radio hosts as the emcees, but they did not have a close affiliation with the organization. Their jokes did not land and there were a lot of awkward and uncomfortable moments through out the night. They became a distraction and took away from the momentum of the evening which is so important with fundraising.

   Who are good options for Emcees?

   1. Local Newscasters are AMAZING emcees. Yes, they are technically a “celebrity” but many of them will host events for free if they have an affiliation. What I’ve noticed about them is that they can follow a script well and they know the value of storytelling so they can tie anything back to the organization’s mission. I’ve never had an experience with an ungrateful newscaster, but I do notice them go under-appreciated for their time and talent at some events. If you can get a local news personality to host your event, allow them a guest and tickets to your event and don’t forget the thank you note!

   2. Someone within your organization! This goes overlooked, but you probably have someone in your organization who is charismatic and energetic enough to host the event for you. Some of my BEST emcees have been staff or volunteers from the organizations. They know everyone who comes to the stage and are passionate about the work being done. They communicate your mission better than anyone.

   While a “celebrity” emcee may get people into the room, they aren’t going to get the money out of their pockets and they may even distract from the mission.

2. Fancy Themes

   Themes are a fun way to get people engaged in an event, but there is a fine line between engaging guests and distracting them. Fancy, overdone themes can not only distract from your organization’s mission, but I’ve seen nonprofits shell out big bucks on decor, entertainment and venues that made for a fun event, but did not bring any more revenue to the event.

   Will fancy themes always lose you money? Of course not. We see huge organizations all the time that have themes and their events are incredibly profitable.

   Here are some things to keep in mind when considering having a theme for your event:

   1. Weigh the costs. Will the cost to execute the theme bring in more revenue or attract the right type of people? Can you offset the cost with a higher ticket price and create a more exclusive event that attracts a higher level of donor?

   2. Consider creating a theme that reflects your mission! I work with a Wildcat Sanctuary that has themes each year that reflect their Fund-A-Need for the year. One year the theme was a white party where everyone wore white and then during the Fund-A-Need we raised money to rescue some White Tigers from an abusive situation. Instead of being a distraction, the whole theme reminded people WHY we were there. These are the types of themes that work really well.

   3. How well do your guests know your organization? If you have a lot of devoted donors attending your event, a theme may be a fun way to unite them. However, if you have a primarily newer group of people, I recommend hosting events that focus on your mission and the demographic you serve. People should walk away from your event connected to YOU!

3. Hired Keynote Speakers

   Keynote speakers can draw a certain crowd, but think through all of the details before hiring a keynote speaker. I’ve seen some do a wonderful job, but more often than not, there are problems with Hiring a Keynote speaker. Here are the most common problems I see Keynote Speakers adding to events:

   1. They talk too long. During a fundraising program, you have to keep the night moving along so people don’t get bored. Most keynote speakers have talks that are 45-60 minutes. The nonprofit will tell them they have 20 minutes, and the Keynote speaker will either say “that’s fine” or they’ll say they can’t do it in 20 minutes and either way, they are almost always going to talk longer than they have budgeted. Remember at a fundraiser, time is money. As you start to lose attention, you will also lose revenue.

   2. They plug their own mission instead of YOUR mission. While it is so easy to find a Keynote speaker that represents they type of work that you do, I have rarely seen a speaker come in and be able to accurately promote an organization’s mission. They talk about their own experience and their own work, and rarely do a good job of tying it back into the organization that hired them. This distracts from the mission. I’ve even see keynote speakers plug their own nonprofits at events which makes it very challenging to go and raise money for THIS organization after they spent 30-45 minutes talking about something different.

   3. They are expensive. Keynote speakers get paid to speak, and they do not come cheap. They will likely run your organization $10K-20K+ to hire a professional, desirable speaker.

   Who should speak instead?

   My recommendation is to have someone internally talk about the organization. Maybe it is the Executive Director, or a staff member. Try having a testimonial from someone your organization served. Or, instead of spending money on a keynote speaker, hire a professional videography company to come in and make a stellar video that tells your organization’s story. It will be engaging to the audience and it will also be an asset you can use on your website and will bring you much more revenue.

4. Entertainment

   Are you seeing a theme here? Anything that will distract from your mission, is going to lose you money. Entertainment is not bad, but you need to ask “will this bring us more revenue?” I am all for entertainment during the cocktail hour or after the fundraising is accomplished, but the entertainment you hire should not take up the prime time in your program.

   Your live program should be very strategic in leading up to your Fund-A-Need in order to build momentum and bring in the most revenue for your organization. Hiring entertainment for the sake of entertaining your guests, can risk distracting from your purpose for the evening. Now, if you have music or some other performing arts as a part of your mission, your whole program will probably be entertainment which is perfect because it continues to bring the audience back to your mission.

5. Open Bar

   Does this one surprise you? There is an idea that people have that if their guests have a couple cocktails, they will loosen their purse strings a bit. While, this may be true (though there is no hard evidence to support it), there is a fine line between a couple cocktails to loosen up the crowd, and losing them all together.

   Hosting an open bar all night is not only going to cost you a ton of money, but you are risk a crowd that becomes chatty and distracted when you need them to be alert and engaged for fundraising.

   What can you do instead?

   Try hosting an open bar during the cocktail hour

   If you want to treat your guests to a few free drinks, host an open bar for an hour or 90 minutes at the beginning of the evening. This will give them some time to loosen up and enjoy themselves before the big program starts.

   Incentivize people to come early with free drink tickets

   A client of mine just did this over the weekend. They found that their group used to parade in to their event late, which impacted giving during the silent auction, so they promised that if people arrived between 5-6 (in the first hour of registration), they would get 2 free drink tickets. This got people in the door early and they could use those free drink tickets at any point in the night.

   Have wine served at the tables at dinner

   This is a great option to give people a drink during the program. It’s not expected, but always appreciated by guests.

What is the common theme?

Before you spend money on anything at your event, ask yourself, “Will this distract from our mission or remind our guests of our mission?”

In and of themselves, none of these things are bad, but more often than not I’ve seen them create more harm than good for my clients. My goal for you and all of my clients is to be as profitable as possible while educating as many guests as possible so they can begin to build life long donor relationships. My fundraising strategy is very mission-focused, which leads to record-breaking events.

If you want help with emphasizing your mission, I recommend checking out my Free Fund-A-Need Framework below. This will help you tell your organization’s story throughout the night at your fundraising event and turn more guests into donors.

How to Pick a "Need" For your Fundraising Appeal

Today we are going to cover How to Pick a "Need" for your fundraising appeal. 

This is often why we call it a "Fund-A-Need" at events. 

First, let me do a super brief history of the fund-a-need: 

Once upon a time, people had fancy pants galas and they brought in an auctioneer with a cowboy hat and bow tie who looked sharp as hell who sold 10-12 auction items. This meant 10-12 people got to be donors for the evening, and the other 478 people were chumps who just got to eat a chicken dinner and enjoy the open bar. Then one day, the auctioneers said, "hey, we're missing out on some money here, because the losing bidders still have some cash in their pockets." So after their auction, they would say something like, "hey, if you didn't win anything, you can still give money." And the fund-a-need was born. Fast forward 10-15ish years, the fund-a-need is the bread and butter of every event.  

Now, you should also know MY personal fundraising philosophy.

I believe that every single person wants to feel impactful. They want to know that at the end of their life, their existence made a lasting difference in our world. I believe it is our job as fundraisers to give them that opportunity. The opportunity to make a meaningful difference. When we begin to look at fundraising through this lense, it becomes just as important as the work you do directly through your organization, because it allows us not only to serve the people (or animals, or environment, or whatever it is you serve), but it also allows us to serve your donors, but giving them a genuine opportunity to make a meaningful difference.

With that in mind, why should you pick a "need" in the first place? Why can't you just raise "as much money as you can" towards your general fund? 

This is a great question that I get all of the time. So let me address it.  

Your guests are more likely to give if they can tangibly understand who or what they are helping. You may do great and amazing world-changing work, but if your guests do not understand what they are funding, they will not give. It's that simple.  

Let's simplify it for them so they don't have to think about it. All they have to do is raise their hand. 

Select a "need" that is inspirational.

If you can make them cry, that's perfect. Inspirational may seem obvious, but it is a key characteristic to conducting a successful fund-a-need. If your need, isn't that "sexy" try looking at it from a different angle. I had a client two years ago, who had to build a bathroom facility in a Haitian Village they serve. Toilets are definitely not sexy, but rather than focusing on all of that crap, we focused on human dignity. We focused on the jobs it would create to build these bathrooms. They shared stories of what it was like to go to the bathroom in that village. Using a toilet in private is something we all take for granted here in the US, but they showed their audience that they could provide a sense of dignity to the people of Haiti. Because of this inspirational take on the least sexy subject ever, they were able to build the bathrooms. And when the hurricane hit the following fall, it was the only facility left standing, which was a testament to the heart and quality they put in to this project, which made it even easier the following year when we had to rebuild the dormitories for this community.

Give them a "need" that is financially transparent.

They should understand where their money is going and that it is going to directly impact lives or make this world the kind of place they want to live in. The majority of your guests have a limited amount of resources. If this is not you, you are #blessed. But for most nonprofits, you know that charitable giving is competitive, and you have to prove to your guests that you are going to use their funds wisely.  I'll use the potty example again. This organization is 100% volunteer run out of someone's home, so they were able to share that. The donors knew that all of their money would be an act of love as they provided a sense of dignity to this Haitian Community. You are probably not a volunteer-run organization and that's okay, because you are able to commit more time and energy to the work you do. I encourage you to find a project or a need that will use 100% of their gift towards affecting change or solving a problem. Then reassure them that their money will be going directly to this project. It doesn't take much here other than something like, "100% of the money you give tonight will go directly to fund scholarships for young women in the Congo." And then follow up with them with updates about the young women they impacted. This is their reminder that they did well and that their contribution made a difference.

Your "Need" should be achievable.

This means that you need to fund it in completion that evening. Assuming the number of attendees you plan to have stays the same year over year, shoot for a project that is approximately 10-20% more than you raised last year. I will circle back to the bathroom example. They decided to fund it by breaking down the costs of the facility. I don't always recommend it, but with building projects it makes the giving super tangible. The frame and roof will cost $10,000, the labor will cost $5000, the sheetrock will cost $2500, the tile costs $1,000, a toilet costs $100, etc. For this group, since they did not have a "momentum donor" which I will talk more about in detail next week, I would try to find 10 people to fund the frame and roof at $1000 a piece and go from there. It works for this group. What I would generally recommend is being clear about the cost of the project as a whole and starting higher at $5,000 and go all the way down to $25 explaining that $25 will fund a day of work for one person, so that those $25 donors know how impactful their donation is.

I bet you didn't think I'd use a bathroom project as a good "need" to select. I'd love to hear what you have funded in the past! Let me know in the comments. Also, if you are working on framing your fundraising appeal right now and are trying to decide which way to go, share that and we can work as a community to give you feedback and ideas! It's all about how to inspire your donors this year! 

The 5 Items You Need on Your Live Auction

It's important that your Live Auction has variety

If your live auction is all trips, they will not sell well. If you have 6 trips, it is unlikely there are 7-12 people in that audience who want them enough to bid them up. It's basic supply and demand. Not to mention it gets super boring for everyone involved

Here are the 5 items you should include in your live auction (in order of importance) 

1. Unique Experience

This is something they can't get anywhere else. This is super important for any crowd, but especially if you are hosting an auction for millennials because research shows (and in my experience), they are more likely to bid on an experience than on a physical item. The great part of this is that most of the experiences you can offer, require creativity and not money to produce. A couple examples that I have sold are: 

Sleepover/Lock-in at the Children's Museum. Opportunity to conduct the professional Orchestra. Unlimited access to 30+ collector cars for an entire summer. A tour of Jay Leno's private garage. Tour of a Private Wildcat Sanctuary. The opportunity to fund a refugee business. Beekeeper for a day.

2. Dining Experience

These sell so so well! People love great dining experiences. Usually the actual retail value of these are under a thousand, but they usually sell for several thousand dollars. 

You can approach this several ways. 

A Chef dinner in-restaurant experience. This is really amazing if you have a new and hot restaurant that has been getting rave reviews and reservations are hard to come by. A Chef dinner for 8-12 with wine pairings. This should a special menu created for this experience, interactions with the chef and be a very special experience. I have sold several where the guests would be in the kitchen or the wine cellar for the meal. This is a several thousand dollar item

Dinner in a prominent person's home. This experience would be if your founder or a public figure wanted to host a dinner party in their home. They could cook themselves or bring in a chef of some sort to their home. Guests love getting quality time with people who are usually quite hard to get an audience with.  

Dinner Party in the winner's home with a personal chef. This is where a chef (professional or a passionate amateur) would come to the winners home with all the food and prepare a meal for 8-12, including adult beverages, and then they would clean up. I have seen this go for thousands of dollars at small events where a teacher or board member is the chef for the night. It doesn't need to be a professional. It just needs to be a likable personality who can cook a good meal.

3. Trip

This could be a local trip or a fabulous dream destination. Either way, people love a get-a-way. Truth be told, local trips have been selling much better over the past couple of years. I'm based in Minneapolis and it is not uncommon for a cabin on the North Shore for a weekend to sell for more than a week long trip at a luxury villa in Mexico. 

Donated airfare is hard to come by these days, so don't let that hold you back from putting up a great trip. In my experience, the airfare doesn't bring much more revenue to an item, so go ahead and sell the trip without airfare.

My only rules for selling trips:

Must have open availability or at least flexible availability. Meaning, it is available for more than just one week out of the year. 

No Time Shares.  This falls in the same spirit as the first rule, but also they are just a pain in the neck to coordinate. No one wants to buy your timeshare. It's not a good donation. Just don't do it.

4. Sports Experience

This could be a wide variety of things. Great seats to a highly anticipated game. Meet and greet with players. If you received a ton of random sports tickets, you could package them all together in a "Year of Minnesota Sports" package. If you have signed items, make sure they are from athletes people care about. Michael Phelps signed photo = Great! A B-String Athlete who no one has ever heard of = Bad.

5. Alcohol Experience

This usually hits a broad appeal. This can also tie in with the meal experience. Brewing or winemaking experiences are fun. I've also sold many "Walls of Wine" where the board members and liquor stores all come together and donate a bottle of wine and you can sell it as a collection to the winning bidder. It offers a broad appeal which makes this a good item to start or end the Live Auction with.

DISCLAIMER: If your organization has any affiliation with addiction or you are a religious organization that does not condone alcohol consumption, this item is NOT for your group. There are so many more amazing items you can add to your live auction to ensure it is varied and engaging without including an alcohol-related item.

What do you think?

How does your current Live Auction line up compare? 

I hope this gets your juices flowing so that you can be ready for brainstorming some great ideas for your event!