5 tips for race fundraising success

5 Tips for Race Fundraising Success

Richard Dietz,

Nonprofit R+Dwww.twitter.com/nonprofit_rd

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Join the discussion / ask questions on Twitter

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Agenda

1) Plan Your Event

2) Promote Your Event

3) Recruit and Coach Participants and Sponsors

4) Follow Up, Follow Up, Follow Up

5) Assess What Worked (and What Didn’t)

Q and A

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Assumptions

For the purpose of today's webinar I am making a few assumptions:

•You are planning or launching an event with a fundraising focus

•You don’t have a lot of time or resources

•You have either watched or are willing to watch the past webcasts

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Event Fundraising

• Definition of Event Fundraising– An experience that brings people together and raises awareness

for your cause and offers an opportunity to solicit support. (Fundraising for Dummies, 2nd Ed., J. Mutz and K. Murray)

– Not just an event, not just a solicitation… best of both.

• Why Event Fundraising?– People love to participate in charity events, especially races– Donor engagement (past webinar)– People like to support friends and family (past webinar)

– (peer-to-peer fundraising / “Friend”-raising)

– PR, marketing, and community outreach

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1) Plan Your Event

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Plan Your Event

• Start with your goals and metrics:– Raise awareness / money / supporters– Measure more than just dollars from the event– The Funnel

• Set a budget – Tied to registration/fundraising – pay or fundraising commitment– Sponsors can help a great deal

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Plan Your Event• Create an Event Timeline

– Start with the date of event and work backwards– Deposits, permits, printing, etc.– Include marketing/communications and assessment in timeline

• Staff / Volunteers– What jobs/roles will be needed to run the event?– Start getting volunteers right away

• Technology– Online registration and donations are key for ROI

– Online participants raise almost 6 times more than offline participants

– Secure, simple, peer-to-peer fundraising

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Ideas - Planning Your Event

• Charge fee or minimum fundraising goals– Help cover costs and weed out non-performers

• Allow for a “fundraising only” level

• Make it easy– Simple registration and donation process

– Don’t ask for info you don’t really need

• Launch registration and fundraising early

• Keep fundraising open after the event– Thank you email can remind folks they can still fundraise

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2) Promote Your Event

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Promote Your Event

• Back to the Event Timeline– Build multiple communications and mediums into the plan– Need to cast a wider net in today’s fragmented info space

• Offline Promotion– Newsletters, direct mail, invitations– Other events– Pre-event get together

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Promote Your Event

Online Promotion• E-newsletter

• Website – prominent position, banners/badges,

• Email series – targeted for the event

• Social media / Tell-a-Friend– Updates throughout the timeline– Allow Supporters to “spread the word”

• Sponsors – widgets and forms on their site too

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Ideas – Promoting Your Event

Tie your email series into the type of event

• Race events:– Links to training resources and tips– Links to Sponsors – sale on running shoes

• Food events– Links to recipes, restaurants (Sponsors)

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3) Recruit and Coach Participants and Sponsors

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Recruit and Coach Participants

Can be THE difference between a successful event and just another time consuming activity.

•Past participants– Re-engage by thanking them for their past participation and

inviting them to join again this year– Ask if they know others who might be interested

•New participants– Market and recruit everywhere– Newsletter, email, website, events… with enthusiasm!– Multiple Touch Points – same as fundraising appeals

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• Teach Fundraising 101– Don’t assume they know how to fundraise

– Offer tips on how to ask, how often to ask, etc.

– Vivid examples of how donations will be used

– Deadline driven – create sense of urgency

– Provide sample appeals / thank you notes– Email, Twitter, Facebook – multiple versions

– Compelling stories– Make it easy for them to send

– Encourage (prod) them to fundraise– You need to ask them to ask

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• Offer tools and resources– Fundraising tools

– Personal fundraising pages– Progress meters

– Assets for them to promote on their personal blogs– Sage Fundraising Online – forms, progress meters

– Website banners and badges

– Sample blog posts

• Communicate throughout the event– Email series – tips, encouragement, updates

– Simple steps they can do today – Call to Action

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Recruit Sponsors

• Start with previous years sponsors AND participants– Thank them for past support and invite again– Last year’s participant may become a sponsor– This is why it’s so important to be following up throughout the

year

• Other sources for sponsors– Donors / volunteers – mine your database– Your board– Don’t forget online – FB, Twitter, LinkedIn– Companies new to town

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Recruit Sponsors

• Create multiple sponsorship levels– Allows for many types of organizations to get involved– This year’s Bronze could be next year’s Gold sponsor

• What’s in it for the sponsor?– Offer benefits that are meaningful to them– Promotion at event and on website (Social media too)– VIP / Sponsor Tent– Discount for employees to register– Ask them…

• How can you keep them involved throughout the year?

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Ideas- Recruiting and Coaching

• Give incentives for fundraising– Raise $500 get a sweatshirt, $1,000 get a hoodie

– Raffle for everyone who raises $1,000 (Sponsor donated prizes)

• Identify your top fundraisers– Provide them with extra assistance and benefits

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4) Follow Up, Follow Up, Follow Up…

(Did I mention, Follow Up?)

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Follow Up

• Thank Everyone– Donors, participants, sponsors, volunteers

• Plan on ways to engage throughout the year– The Funnel / “7 touches”– Develop donor engagement– Welcome email or series– Multiple thanks throughout the year

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Ideas – Follow Up

• Try a 3 or 6 month post-event update– Thank them again– Let them know how funds have been utilized and the impact they

have made– Start getting them excited about this year’s event

• Special Recognition– Newsletter for top fundraisers / supporters– VIP event for top fundraisers– Recognition of website

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5) Assess What Worked

(And What Didn’t)

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Assess What Worked

• Review budget and expenses– Don’t forget staff time!

• Analytics– Participants, sponsors, donors– Donations – participants, non-participants, fundraising only,– Promotion methods – online versus offline

• Survey participants, donors, sponsors, volunteers– The good, the bad, and the ugly

• Start the plan for next year now.

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Ideas- Assessing What Worked

• Measure and Test Throughout the Year – Are these supporters more engaged?– Do they donate more frequently? End of year?

• Return on Investment (ROI)– See Peer-to-Peer Fundraising webinar

– Soft ROI – awareness, education

– Hard ROI– Money raised– # of supporters– Email acquisition

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Sage Race Pack

• For just $495, Sage will give you everything you need to launch your next race fundraiser in house.

• Learn more at an upcoming webcast: Stay in Control from Start to Finish with Sage Race Pack– http://ow.ly/3WNr7

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Where to go from here

Get the White Paper: 5 Tips for Race Fundraising Success

http://ow.ly/3WMtE

Download the slides from today’s presentation:

www.slideshare.net/sagenonprofit

View webcasts referenced in this session:

http://ow.ly/3WN06

Learn more about Sage Fundraising Online

www.sagefundraisingonline.com

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Contact Richard Dietz: [email protected]

www.twitter.com/nonprofit_rd

512-850-6501

Contact Sage: www.sagenonprofit.com

800-811-0961

www.twitter.com/sagenonprofit

www.facebook.com/sagenonprofit

Question and Answer